The moderate party fantasy

Andrew Sullivan's "email of the day" yesterday is another party-creation fantasy:

EMAIL OF THE DAY: "As I read through yesterday's emails, I am struck by the possible fruitfulness of moderate Republican conservatives joining forces with similar folks in the Democratic Party. Perhaps if we leave the extremists of both parties out on their respective limbs and offer a strong ideology of fiscal responsibility, "gentle" hawks only responding in war when clear need is identified, protecting our own public financially from being sold out abroad, protecting our borders (even at the expense of some very wealthy businesspeople) -- promising personal rights of privacy in the pew and the bedroom and on the deathbed -- I think a strong, pragmatic, sensible, workable "party" could emerge. We MUST ditch religious zealotry ASAP -- it is killing real moral values!!"

This is akin to Mickey Kaus's "party-in-a-laptop" idea and the "Internet candidate" idea. All I can say is keep dreaming. The American electoral system is based on plurality voting. That means that we will almost always have only have two major parties, and the activists in those parties currently control the primaries that elect candidates. Moreover, the parties organize Congress, and thus there are very strong incentives to remain within them. (Reading assignment: Why Parties? by my adviser John Aldrich.)

Of course, it's possible to create a new party and dislodge one of the major ones, but it hasn't been done in more than a century. And as I wrote before, there's virtually no incentive to abandon a major party that already commands the allegiance of a third of the electorate and roughly half the elected officials nationwide. A centrist third party may be attempted -- I'm sure John McCain thought about it after 2000 -- but it's extremely unlikely to succeed...

Comments

[rone]

What about the Reform Party? They had a lot of momentum after `92, they even got Jesse Ventura as Governor (although how much of that was mostly a function of Jesse's fame is something i wonder about). How did they piss all that away? Could they have played their cards right, or were they just a fluke of being in the right place at the right time with the right guy (Perot)?

[Peter B]

Because it is difficult, does that mean it should not be done? Americans deserve a restoration of democracy not akin to left and right wing extremists who have hijacked their respective parties and ignored the voice of a majority of Americans?

We need to return to a voice of the people.

[Collin]

I think you all have to remember that a lot of the parties that get steam (Reform Party for example) get that steam by name recognition. I.E. If you had John McCain and, say Hillary Clinton on a new "Moderate Party" ticket, the name recognition alone may convince voters to tail that new party line. However, some states have real tough requirements in order to list a new party, and that makes taking state electorates hard. I do believe, though, that 2008 would be the best time to attempt a moderate "revolution," mainly because many Republicans are fed up with their party's politics, many Democrats are not looking for much of the "extremism" that many prominent Democrats convey, and a candidate each from both of the major parties could have a great chance of beating whomever could be left on the Demmy and Repub tickets.

[Lynn Robb]

As both major parties drift further toward their respective edges, more and more middle class and middle aged suburban voters-like myself-are beginning to say, "A pox on both your houses!"

We want governance, not intercene warfare. We would like to see statesmen/women, not politicians. We would like to see America move forward, not sideways.

Yes, I would like to see a moderate ticket including both a man and a woman both with serious name recognition. Lets see: women= +50% of voters. Moderates =+45% of voters. Where is the fantasy in this picture?

[Scott]

Everyone's right. The US needs a moderate, or rather a bi-partisan approach. No doubt. But Brendan is right to observe that victorious 3rd parties are very difficult to achieve and for many of the reasons that he noted.

With that, let me share with you the solution. Go bipartisan but DON'T be a party.

Unity08 is almost there. It does the heavy lifting of getting ballot access. It pursues the popular and newsworthy approach of running a bipartisan pres/VP ticket. But it is not acting like a party at the legislative levels.

But what it needs to do is to create a coalition of bipartisan/moderate voters (being done with their pres/VP campaign) but then analyze the bipartisanisness of the federal and state legislative candidates and then make recommendations of who to vote for and who to abstain from voting for. The moderate voters determine the elections.

This approach requires essentially no campaign financing at the legislative level and avoids voter concerns about the 3rd party politician being as corrupt as the others. A bipartisan pres/VP working with a congress that was significantly chosen by moderate voters will be more likely to compromise and the gridlock can be snapped.

[Mark]

The problem is that the electoral system isn't democratic and doesn't work. As citizens we've forgotten the very task set to us by our Founding Fathers. That when government doesn't work, we must change it. We must disband the current election system and create a new, more democratic one.
The reason why we have the system wasn't because of political parties (though forming, we had none at the time they designed it), but because of lack of mass communication within the country. Now that we are in the modern age we can have a straight election system by the people and junk the old fashioned electoral system.