The centrist/Internet third party meme appears to be catching on. Sadly, the latest victim is Ron Brownstein, one of the best political journalists working today. He begins the column by quoting Joe Trippi, the Johnny Appleseed of this stupid idea:
MoveOn, and groups like it on the left and right, chisel at the power of the major political parties by providing an alternative source of campaign funds and volunteers. But otherwise, the two parties that have defined American political life since the 1850s have been largely immune from the centrifugal current of the Internet era.
Joe Trippi, a principal architect of Howard Dean's breakthrough Internet strategy in the 2004 Democratic presidential campaign, is one of many analysts who believe that may soon change. The Internet, he says, could ignite a serious third-party presidential bid in 2008.
...Trippi believes an independent presidential candidate who struck a chord could organize support through the Internet just as inexpensively. "Somebody could come along and raise $200 million and have 600,000 people on the streets working for them without any party structure in the blink of an eye," he says.
Brownstein does concede that this is harder than Trippi makes it sound, but he's still wildly unrealistic:
The hurdles for an independent presidential candidate remain formidable. Even one that attracted a competitive share of the popular vote might have trouble winning many electoral college votes; the strongest candidate could still face the syndrome of finishing second almost everywhere, trailing Republicans in the red states and Democrats in the blue. To have any chance, an independent would need to nearly run the table in battleground states — like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — that don't tilt decisively to either side.
Yet if the two parties continue on their current trajectories, the backdrop for the 2008 election could be massive federal budget deficits, gridlock on problems like controlling healthcare costs, furious fights over ethics and poisonous clashes over social issues and Supreme Court appointments. A lackluster economy that's squeezing the middle-class seems a reasonable possibility too.
In such an environment, imagine the options available to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) if he doesn't win the 2008 Republican nomination, and former Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, now that he's dropped his flirtation with running for mayor of New York. If the two Vietnam veterans joined for an all-maverick independent ticket, they might inspire a gold rush of online support — and make the two national parties the latest example of the Internet's ability to threaten seemingly impregnable institutions.
Allow me to quote myself to explain why this is such nonsense:
Almost everyone who's had significant online fundraising success in politics has done it by appealing to partisans, who by definition are loyal to a party. And even if the "Internet candidate" could raise $100 million, we have this little thing in political science called Duverger's Law. As the introductory political science text I teach to freshman puts it, "In any election where a single winner is chosen by plurality vote (whoever gets the most votes wins), there is a strong tendency for serious competitors to be reduced to two because people tend to vote strategically." Why would we expect a third-party challenge to overcome this dynamic? The two parties have vast advantages in financial resources, mobilization, and voter loyalty. To convince people you could win, you'd have to create an inordinate amount of momentum. And to do so, you'd have to have a constituency that supported you -- the Internet is not an ideology or a voting bloc...
In fact, the lesson from this election is that the parties and major party candidates are adopting the Internet into their playbook, just as big business did a few years ago. Technology hasn't repealed the laws of politics, just as it didn't repeal the laws of business.
The dynamics of Duverger's Law are what Brownstein doesn't understand. It's a giant coordination game. Even the voters who would prefer a centrist third-party candidate have no incentive to support him if he is in third place because doing so will hurt their second choice. Absent extraordinary circumstances, it's almost impossible to dislodge the parties and create a dynamic where a third party candidate can become one of the top two contenders. This is why so few liberals supported Nader in 2004, and why Perot lost by large margins in 1992 and 1996.
My advice for Brownstein - next time, call Gary Cox at UCSD, the author of Making Votes Count, which is the key political science book in this area. Don't send a hack consultant to do a political scientist's job!
Previous entries in this series:
-The moderate party fantasy (3/27/05)
-The "party-in-a-laptop" bubble (11/15/04)
-Futurist nonsense (11/2/04)
I think that some people have decided that modern electoral politics is all about the money and that, given enough money, one can attain instant credibility and electability. They may even think that the only reason George W. Bush was in any way electable was because of a money advantage and think they are following that model.
One may understand Duverger's law yet believe that the Internet is ideal for gathering funds for a massive PR campaign and delivering the message that the third place candidate has a much better chance than reality dictates. I doubt it, but I can see Trippi's ideal scenario. If the major party fields are somehow dominated by politicians with no national name recognition AND someone with national name recognition and a positive reputation made an early declaration of an independent bid, then early polls of the mush-headed public placing that person against an unnamed random Democrat and an unnamed Republican may possibly give the independent somewhere over 20%. Then, either the centrist will fade or overtake the Democrat and it will seem like a two-horse race again, or you will get that bizarro world situation when all three candidates are relatively close to each other and so retain the perception of having a decent chance to win.
Trippi is familiar with the process. He created a well-funded aura of credibility around Howard Dean (a guy who I supported, by the way) which seemed to evaporate. He's probably decided that if you find a talented guy to run a campaign (like himself, snicker, snicker) and give him a boatload of money, he can make anyone with a reasonable resume into a plausible candidate. Trippi may even believe that if he gets enough of the media repeating this meme, then people will believe it is possible and assume that an independent has a shot. Can you imagine what would happen if the major news networks started running polls between an unnamed Democrat, an unnamed Republican, and an unnamed "Internet centrist candidate?"
I agree with you that it requires extraordinary circumstances for a third party candidate to have a chance, but I think that Trippi's ego allows him to believe that he can manufacture those extraordinary circumstances rather than waiting for historical chance.
Posted by: Anthony | April 26, 2005 at 02:50 AM
The Manchurian Candidate (McCain) will draw votes from the Democratic party. Once this is widely recognized the Hillary press will take him out. Otherwise the Republican candidate will win with 47%.
Posted by: Huggy | June 01, 2005 at 07:41 AM