More third party dreaming from Andrew Sullivan

Apparently, the dream will never die -- here's another email from an Andrew Sullivan reader pining for a third party (see the first here):

I've always voted for Democrats, but like you, I've grown distrustful of the current direction of the party. I'll never be a Republican (the religious fundamentalists are anathema to me), but as your blog continually asks, I wonder/hope if there can't be a third way in American politics? Not a Bill Clinton "Third Way," but a true, grass roots, independent third party that combines some of the old-school conservatism of what used to be the GOP (fiscal sanity, foreign policy realism etc.) with the best of the Democratic party (inclusiveness, domestic competence, worker's rights etc.). Or more simply: Fiscally conservative, socially liberal.

Sullivan adds:

My dream too. And my book is an attempt to make the case more systematically than a blog can.

Once again, this will not happen (for my many posts explaining why, click here). It's a dream and nothing more. However, the threat of a third party, or of disenchanted moderates switching parties, can move the two major parties around. That's Sullivan's best hope.

Comments

[perfectlyGoodInk]

Well, it can happen if we move away from plurality voting and towards systems like IRV and Proportional Representation. But most people who want third parties to succeed don't understand that.

Electoral reform is a long-shot because the two parties like keeping their power (although maybe the Dems might go for it, given how little power they have right now), so it would have to be a grassroots movement tapping into all this dissatisfaction of the two parties. But this dissatisfaction might be pretty broad. Why else do you keep having to debunk the third party thing so many times?