Willravel

So often I hear the most intelligent, well spoken people speak of how to world is not black and white. It's all shades of gray. Why bother trying to fit everything into either one catagory or another? The oversimplification often puts what you're trying to catagorize into the wrong catagory. And yet in the self proclaimed Democracy of the US, we are far and away limited to a two party system. You're either with us, or your with them. It's our way or their way. Yes or no, up or down, black or white. I think we can all see it's not enough. There are not simply two opinions on anything, and both sides are not consistantly represented by either party. If I want our government to close down military bases in Asia and Europe, who can I vote for? Neither the Democrat or the Republicans are likely to take that action any time soon. Sure, if I have an opinion on homosexuality, abortion, etc., there's a place for me out there, but the two parties hardly cover the whole scope of politics, economics, and sociology.

So why not have more parties? Well, that's simple. "If you vote for a third party, you are preventing the lesser of two evils from overcoming the greater of two evils", is the answer I usually get. That's great for right now, at this very second, but it's like field dressing a wound to go back in to battle. It will hold you over for a bit, but it's never going to heal. It's important to stop and think what's good for the next 40 or 400 years every once in a while, or else we will inevitably spin out of control.

Every time we wait another year before trying to fix the two party system, another hurdle is placed in our way. Third parties are bogged down by ballot access that forces them to spend a great deal of money just to appear next to the Democrat and Republican name. Getting the signatures required to appear on a ballot, for example, can cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not only that, but the "thrown away vote" mentality has been nurtured by the Democrats ("a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush") and Republicans alike in order to remain in power. Just last election, Cobb, the Green presidental candidate, and Badnarik, the Libertarian presidental candidate, were arrested in St. Louis for trying to participate in the debate. The part of that story that was less public was the fact that both men had an Order to Show Cause, which they intended to serve the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). This was a legal document that required the Commission on Presidential Debates to appear in court to show why the Green and Libertarian parties were not allowed to be in the debate.

The fact of the matter is: it's not a wasted vote. In 1992, Ross Perot won 19,743,821 (18.9% of the votes), which was well over half the 39,104,550 votes that went to George H. W. Bush (37.4% of the votes). That's an incredible number, and something of note when someone says to you that no one votes third party. About 20 million people voted third part in 1992. So why did only about 10 million vote third party in 1996? Why did only about 4 million vote third party in 2000? And, finally, why did only about 1.2 million vote third pary in 2004?! I'll tell you why: people actually believe that a third party vote is meaningles. After Nader's mericle in 1992, Democrats and Republicans turned their head on what was generally considered a non-threat to actually do some damage to the third parties. The wasted vote was created, and the numbers dropped off about 94% in 12 years. Can you imagine if the Democratic party lost 94% of it's vote? Can you imagine if the Republican party lost 94% of it's vote? Now, it simply squeaks by unnoticed by most.

I think it's time for people to wake up. Go and find a candidate that you agree with, not just a candidate that will keep that other guy out of office. We are choosing these people to represent us. The old motto was "Don't waster your vote", the new one is, "Voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil."

A few questions to get the discussion going:

If it weren't a 'wasted' vote, would you vote for an alternative to the Democrats or Republicans? Which?

How many parties do you think a representative democratic republic like the US should have?

If you could start your own alternative party what would it be like, and how would you attract voters?

Rekna

The core of our election system is bad. In order to have more than 2 candidates and have a fair election something like instant run off voting needs to be implemented. In addition, spending limits must be placed on all races so that all candidates spend the same amount of money. Money and politics mix like oil and water.

pan6467

I'm not ready to be Europe, Japan or Isreal. While I do believe a successful 3rd party is inevitable and will come from moderates from both parties.

I don't see the Libertarians, Green, etc. doing anything.

The reason Perot was successful is that he had socially liberal/fiscally conservative ideas and came around at the right time, he was just the wrong person.

I disagree with Rekna, the core of our election system is great. Anyone that meets the elections boards requirements can get on the ballot. Most states all it requires is a number of registered voters signing a petition.

I've stated before, someone truly wants to run 3rd party and win, go out campaign on your days off, build up a following, and work the system. You only need the money to travel and even then if your message is good enough you'll be getting donations. You start small, find people who believe like you in other districts and take district by district.

But noone wants to do that. Everyone wants a 3rd party to spring out of nowhere and just be everywhere and take total control or at least throw a big enough wrench into things that all our problems will be solved. Won't happen.

You think we are polarized and nothing gets done with just 2 parties, wait till we get a 3rd party.....

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loquitur

Historically, third parties have tended not to last in the US. They have generally been personality-driven (TR with Bull Moose, Wallace in '68, Perot in '92) rather than driven by policies or ideas. I believe the reasons are structural. The US isn't a parliamentary system, which means that we are voting for individuals and have the ability to choose divided government if we like. I believe the US's governmental structures, with many different levels of government, winner-take-all elections and (with the exception of the Presidency) a total lack of national voting, contributes to having a two-party system, with each party being a relatively big tent. [hey, no scoffing! it's true!]

This has advantages and disadvantages. The US's approach creates remarkable stability. The oldest political party in the world is the US Democratic party, which traces its origins back to Jefferson, and ultimately to the anti-federalists at the time of the founding. The Republican party is now over 150 years old, and were it not for the fact that the Whig party fell apart over slavery in the early 1850s (the Southern Whigs dropped out and the Northern Whigs became Republicans, on an anti-slavery free-labor free-market platform), we'd see the continuity from the Whigs to the Republicans. Now contrast this to the upheavals in France (now on its fifth republic, third since WWII), Italy (how many governments since WWII?), or Israel (where I believe no government has finished its term intact since the state was founded). Think of the hysteria after the last French election, when LePen came in second and qualified for a runoff with only 17% of the vote because the rest of the electorate fractured among 16 parties.

Having lots of parties is a recipe for political gridlock and instability - plus, it empowers the extremists. At least in the US we have two big-tent parties where at least people speak the same language and understand each other even if they disagree. Introduce more parties and you'll see a lot more single-issue politics, less inclination to compromise, and a lot more under-the-table political horse trading.

Israel, for example, can't put stable governments together because something like 15 parties win seats. The biggest coalition partners have to "buy" enough seats from small parties to get a majority, and the small parties invariably have narrow agendas and big demands for patronage. That's what life looks like in a multiparty system. (The counter-example is the UK, which has had 3 parties for a while, but that seems to be the exception that proves the rule. And in recent decades the govt has always been Labour or Tories anyway).

Ultimately what we have in the US has evolved the way it has because it works, and has been proven to work quite well. It's not perfect, but what is?

Rekna

I still believe the core of our voting system is wrong and that is how we cast/count votes. Single person voting only works fairly if there are 2 candidates. Any more than 2 and extra parties can become spoilers causing someone to win who the majority of people do not like.

For example say some country is 80% for party A and 20% for party B , then party A should win a national every election. However the ballot measures allow people to run easily and 8 people from party A run while only 1 person from party B run. The 8 people split the vote pretty evenly each receiving around 10% of the vote. The party B candidate receives 20% of the vote. Even though candidate B was the least popular to the majority of the public he has won the election. Now this is an extreme example but when our elections are coming down to a half of a percent difference and a third party is taking up 2-3% of the vote they can easily change the election and allow the wrong person to get elected.

In addition the all or nothing vote within the electoral college is completely broken. And so is the way we elect people to the house and senate. Why is it that the house is split 50 dem, 48 repubs, 2 ind. When in reality if you look at the political leanings of the public that does not represent them at all. The house and senate should represent the public. But the 2 party system has broken our election system.

I personally like the systems where people vote nationally for a party and that party gets a certain % of the vote. Then that party gets that % representation in the house and senate. Now each party has their own elections elect representatives. Of course this has problems because rural areas no longer get representation. So the system would have to be modified for that.

The_Jazz

We're about due for a viable 3rd party candidate to make a serious run at the Presidency. The cycle is 16-20 years, and the last one was Perot (sorry Nader supporters, but less than 5% just doesn't cut it). Before that Anderson and Thurmond immediately spring to mind.

The big problem that 3rd party candidates have is organization unless they're running on one of the perennial party's ticket (Green, Libertarian, etc.). If it's a new party, only Perot has managed to put together enough grass-roots level workers to spread the word and, more importantly, get on the ballot in all 50 states. If you can't get on the ballot, you can't be elected. The greatest success that any 3rd party candidate can hope for is the mass defection of a portion of one of the majors complete with the command structure in place. That's why TR had such great success, as well as Lincoln.

As much as we all may favor third parties, at least in theory, the only way to make a change is to start working for one. Waiting for it to spontaneously spring to life just isn't going to happen. Five years ago I would have told a third party that wanted my opinion to just wait for the Democrats to implode and then pick off whatever pieces they wanted, but the current administration has managed to breathe life into that confederacy very effectively.

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loquitur

Rekna, I disagree that the system is broken, even the Electoral College. It's working exactly and precisely the way it was designed to work. I understand you think the results are not good, but that doesn't mean the system is broken. Presidential campaigns would look very different in a different system - you can't assume, for example, that Al Gore definitely would have won in 2000 if there was a popular vote system, because if there was a popular vote system the campaign would have looked much different. For example, using 2000 again: it was very clear that Gore would win NY (my home state). So Bush never went there. But in a popular vote system, he wouldn't have to win the state, he'd just have to increase his vote total. Doing that in NY is very efficient because there are a lot of people in a small space. So he prob would have come to NY to campaign, and gotten more NY votes than otherwise. The same would be true of Gore in Texas, for example. In the electoral college system, each candidate chooses which states s/he will contest. That also means if there is a problem, as there was in FL in 2000, it's in only one state, not in the whole country. It also ensures that whoever wins is acceptable across a broad swath of the country and not only in the most densely populated areas. It's not a perfect system but it's not "broken" - it's working the way it's supposed to work. I suppose we could argue about whether it's a good idea, but that's a different discussion.

Oh, Rekna, one other thing - The system you're advocating is the way the Italian and Israeli systems work. Believe me, you don't want that kind of a system. It breeds a remarkable blend of instability and corruption, and with it tremendous public cynicism.

Willravel

All governmental systems breed instability and corruption, very, very rarely more than others. Democracies, republics, monarchies, etc. etc., it's all highly suceptable to corruption becuase it involves the accumulation of power to individuals. Even in a democracy, the president is given incredible power.

I can understand what everyone's saying, but your exaplinations don't work because the Democrats and Republicans are so very similar. What if the vast majority doesn't want to take the Dem or GOP direction anymore? What if a viable third party were to magicly arive and it gained a genuine voter base of over 50%? That's the real question in this. Yes, in a two party system where the two parties enjoy all the funding and 98% of the exposure and thus voters....of course the Libertarians, Greens, Reforms aren't going to be voted in by the majority. But what if they were able to gain access to the millions of dollars for campaign financing? What if they were able to get their message out there as much as the big blue and the big red? Isn't it possible that they could replace one of the two parties after a time?

The problem is that people aren't even given an option except for two very similar choices. If the people want beef, but they have to choose between apples and oranges because they think thery're the only options, they're still getting something they don't want. I think we are starving for a better choice, and it will take a genuine effort from everyone to make that option a vialbe one.

loquitur

Actually, Willravel, the more a government does, the more roles it is assigned, the more money you have it spend, the more likely it is to have issues of corruption. The more things the govt does, the more opportunities for corruption. The more things are regulated, the more need there is for exemptions and special allowances. And the more need there is for exemptions, the more chances there are that someone who gives them out can engage in what political scientists politely call "rent-seeking."

You'll never get rid of corruption totally, so long as there are bureaucrats in the world who have the power to refuse to affix their little rubber stamp to a piece of paper someone needs. But democracies are actually less susceptible to systemic corruption than monarchies or dictatorships because of accountability. That's why the Republicans were booted this past November: they were perceived as having abused their power in self-interest. And it's why the Dems were booted in 1994. It's also why some countries succeed and others don't - the countries that aren't systematically corrupt, have the rule of law and transparent institutions (these are all related to each other) do better that ones that still have systemic corruption. Part of the problem in Iraq is who gets to control the baksheesh. Part of the big problem in the PA is who gets to control the baksheesh. I could go on but I think you see the point.

The other thing is, we have a free market in ideas here in this country. The reason the Greens and Libertarians don't have the ability to raise money is because most normal people regard them as special pleaders or cranks. All public financing would achieve is create a lot of quixotic candidacies. Do you really think the country benefitted by giving Lyndon LaRouche large amounts of money in the last election cycle? Is the country better off because Dennis Kucinich got your tax money and mine? I see absolutely no reason to finance these people with tax money. If the Greens genuinely have something to say that normal mainstream Americans find appealing, they'll be able to raise money. And if they don't, we shouldn't be wasting our tax money on them.

mixedmedia

Regardless of how you feel about the US having a viable third political party you must admit that the prospect is of major concern to the two-party status quo. Which has led me to suspect that the magnitude of fervor being ventilated by the current rep-dem conflict in this country is being actively inflamed and exploited in order to effectively maintain that status quo. And that kind of sucks, if so. I don't like being played for a sucker.

I think the most opportune time for a 3rd party candidate to capture the American imagination is at a time when there is not a lot of imagination capturing going on in the two major parties.

And, uh, well...it seems that time is now.

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loquitur

Maybe, mixedmedia. Or maybe not. People said the same thing in '92, when Perot surfaced. And he ended up getting less than 20% of the vote.

I also think you're underestimating the flexibility of the two parties. Compare the Democratic Party of today to the populist/segregationist-laden monstrosity it was 40 years ago. Or the Republican Party of today to the elite-industrialist-driven monstrosity it was 40 years ago.

If you look at who the likely 2008 contenders are, the Dems are not fire-breathing lefties and the Repubs aren't born-again types. Heck, Rudy Giuliani is a twice-divorced guy who carried on with his girlfriend in public while still married, and when his wife tossed him out, moved in with a gay couple - and he is pro-choice and pro-gun control. Yet he consistently tops GOP polls. And I suspect the Democrats will want someone with real national security credentials (rather than a guy like Kerry, whose only national security credential was that he was in the Navy) - and I think HRC is actually pretty solid on national security, having served on the Armed Services Committee in the Senate.

Big tents are flexible. That's why we have had two "big tent" parties for a while, and are likely to continue to have them for another while.

Rekna

You make it sound like I don't like the electoral vote system. I actually do like it because it gives weight to more rural areas. What I don't like is the all or nothing way votes are cast. If a state has 10 electoral votes and 51 % of the state likes A for president and 49% like B for president why should A get all 10 votes? Instead I think A should get 6 and B should get 4. This should be across the board for all states. A few states have tried to modify their system to be like this but from a states perspective there is no reason to do this as it lessens their political influence. However if all states were forced to do this then every state would still be on a level playing field.

Willravel

Precedent says otherwise. Let's look at single party, single leader nations: (formerly) Iraq, North Korea. Those are more corrupt because there is no one to challenge the single leadership of the country; the less opportunity for a ;good-guy' to step in, the greater the opportunity for corruption. That's why checks and balances is so brilliant. The problem is that there is not the same stability of checks and balances between poltical parties. I think we can all agree that 3 branches of government should be the minimum so that no one power can have the leverage to take the government. While the executive is obviously the most powerful of the three branches currently, it coulnd't take on the legislature and the judicial branches. Likewise, there should be an equalibrium and checks in our political parties. For the past 6 years, we've had all three branches of government controled by the republican party. Checks and balances is bent because a single group controls the threesome. I would suggest that the less likely that one group can control the three branches, the better off checks and balances will be.

loquitur

Willravel, that is my point exactly. Why do you say "precedent says otherwise?" The precedents you cite support my point precisely: the more control government has over people, the more chances it has to be corrupt. That's my point.

Divided government has been the norm in the US for the past 50 or so years. During my conscious lifetime, we had single party govt only for the four years of Carter, the first two years of Clinton and the middle four years of Bush. People tend to like it that way. And if you look back at the Federalist Papers, Hamilton and Madison designed the constitution with the specific idea that it has to be hard to get things done, and that without a fairly high degree of consensus, gridlock is a good thing because it prevents majorities from running roughshod. That's not necessarily a partisan thing, either - if you recall, the Dem-controlled Senate killed off Clinton's health plan.

But divided government is just as susceptible to corruption as nondivided - it just is less likely to happen at the legislative level. My point is that if you give the government a lot of tasks, the people who work in the government have more opportunities for corruption. If the government does only a few discrete tasks, there are fewer opportunities for those tasks to get corrupted.

To put it another way: it's bad enough we have $600 toilet seats in the military. We don't need to also get them in day care centers and bus stations.

Willravel

More political parties does not mean the government gets more roles or more control. In fact, if a Libertarian were elected, the government would shrink considerably. I'm not sure why you're equating more political parties with more governmental control.

Also, I'm curious about your comment about how the two parties are flexable. I've not seen the republicans adapt in the current political climate, except to head away from a conservative party towards a facist party.

The_Jazz

Will, a couple of things here - I don't think that it's by any means a fact that a Libertarian elected to the Presidency (or any other national office for that matter) will immediately mean a smaller government. The President just can't fire bureaucrats on a wholesale basis, and it's an incredibly bad idea. First of all, the US government is the largest single employer in the country. Mass layoffs would have a profound economic impact. While I think your general point is on the right track, the realities of the way our government works dictates that there's absolutely no way that what you're trying to pass off as a "fact" could ever come to pass, especially since the President would have to get the consent of Congress to do anything of the sort, and we all know that's by no means assured in the best of times.

As far as the Republicans being flexible, I think the reality is that they weren't flexible enough to avoid the defeat that got handed to them. Inflexible parties don't last long, and the Republicans have 147 (or so) years at adapting to their environment. They started out as the radical party and have certainly changed since then. They'll be back in fighting shape by 2010, if not by 2008. There are a lot of big brains over there

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"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

keyshawn

I think the Republicans have adapted their domestic and foreign policy in numerous ways to gain the support of more centrist Republicans and Democrats in Congress and to satisfy public opinion.
Domestically, the most conservative of the US Republican party conceded on their original policy with illegal immigrants; Wiretapping policies (Arlan Specter pushed towards a more moderate approach, IIRC); and the shift is happening right now in policy with Iraq (as more Republican congressmen are withdrawing their support or at least, becoming less vocal in their support of U.S. actions in Iraq; the white House will have to respond to them and newly elected Congressmen against policy in Iraq).

There's still some people who remain hardlined on their proposals on their 'fascist' policies, but the party's general consensus has changed in order to get the laws passed and appease public opinion.

The_Jazz' last point is a good one

catcha back on the flipside,
keyshawn

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loquitur

No, I wasn't contending that more political parties means more control. I thought I was making two distinct, though somewhat related, points: one, that multiple-political-party systems have serious drawbacks (one of which, but far from the only one, is that it requires coalition bargaining that in many cases is just legalized corruption, trading votes of tiny parties whose votes are needed in return for sinecures and pet projects that make no sense as a matter of sound policy); and the second point, which is that governmental corruption is less of a problem when you have small government with tightly defined roles and plenty of accountability, because there are fewer opportunities and it's easier to get caught. The latter point is true no matter how many parties there are (though if there are fewer goodies to give out there are likely to be fewer factions/parties competing for them).

In terms of the two parties being flexible, there are two things I think you're overlooking: (1) you have to step back a second and look at how different the parties look now. As I said up in #11: "Compare the Democratic Party of today to the populist/segregationist-laden monstrosity it was 40 years ago. Or the Republican Party of today to the elite-industrialist-driven monstrosity it was 40 years ago." (That actually should be 50 years ago, pre-Goldwater). The GOP of today is, so far as I can tell, undergoing tremendous upheaval. I don't remember where I posted this, but if you look at who tops the GOP preference polls for 2008, it's Rudy Giuliani: twice divorced, dallied publicly with his girlfriend while still married, and when his wife tossed him out, he moved in with his friends who are a gay couple. He's pro-choice, pro-gun regulation -- and yet he gets great numbers from the GOP base. You're looking at a very small, compressed time frame in your critique, and your perspective seems to come from critiques of the Bush admin -- historically that's a blip, and it assumes a lockstep party behind Bush, which there isn't. (I understand your comment about fascism as rhetorical, because it makes no sense as a historical/factual matter.) GWBush and Reagan (who is the GOP hero of the 20th century) are about as different as can be, and they are only 20 years apart. To my eyes it looks like the GOP is going to be more centrist going forward - though I have been wrong before (back in 2000 I thought Bush and Gore were both centrists. As I said, I was wrong before).

The Dem party has historically been an unusually raucous coalition that has evolved tremendously too. Chuck Schumer (my senior senator) is a very talented and insightful guy, who was in charge of recruiting Senate candidates. He understood that the Dems can retake the Senate only if they put up candidates who don't scare people by being screaming lefties - which is how you end up with James Webb as a successful Democratic candidate (and he was helped along by George Allen taking his own foot and shoving it down his throat, then chewing), and ditto for pro-life Casey in PA. In the last few decades the Dem party has been torn between the populist wing and the lefty wing, which is still is. At least it seems to have rooted out the racists. So point #1 is that over time the parties have evolved dramatically. FDR's Dem party was very different from Bill Clinton's. Eisenhower's GOP was very diff from GWBush's.

(2) Even in the shorter term, what has happened is that the parties adapt. They are living organisms that have a mission - to win elections - and they do what they can to achieve that mission. When they aren't good at it they change. They co-opt the useful rhetoric, they jettison old baggage. Ken Mehlman spent a lot of time trying to expand Repub influence among blacks. Howard Dean in 2004 was talking about getting votes from guys with confederate flags on their pickup trucks. People are adaptable, and so are organizations of people.

Fundamentally, the US is a very centrist country. People generally aren't comfortable with ideologues or pie-in-the-sky. If whoever is in control moves too far off the center they get disciplined. Terry Schiavo may have been responsible for the switch of Congress in 2006, just as Hillary's health care plan was in 1994.

AVoiceOfReason

Some random thoughts on third parties:

1. When I was in law school in 1980, some guy was wearing an Anderson button. I overheard someone remark to him that "why are you voting for him, he can't win?" to which he replied "I didn't know I was supposed to vote for who I thought had a chance to win--I thought I was supposed to vote for the candidate that best represented what I supported." That has stuck with me for all this time. An election isn't like a horse race, where you study the racing forms and odds and put your money down accordingly.

2. I have voted for a third party candidate for president twice: Perot in 1992 and Michael Peroutka (Constitution Party) in 2004. I did so knowing neither would win, but I couldn't support either Bush or Clinton in 1992, nor Bush or Kerry in 2004. I didn't consider either a wasted vote, since the electoral votes of my state was going to go to Clinton in 1992 and Bush in 2004 regardless--voting against either of those candidates was going to be whistling in the wind in Arkansas those years, and I thought I might as well whistle a different tune.

3. Perot was in a unique situation--a recession, an unpopular sitting president, an untrustworthy Democrat, and a country that had just witnessed the House bank scandal. I have to wonder what would have happened if Perot hadn't wigged out in the late summer about operatives that were going to interrupt his daughter's wedding, and saying that he thought the two major parties had righted themselves. In short, I wonder what could have happened if someone not a few bricks short of a load and with the same money behind him could have done.

4. The 19% Perot pulled did get the attention of both parties, but moreso the Republicans. The Contract For America in 1994 was intended, at least in part, to appeal to those voters that the Republicans felt "got away" in 1992 (actually, I saw a study a few years ago that indicated that Perot got about half his votes from folks that were going to vote against Bush regardless, and half from those that would have chosen Bush over Clinton). In that sense, a vote for Perot in 1992 was the loudest message sent to Washington.

5. While I'm quite aware that third parties are usually tilting at windmills, there is always the Jesse Ventura example in Minnesota of a third party candidate winning.

6. In this discussion, there has been references to the chaos that multiple parties in a legislature (Israel and Italy for two) can cause, and I can see the mischief that can be caused if there was not a majority party. We have plenty of examples of mischief WITH a party in firm control--congressmen demanding a project for their district or a seat on a committee in return for their support of a particular bill or issue. Imagine what would have to be promised to get several factions to unite on a bill. Me, I'd like to think that we'd have more gridlock and less legislation, but I fear the result would be even more backroom deals, not fewer.

7. Historically in the US, the third party with the most support supplants the weaker of the main two. Federalists and Democratic-Republican and Whigs all gave way to something else (I don't have time to look up just what as I sit here); it may say something about US post-Civil War politics that since 1864, it's been primarily a two party system.

OK, this went on longer than I intended, so I'll stop here.

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