David:
In the Republican ranks, there is now talk of a third party candidate rising, to supposedly save the day. That would likely hand the keys to the White House back to the Clinton's, but the question I pose to you today is this: Is it time for more than just the two-party system we currently have?
Doug:
There are lots of different ways to organize political parties. I'm not sure that just adding another party would do what you want. Wouldn't a Libertarian party split the Republican party in two?
But anything that helps bring compromise to the current congress, I'd be in favor of. That might include lots of variations on the current dominate political platforms.
David:
It's more than just organizing, but that's part of it. Many folks I know are Libertarians, but there is also the Constitution Party and the Green Party, which are well established. For many, the assumption has been that to vote for one of these alternate party candidates is to "waste" a vote on someone who can't win. Ralph Nader was the standard bearer for the Green Party, was was a poor candidate. But the time may be right for a strong, well-spoken candidate from a third party to gain some momentum.
As to Libertarians taking votes from one party or another, they generally are fiscally conservative and support limited government, but socially agnostic (based on the idea government should not be involved with social issues), so depending on what issues are at the forefront of the debate, they would gain support from both the Republicans and the Democrats.
Doug:
That is exactly what I like about Libertarians... they don't find themselves agreeing with everything in a party's platform. Actually, that is what I like about Democrats, too. The Democratic Party really is a big tent.
David:
Not big enough. Otherwise, we wouldn't be talking about third or forth parties filling in gaps.
Doug:
(Where the Libertarians go off the rails is when they abandon support for social services, such as sewer and water systems. Also, the idea that social justice can be solved by economic pressure has been shown to not work.)
David:
I think my Libertarian friends might disagree with you.
Doug:
I'm sure they do think that they stay on the rails.
David:
"Libertarianism" is a bit of an umbrella term that covers a lot of various degrees of their over riding theme: Liberty. The one idea that holds them together is freedom from government, and freedom of choice and determination. Bigger government invariably infringes on personal liberty.
Fifteen years ago, a Yale graduate student got fed up with the politics of the day, and started the "free-state project":
https://freestateproject.org
This project is designed to get 20,000 Libertarians to all move to New Hampshire, and then to elect candidates to essentially create their own enclave of government, a "free" state. They are approaching the 20,000 mark, and have already elected their own to numerous local and state positions. In a way, this is very similar to the Mormons of Utah.
Doug:
I completely agree that we need more organized forces in politics, and that the dual, monolithic party's days are over. But that doesn't mean that we can't have our two-party system. It just means that we need to break up the stranglehold that the two establishments have in running the parties. Perhaps this is the one (and only) good thing to come out of Trump's candidacy: he has shaken up the establishment.
David:
Speaking of stranglehold, yesterday the Democratic Party was asking Sanders to bow out, in the name of party unity. The argument is that he cannot get enough delegates to win the race. But the reality is that Sanders has won as many popular votes as Clinton has. If the system were not rigged with "super delegates", that are all bought and paid for by the Clinton elites, Sanders would be tied, or even leading Clinton.
Doug:
Our election system is designed in a similar way---by the founding fathers, no less. We still have the electoral college, for example, that works in an almost identical way. Are you claiming that the founding fathers had this all wrong?
David:
The delegate system for determining the party candidates was not developed by the founders, silly boy. The Constitution says nothing about political parties. The delegates, how they're selected, and how they vote (and how they may change their votes on subsequent ballots), are all determined by their respective state parties.
So, for example, the Democrats have set up a system of super-delegates (party insiders) who have no allegiance to the popular vote at all. On the other side of the aisle, Republicans have a system where the popular vote dictates the voting of the delegates to the nominating convention, at least for the first round of voting. The possible lack of a decisive winner in the delegate race will lead to a convention where the candidates and party bosses will try to sway delegates to their side, to decide who will carry the banner.
Doug:
That will only be true if Trump doesn't win outright.
David:
Right. If that scenario plays out, then in both cases (Democrat and Republican), the popular vote will have minimal impact on who will eventually be the party nominee. This is worse on the Democratic side, where half of the delegates have no loyalty to the voter's will right from the start, but has not had much coverage by the media, who likely want to hide a divided party from view.
Doug:
If this is true, than you'd have to admit that the popular vote has minimal impact on who will be president, right? In fact, this has happened in the 2000 election. Are you arguing that Al Gore should have been president?
David:
Heavens no! You're talking about an entirely different system here, the electoral college. I'm talking about the selection of party delegates to the nominating conventions.
Doug:
So you are saying that it is ok to win the popular vote and not win the presidency, but that same standard should not be used in the primaries?
David:
The electoral college, as you mentioned, is defined by the constitution. The rules governing that process are much different. The 2000 election court case was about how to determine the counting of ballots (and introduced the words "hanging chad" to the lexicon). But we can blog about that when the candidates are finally selected. The electoral college process is greatly misunderstood by many folks.
Doug:
The Democratic party is a divided party by definition! Try to find two democrats that agree on anything. And why would "the media" be conspirators in this great plan to hide that obvious fact?
David:
Please. The media is overwhelmingly controlled by Democratic members and supporters. Here's a study done at our Alma Mater, Indiana University, that found only 7% of journalists align as Republicans.
http://news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2014/05/2013-american-journalist-key-findings.pdf
Doug:
I would think that most journalists don't let their party affiliation cloud their ethics, let alone dictate that they should conspire to hide the fact that the Democratic party is fairly diverse group of people. Besides, only 28% of journalists identify as Democratic.
David:
As it has become obvious that most reporters are Democrats, the trend over the past few years has been for journalists to declare themselves "independent".
Doug:
I'm sure you can obviously tell a reporter is secretly a Democrat. I've heard of gay-dar, but not demo-dar.
David:
However, data indicates they still donate their cash to Democrats, whether they admit they're Democrat or not. Another blog idea?
Doug:
Again, I suspect that most journalists have ethics---rules prohibiting contributions.
David:
You would suspect wrongly. Tell that to George Stephanopoulos.
But as you mentioned, both parties have a variety of opinions within them, on a wide variety of issues. The tea party caucus has shown that a group of elected officials can direct the discussion. And the Libertarians of New Hampshire have shown you can make changes to government by electing like-minded individuals in local races. There certainly seems to be room, and some momentum, for splinter groups and new party alliances to develop.
In the Republican ranks, there is now talk of a third party candidate rising, to supposedly save the day. That would likely hand the keys to the White House back to the Clinton's, but the question I pose to you today is this: Is it time for more than just the two-party system we currently have?
Doug:
There are lots of different ways to organize political parties. I'm not sure that just adding another party would do what you want. Wouldn't a Libertarian party split the Republican party in two?
But anything that helps bring compromise to the current congress, I'd be in favor of. That might include lots of variations on the current dominate political platforms.
David:
It's more than just organizing, but that's part of it. Many folks I know are Libertarians, but there is also the Constitution Party and the Green Party, which are well established. For many, the assumption has been that to vote for one of these alternate party candidates is to "waste" a vote on someone who can't win. Ralph Nader was the standard bearer for the Green Party, was was a poor candidate. But the time may be right for a strong, well-spoken candidate from a third party to gain some momentum.
As to Libertarians taking votes from one party or another, they generally are fiscally conservative and support limited government, but socially agnostic (based on the idea government should not be involved with social issues), so depending on what issues are at the forefront of the debate, they would gain support from both the Republicans and the Democrats.
Doug:
That is exactly what I like about Libertarians... they don't find themselves agreeing with everything in a party's platform. Actually, that is what I like about Democrats, too. The Democratic Party really is a big tent.
David:
Not big enough. Otherwise, we wouldn't be talking about third or forth parties filling in gaps.
Doug:
(Where the Libertarians go off the rails is when they abandon support for social services, such as sewer and water systems. Also, the idea that social justice can be solved by economic pressure has been shown to not work.)
David:
I think my Libertarian friends might disagree with you.
Doug:
I'm sure they do think that they stay on the rails.
David:
"Libertarianism" is a bit of an umbrella term that covers a lot of various degrees of their over riding theme: Liberty. The one idea that holds them together is freedom from government, and freedom of choice and determination. Bigger government invariably infringes on personal liberty.
Fifteen years ago, a Yale graduate student got fed up with the politics of the day, and started the "free-state project":
https://freestateproject.org
This project is designed to get 20,000 Libertarians to all move to New Hampshire, and then to elect candidates to essentially create their own enclave of government, a "free" state. They are approaching the 20,000 mark, and have already elected their own to numerous local and state positions. In a way, this is very similar to the Mormons of Utah.
Doug:
I completely agree that we need more organized forces in politics, and that the dual, monolithic party's days are over. But that doesn't mean that we can't have our two-party system. It just means that we need to break up the stranglehold that the two establishments have in running the parties. Perhaps this is the one (and only) good thing to come out of Trump's candidacy: he has shaken up the establishment.
David:
Speaking of stranglehold, yesterday the Democratic Party was asking Sanders to bow out, in the name of party unity. The argument is that he cannot get enough delegates to win the race. But the reality is that Sanders has won as many popular votes as Clinton has. If the system were not rigged with "super delegates", that are all bought and paid for by the Clinton elites, Sanders would be tied, or even leading Clinton.
Doug:
Our election system is designed in a similar way---by the founding fathers, no less. We still have the electoral college, for example, that works in an almost identical way. Are you claiming that the founding fathers had this all wrong?
David:
The delegate system for determining the party candidates was not developed by the founders, silly boy. The Constitution says nothing about political parties. The delegates, how they're selected, and how they vote (and how they may change their votes on subsequent ballots), are all determined by their respective state parties.
So, for example, the Democrats have set up a system of super-delegates (party insiders) who have no allegiance to the popular vote at all. On the other side of the aisle, Republicans have a system where the popular vote dictates the voting of the delegates to the nominating convention, at least for the first round of voting. The possible lack of a decisive winner in the delegate race will lead to a convention where the candidates and party bosses will try to sway delegates to their side, to decide who will carry the banner.
Doug:
That will only be true if Trump doesn't win outright.
David:
Right. If that scenario plays out, then in both cases (Democrat and Republican), the popular vote will have minimal impact on who will eventually be the party nominee. This is worse on the Democratic side, where half of the delegates have no loyalty to the voter's will right from the start, but has not had much coverage by the media, who likely want to hide a divided party from view.
Doug:
If this is true, than you'd have to admit that the popular vote has minimal impact on who will be president, right? In fact, this has happened in the 2000 election. Are you arguing that Al Gore should have been president?
David:
Heavens no! You're talking about an entirely different system here, the electoral college. I'm talking about the selection of party delegates to the nominating conventions.
Doug:
So you are saying that it is ok to win the popular vote and not win the presidency, but that same standard should not be used in the primaries?
David:
The electoral college, as you mentioned, is defined by the constitution. The rules governing that process are much different. The 2000 election court case was about how to determine the counting of ballots (and introduced the words "hanging chad" to the lexicon). But we can blog about that when the candidates are finally selected. The electoral college process is greatly misunderstood by many folks.
Doug:
The Democratic party is a divided party by definition! Try to find two democrats that agree on anything. And why would "the media" be conspirators in this great plan to hide that obvious fact?
David:
Please. The media is overwhelmingly controlled by Democratic members and supporters. Here's a study done at our Alma Mater, Indiana University, that found only 7% of journalists align as Republicans.
http://news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2014/05/2013-american-journalist-key-findings.pdf
I would think that most journalists don't let their party affiliation cloud their ethics, let alone dictate that they should conspire to hide the fact that the Democratic party is fairly diverse group of people. Besides, only 28% of journalists identify as Democratic.
David:
As it has become obvious that most reporters are Democrats, the trend over the past few years has been for journalists to declare themselves "independent".
Doug:
I'm sure you can obviously tell a reporter is secretly a Democrat. I've heard of gay-dar, but not demo-dar.
David:
However, data indicates they still donate their cash to Democrats, whether they admit they're Democrat or not. Another blog idea?
Doug:
Again, I suspect that most journalists have ethics---rules prohibiting contributions.
David:
You would suspect wrongly. Tell that to George Stephanopoulos.
But as you mentioned, both parties have a variety of opinions within them, on a wide variety of issues. The tea party caucus has shown that a group of elected officials can direct the discussion. And the Libertarians of New Hampshire have shown you can make changes to government by electing like-minded individuals in local races. There certainly seems to be room, and some momentum, for splinter groups and new party alliances to develop.
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