what would a third party platform be?

Great Debates
1

Inspired by this thread , and indeed I’ve been thinking about a thread like this for a while:
What platform would it take for a third party to make a solid showing in a presidential election?
Would a very articulate candidate able to back up assertions with well-defined math be able to address new solutions to age-old problems if he wasn’t either a democrat or a republican?

I seem to run in to many many people in my day to day life that when engaged in a political debate, self-identify with a party, and when they explain their position, they almost never really line up with that party.

In general I’ve found: Self-Identifying democrats do so because they care more about social issues than economic ones, but seem to support many of my ventured cuts or reforms to systems such as welfare. Self-Identifying Republicans seem to care more about economic issues, but generally are fairly liberal socially, especially on gay rights and (usually abortion). There are, of course, truly dissenting opinions, but I find an overwhelming number of people who seem to identify with the party more based on which issues they stress, versus an actual like for the party’s entire platform.

I would loosely identify my own suggested platform as a moderate form of libertarianism, though I’m hesitant to apply the label because of the extremes the party often takes:

Social Agenda:
-Increased gay rights, tax benefits of marriage and child-having extended to gay couples (alternatively, or perhaps concordantly, reduced tax breaks for being married… talk about the sanctity of marriage, it’s not very sanctimonious if you’re doing it for financial reasons, but I digress)
-Support for legal protection of first-trimester abortion.
-legalization of marijuana with penalties similar to those of alcohol for underage consumption (21), dangerous behavior while high (including driving, etc.), and public use (similar to open container laws, confine it to private or business-specific use).

Military Agenda
-Organized withdrawal from Iraq, reduced global military activity, reduced government spending, with particular attention paid to careful auditing of accounting practices

Campaign point: Being able to point out one or two particularly expensive and/or wasteful programs that can be immediately or nearly-immediately cut and an accounting of where exactly that money can be spent (probably debt reduction, ideally tax breaks to get the money back in to the pockets of the citizens)

Fiscal Agenda
-Reduced and reorganized Welfare program, in particular, only supporting welfare-to-work programs, and designs to prevent extended freeloading
-Reduced Medicare programs
-Privatization or elimination of social security
-General hard-line stance (that is actually held to) on preventing pork-barrel legislation in all of its forms
-Reduced taxes as a corollary to the above, with the reduction of government handouts people keep control of their own money
A particular campaigning point would have to address, directly, how much reduced government spending would contribute directly to tax breaks for the voters
How would this campaign platform fly? What could make it more appealing to the average american, or powerful voting blocks? I haven’t included, for example, a Corporate Agenda section, and I’m sure I’ve left out several hot button issues that slipped my mind?

Thoughts, what would be better? Is it even possible for a 3rd party to find a moderate position that sways a large number of voters? What would their general campaign tactics be? Could an organization like the Dope start a grass-roots movement given a decided platform and a few simple web applications and forums to start people talking across the nation about supporting it?

2

That platform strikes me as fairly close to Libertarianism.

3

I don’t think it would have a chance in hell (today). The gay rights stance alone would almost guarantee that. Even the Dems aren’t openly as friendly to gay rights as your platform, as they’re scared shitless of the repercussions.

Additionally, I think of few of your policies would further reduce the numbers that you’d get from some of your more moderate proposals:

Reduction of Medicare - You’ve lost most of the seniors, as well as those soon to be seniors.

Privatization of SS - You lost the 3 seniors you had left after the first point. You’ve also lost of lot of the other folks who would be on board with most of your social policies.

Legal protection for 1st trimester abortion - While I think a majority would get on board with this, it’s a complete showstopper for a large and vocal minority, who wouldn’t vote for you no matter how much they might like some of your other stances.

Overall, if you pushed all of your listed policies, I’d guess you’d be hardpressed to get more than 10-20% of the vote in a federal election, even with an exceptional candidate. You’d likely get a majority to agree with many of the individual policies, but not the whole package.

I think we’re still a decade or so away, but I think the following simple platform could make a run at a later date in the near future.

Neutral on gay rights issues.
Neutral on gun rights issues.
Pro-choice.
A balanced budget bill that is very difficult to override.
Removal of off-budget accounting (this would require educating the public in a simple manner as to what that is).
Universal health-care, including elimination of the health insurance industry, ideally run by experts, not by political cronies.
Reduced military budget.
Reformed welfare that actually works (child care benefits, as well as general sliding scale welfare benefits, so that when a person gets a low end job, they still get some benefits, which are removed as they work their way up the ladder. The benefits reduce at a slower rate than the pay increases, so their is motivation all the way up the ladder).
Stating very clearly that all cabinet members shall be chosen purely based on their skills, and that none of them will be chosen based on friendship, called in favors, political stance, or campaign donations.
Sealed borders, but with much much higher immigration quotas.
Campaign finance reform.
Removal of capital gains taxes.

4

which I pointed out, and why I pointed out that the libertarian party was primarily composed of nutjob candidates who can’t seem to even look around for a middle ground, much less actually stand on it.

neutral meaning? I’m assuming you mean that the national candidates represent it as a state-based issue that the constituents of that area can decide?

how would you accomplish this, especially given:

would this necessitate raising taxes? You’ll lose a huge percentage of the conservative and libertarian-leaning crowd by advocating this, and open yourself up to potential hypocriticism as soon as the system starts unbalancing the budget.

essentially what I was arguing, I think there’s almost a universal belief that the welfare system needs a serious overhaul, and that the reformed version should focus on short term aid to get people back on their feet.

I didn’t outright say this, but that’s a good point. Maybe more telling for the continued life of the party would be STICKING to this point, and not making it an empty campaign promise.

I don’t really have enough information to respond to well to this, but my immediate reaction is that you’d lose a large number of socially liberal voters with this despite the Health Care reform.

Another one I more or less forgot to address, but a good point: what plan would the platform advocate instead of the current system? Is the 3rd party willing to follow that plan (and survive election season) without it being written in law to show its good intentions and intent to follow up what it says?

agreed.

I think one of the most important things may be a party willing to come out and really follow through on the policy of shooting straight on politics, like I said before. Can the party or candidates produce numbers before the election, that don’t include wild projections, of what they’re going to do? Are they reliable and consistant with producing plans that measurably and accurately show the gains that the public is getting.

At that, why can’t a Democrat or Republican platform do the same thing? Would a moderate 3rd party willing to cut through the bullshit be appealing in its own right for not attempting to obfuscate the facts? Would some people be more willing to agree with a majority of a platform, accept some not-as-agreeable (to them) policies, in exchange for truly honest politics? If so, why hasn’t that sort of thing happened?

5

Neutral meaning the platform wouldn’t take a stance on either of them. When asked, they would say that that is up to each individual candidate.

It would lose the libertarian crowd (which wouldn’t have a large effect on them winning anyway), but not that much of the conservative crowd. Remember, I said this was likely a decade away, and I’ll bet that the vast majority of the country, including a great number of conservatives, will be on-board UHC by that point. It wouldn’t surprise me if it happened even sooner than a decade. It also wouldn’t require raising taxes, as I noted that I’d reduce the military, and require a balanced budget, so excess pork would have to make way.

Then it’s not the same thing. The aid from that platform wouldn’t be short-term for those in low end jobs. It would remain until such time as they worked their way out of poverty, only at a lower level than someone completely unable to work.

Actually, empty campaign promises would be the death of an emerging third party. Dems and Repubs can get away with it only because it’s status quo at this time. A third party will need to energize the public, and that requires followup, if they wish to hold power.

If you increased the quotas drastically, which this platform calls for, then they’d be okay with it. Basically, it’s close to the same as open borders, but with the knowledge of exactly who is here and what they are doing here.

Basically, the goal is to remove the influence and money of PACs and corporations, and yes, the third party would have to go out of its way to avoid such monies while still trying to grab power. I think it’s possible to do so in this day and age.

There is only one problem here with complete honesty, and that’s why I said neutral on gay rights and gun control. This platform would actually have to hem and haw in those areas to have a chance. I don’t like that in political parties (and I should note that the above platform does not represent my ideal party at all, it’s just one that I think could win a presidency), but it would be required initially.

6

A third party, if it wanted to have (or deserve) any success past a single election, would have to make its top priority structural reforms that might help us move from a two-party system to a multiparty system, permanently (rather than just settling down into a new two-party alignment with different parties, as has happened a couple of times in our history).

Check out the Center for Voting and Democracy and the New Majority Education Fund. Also Wikipedia articles on proportional representation, electoral fusion, and instant-runoff voting.

7

why would that be? IMO a third party that manages to capture a significant minority of seats and proves that it has governing capability wouldn’t seem to need to either push another party out of the way nor reform the process if it already succeeded under the other process. In particular if a moderate side of the libertarian party or a mostly-moderate party such as the one DMC suggested were to begin gaining votes I don’t see how that necessitates an overhaul of the system…

8

If any third party gets into office under our existing system, it’s gonna be a fluke and you can’t count on it happening a second time.

Once you’ve got your foot in the door, it’s wise to wedge it open.