I don’t know, and don’t much care, who will win the special election in New York’s Twenty-Third District, but the dynamics of the race are interesting. New York is unusual because they allow candidates to run on multiple party slates and add up all their numbers collectively. So, a candidate on the left might appear on the ballot simultaneously as a Democrat and a member of the Working Families Party. The votes they get on both lines get added together to reach their total. On the right, a candidate might appear as both a Republican and as a member of the Conservative Party. That is not the case in this special election, however. The Conservative Party has their own candidate, and he is now polling ahead of the Republican.
This is not a good model for advancing either liberal or conservative issues. This race wouldn’t be close if there was only one candidate on the right. Because there are two, the Democrat is polling one point ahead. The same phenomenon works in reverse when a third-party candidate gets traction on the left of the Democrat in a race. The most likely outcome is that a Republican wins the election. That doesn’t result in more liberal policies in Washington DC.
But, I do think there is room to work within the Democratic Party to move things to the left. Essentially, you’d set up some organization and give it a name. I like Progressive-Democrat, but you could choose something else. Candidates who are running for office in Democratic primaries would seek the endorsement of the organization. In states that allow it, they could run on the Progressive-Democrat slate along with the Democrat’s slate. If a state allows them to appear on the ballot as a Progressive-Democrat (only), they could opt for that.
The idea would not be to field third-party candidates that divide the left and make things easy for the Republicans. Rather, the idea would be to get people to compete for the endorsement of progressives and embrace the name. I’d like to see a primary in Arkansas where Blanche Lincoln appears on the ballot as the Democrat and her challenger appears as a Progressive-Democrat. And, as we elect Progressive Democrats to Congress, they would form a caucus all their own. It would no longer be the case that Democrats fear joining the Progressive Caucus because it is seen as urban, coastal, and minority-dominated.
I don’t know who would fund such an organization on a national level, but someone ought to start thinking about it. Rather than keep banging our heads against a wall about the conservadems, we ought to come up with some plan of action that isn’t helpless or counterproductive.
