Rachel Maddow has been getting excited lately about the prospect of a third-party presidential campaign. Earlier this week she hosted Buddy Roemer, who declared that he’d really, really like to top the ticket of the Friedmanesque group Americans Elect. (Roemer, for what it’s worth, has recently embraced both Occupy Wall Street and Joe Lieberman.) And last night Maddow interviewed Rocky Anderson, the lefty ex-mayor of Salt Lake City, who’s formed a new political party, the Justice Party, and intends to run for president.
When Maddow asks Anderson, “What’s the most salient difference between the Justice Party and Democrats and Republicans?,” he said:
We will do everything we can, even if it means a constitutional amendment, to get the corrupting influence of corporate and other concentrated wealth out of politics, because Congress and the White House have been conducting themselves as if they are on retainer with Wall Street.
Admirable — though, Rocky, I don’t know how you get a constitutional amendment through the very Congress you (correctly) describe as hopelessly corrupt. (Are we looking at a constitutional convention? Do you really feel confident that you could prevent such a convention from being taken over by right-wing zealots and corpocrats?)
Anderson also talked about “international accountability” on climate change, denounced kidnappings and other unsavory practices in the war on terror, attacked out “two-tier” economy and a justice system based on wealth, decried excessive penalties for recreational drug crimes, excoriated Barack Obama and Congress for caving on telecom immunity … bloody hell, if the Daily Kos could grow legs and obtain citizenship, it would be Rocky Anderson.
And yet the Deseret News says,
Anderson said he expects to attract disenchanted members of both parties and independents.
Oh, yeah, right — this guy’s going to draw support from a lot of Republicans.
I really like what Rocky Anderson stands for — but I see no reason to believe his candidacy will do anything but diminish Barack Obama’s vote total and throw the election to Gingrich or Romney. (Please, spare me the comments about how I’m incorrectly assuming Obama has lefty votes by right. I know the whole spiel — I could write the comment for you. I’m just arguing that if you go this route, if you respond to the awfulness of Democrats by ignoring the unspeakableness of Republicans, you’re seeking to repeat 2000. Nor do I need to hear the other spiel about how Gore didn’t really lose and Nader voters weren’t to blame because it was all the Supreme Court’s fault. That election shouldn’t have even been close.)
I should say, however, that I won’t be as upset about the Anderson candidacy if what I think may happen happens — namely, a four- or even five-way race. I think Anderson (or some lefty) will get enough support and media attention to get Nader-in-2000 numbers in many states — but I think the Americans Elect folks will field a ticket from the center (and, given their money and the likely swooning of centrist pundits, the ticket will get a lot of attention). I don’t believe the scuttlebutt that Jon Huntsman may be the AE presidential candidate — he seems like a jilted lover who can’t endure the notion that the GOP won’t sleep with him anymore, so I don’t think he’ll ever stop carrying the torch and move on with his life. (And the fantasy of a Huntsman/Hillary Clinton ticket is just delusional — Hillary is a genuinely loyal Dem.)
But those guys will get someone paired up with Evan Bayh. After that, my guess is that the GOP noise machine will turn whoever it is, in the public’s eyes, into a big, flaming liberal, and the candidate will draw exclusively Democrat and moderate-indy votes.
On the other hand, I think the GOP has to worry about a challenge from the right if Romney’s the nominee. I don’t mean from a marquee name like Sarah Palin — I mean from one of the teensy parties that run an invisible candidate every four years. This time around, the rubes really might go for an underfunded crackpot zealot, especially one who says “Constitution” a lot and rants about the War on Christianity and the North American Union and about how the UN is taking away our gun freedoms. (That pretty much applies to all the minor-party candidates on the right, doesn’t it?) Or maybe Gary Johnson or Jesse Ventura will run Libertarian — this year, a run like that could draw all kinds of support, from dopers, youthful Paulbots and aging wingers. So, maybe my advice should be: vote Anderson if you want, because this thing is going to be a free-for-all. (Though if the GOP nominates anyone but Romney, the wingers will probably be united, so maybe it’s suicidal for us to be divided.)
(Cross-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog.)
This is why I’d really love to see IRV become the default voting method. I understand where it’s in use it’s been pretty much a disaster so far, but to me it’s a matter of implementation–one could just as easily say our voting system as it is has been disastrous for at least the last decade or two.
I don’t see any credible third party runs, though, unless there’s money in it, in which case Palin may take a stab at it. From what I’ve seen, running a losing general campaign is usually a good way to lose money, so I doubt we hear from up (former) north.
I think there’s still room for one more GOP flash-in-the-pan from the current clown car. Bachmann’s posting double digits in some Iowa polls, but she keeps spouting stupid crap like the Iranian embassy thing that I doubt she gets a second wind.
The only other figure with the numbers to go anywhere is Ron Paul, who at least has been pretty consistent in the polls. Somehow I don’t see him getting the media catapult that the other reprobates have gotten to date.
Keep your fingers crossed that Huntsman stays where he is. If he were to be the GOP nom, he’d be truly dangerous. He’s gotten so much acclaim from the left (or what gets called the left in the msm) for being level-headed and sane, and he does such a good job of sounding reasonable that he’d be sure to pull some Dem votes and a lot of independents–you know, the kind who like to say “both parties are equally to blame.” Like Beck, you look at this guy and say to yourself, “I can’t believe he’s a Mormon.”
Obama does not have a lock by any means on the left vote. I’m hearing and reading all over the place from genuine anti-GOP firebreathers that they’ll never vote for BHO again. That’s disturbing. I hope it’s not near the trend that it appears to be.
If the left doesn’t vote for Obama and we end up with a GOP president, I don’t think any reconciliation between the left and the Democratic Party will be possible.
I don’t think it’s much of a trend, and will be less of one as election day nears. The enthusiasm factor will be a lot harder to overcome, though, and will be what makes the difference in a close election. If the Reps somehow manage to field a reasonable-appearing candidate, turnout could sink the Dems.
The enthusiasm factor is more the trend that I fear. When enough people are grumbling about the Dems–justifiably or not–the end result is almost guaranteed to cause some loss of morale when the big day comes.
The GOP is facing a very strange situation: on the one hand, they have a massive advantage in enthusiasm atm, and electoral advantages in redistricting, House retirement figures, and Senate seats defended in ‘012. Otoh, so far they lack a compelling figure to head the ticket. Even if they can’t knock Obama off the top slot, they still need someone strong enough to rally voters to come pick off the down-ticket races, and I can’t see any of the current contenders performing that role.
Interestingly though, I noted a story this morning about Newt’s key constituency being seniors, so there again, if he gets the nom then that may be all it takes to get enough voters for them to take the Senate. PBHO better get himself a Boehner-sized veto pen ready, just in case.
It’s clear that a reasonable Republican doesn’t exist anymore-or if they do-they can’t get any traction in their own party. The reason why? The Southern Strategy and demographics and outdated messaging. The Southern Strategy has cut them off from a lot of conservative minority people who might agree with them on some business issues, but not with the politics of white resentment. Outdated messaging? Haven’t you noticed that all of the Republican messaging goes back to the late 1960’s and its resentments? While there are still a fair number of people who remember those days, a growing majority of those were children at the time, and millions of people born after it now have children in their 20’s. That’s a great way to attract those people, Republicans.
How are we defining “left”? Do you mean the liberal wing of the Democratic Party or are you talking actual anticapitalists (i.e., socialists, etc.). If you mean the former, at least based on the opinion poll data, it appears that liberal Democrats are still relatively happy with Obama, and I suspect it can be inferred that generally they’re a lock for 2012. Now if you’re meaning actual leftists, I doubt that anticapitalists were all that on board to begin with (McKinney-La Riva would have been an easy sell in 2008; not sure who will be attractive in 2012).
That’s always bothered me too. When I read about “whining” and god knows what else being directed at “the left” here, I often wonder if I’m being painted with that target or not. At other times it seems like an imaginary straw-man group thrown out to score rhetorical points. I’ve been very tempted to ask others at times to define who they’re talking about when they invoke “the left.”
I use “left” to describe that group of voters who are substantively familiar with the issues and oppose the general drift of the GOP and the rest of the right wing. It’s a large group, bigger even than just the liberal wing of the Democratic party.
When I say Obama doesn’t have a lock on this group, I don’t mean that he can’t count on the majority of them (he can), just that there are a lot of outliers that he can’t count on, and possibly enough to damage his chances at reelection.
I think we’re basically on the same page as far as how the term “the left” gets used. There are a lot of people who use the term “the left” in bad faith, and it’s just stupid. If I were younger maybe I’d have the patience to deal with idiots who feel the need to score rhetorical points. Nah…even then I wouldn’t.
I think it’s safe to say I use the term in a more narrow sense than do you, but at least now I understand what you mean. I am skeptical about how many of the outliers, by your broader definition of “the left”, were ever in Obama’s camp to begin with, but I can always be persuaded by data. 🙂
Maybe it’d be more accurate to call my group the “non-right,” but it just looks unwieldy on the printed page.
As to outliers in the Obama camp, I think his greatest gift as a candidate was to unite the disparate factions among the Dems in enthusiastic support for the election. I doubt he gets the same turnout the next time around. So yes, I imagine he had a significant level of support from what we’d consider the hard left in 2008. Just a guess on my part. I don’t mind data but I’m often not sure where to find it.
Does anyone really think Americans Elect is going to get anywhere? Aren’t they just Unity’ 08 re-branded? And does anyone remember why Unity ’08 flamed out, besides the obvious? Does anyone remember that Unity ’08 had an online vote for candidates(a test run kind of thing) and do you know who were the two top vote-getters? Hint: Both are now former Senators from states that border each other.
The general election will be between Barack Obama and the Republican nominee. The left is so easily suckered into jumping onto these bandwagons, hang on to them for dear life and then wonder why they keep getting sucker punched all the time. How in the world can they disapprove of Obama but love a third party candidate that only represents 10-15% of what they want?
They are salivating over Roemer but the guy thinks Joe fucking Lieberman would be his first pick for VP. They adore Ron Paul even though he thinks OWS are just a bunch of lazy people looking for handouts. End the war on drugs and close military bases you say? what Congress is going to allow that and who do you think LIBERTARIAN Ron Paul is going to give that money to? The same with Rocky Anderson. Isn’t he a libertarian? Constitutional ammendment to get wealth out of politics? Democrats have tried that TWICE! Once back in February 2010 and another recently. He’s gonna try really hard and do everything he can? HA LOL!! LOL!!!
Give me a break. Just wait til the general gets underway. All these Grass Must Be Gotta Be Greener On The Other Side folks will fall in line.
Forgive my crassness but I’m so sick of the whining, the short sighted thinking, the selfishness, the arrogance, and the sheer ignorance that often oozes from the left. We have had how many decades of Republican rule? I don’t know about anyone else but my uterus and pocket book can’t forgive the purity fetish that runs through that crowd.
Anyone not deeply disappointed by the Dems and Obama is just not paying attention. Your dismissal of being sick of choosing the lesser evil time after time as a “purity fetish” stoops to the level of Foxnews.
How’s this? On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you think I am paying attention?
I’m not disappointed at all.
I think Dave was responding to Meh. Or that’s what my thread view is showing me.
I expected Obama to be responsive to pressure from the left, which he has. The left unfortunately has offered little pressure, preferring instead complaint. This may be changing. I am very convinced that Obama had hoped that he (and Congress) would have been under a lot of pressure from the left. People thought that winning the 2008 election meant the game was over, though.
I am n
I expected Obama to be responsive to pressure from the left, which he has. The left unfortunately has offered little pressure, preferring instead complaint. This may be changing. I am very convinced that Obama had hoped that he (and Congress) would have been under a lot of pressure from the left. People thought that winning the 2008 election meant the game was over, though.
I am not at all disappointed in Obama, because I didn’t imaging that he would realize my dreams. I thought he would work within the actually existing system. He’s done this. He may be more cautious than me, but he is the one who managed to get elected and his caution likely is related to this.
Which “left” are we even talking about here? If you’re talking about anticapitalists, I seriously doubt that they’re all that interested in Ron Paul. If you’re trying to lump OWS with the Paulbots, you might want to rethink that. At least from what survey data has been collected (someone published some opinion poll data from the NYC OWS site back in October), the percentage of Paul supporters was pretty minimal. Problem with them is that they tend to be loud, and since Paul and his supporters do advocate a form of capitalism, they are a bit more likely to actually get a slice of semi-positive media attention. The socialist, communist, and anarcho-syndicalist sites and blogs with which I am familiar, and the good folks whom are sympathetic to OWS tend to be strongly anti-Paul if anything.
Meh, I think you’re great but not all of us on the Left (capital L) have a purity thing. Marx certainly did not, and I’m a Marxist. Marx had an objectivity thing.
I’m glad you mentioned that. Marx, as I seem to recall was actually fairly pragmatic.
He sure seems to have been spot-on with his criticisms of capitalism, and the description of how it ultimately plays out. The inevitable reorganization into socialism, though, doesn’t seem so inevitable.
Marxist literary theory is interesting too.
Marx and inevitability is an important topic. Marx saw a logical inevitability in the end of capitalism, but no inevitability in its replacement with a more humane socialism. Barbarism was a distinct possibility. Engels was more about the inevitability of socialism.
I won’t vote for somebody I actually like if s/he’s a threat to avoiding GOP hegemony. But if a third party screws us over, blame the Democratic Party, not the voters. This “least bad” choice, election after election, just can’t keep being the norm.
His decades long crusade against economic injustice is being vindicated daily by the popularity of the “Occupy” movement.
Al Gore lost because he ran a chicken shit campaign.
I’d rather say Gore cost Nader the election.
If Obama can’t advocate hope or change he’s let us all down.
I love how the Left never take responsibility for its mistakes. Even if Gore did ran a poor campaign, Nader was still a factor like it or not.
Ed J,
Good for you.
And I voted for Nader in 2004 because Kerry was running against his own past and as a better war leader than Bush.
I didn’t want a war leader.
I still don’t.
Unlike Obama, I opposed all the neocon wars from the very beginning.
Nader is way too old, but if he ran again I would be very, very tempted.
As for the Big Al of the campaign of 2000, apart from his personal arrogance, his lack of concern for working class issues, and his assertive liberal interventionism he ran on Clinton’s record and Clinton, when he wasn’t being a selfish, arrogant, horny blockhead, spent too damn much time following the Republicans to the right and dragging the Democrats with him.
“The era of big government is over,” he declared.
Really?
I, a big government, working class social democrat, am supposed to be pleased to hear that message from the leader of the Democratic Party, standing in the White House where I helped put him?
Clinton’s wife, by the way, is really no better on the class war and possibly worse on American military globalism.
If Nader runs and has the nerve to say the US ought to get out of NATO, withdraw from Korea, Japan, and the Philippines, get out of Afghanistan and Iraq, and cut Israel loose I will vote for him with joy.
Well, maybe not.
That lesser evil argument for Obama does have real weight, after all.
I guess it all depends on how much difference there is between him and the greater evil, whoever is running for the Republicans.
A better question might be:
Has Obama Reached His Nadir Yet?
My own answer? No. He’s still got further down to go.
What if several “third” parties arise?
A Bloomberg run.
A Paul run.
Some of those half-baked ideas that you referenced above as well.
Each one leaching votes out of the PermaGov Left/Right bagmen’s collection bags.
Drip drip drip drip drip drip drip.
Suddenly no one has a win, just a bunch of larger and smaller losses.
No mandate.
No nuthin’.
Hmmmmm…
The “Throw The Bastids Out” Party is now the fastest growing segment of the electorate. What if they threw an election and no one cooperated?
What then?
Could happen…
Big fun if it does.
Hope springs eternal.
AG
Not a word at Anderson’s website that Ron Paul and Glenn Greenwald could not agree on.
Not a word to distinguish him from a libertarian with a tea-bagger attitude toward the bankers who got away clean.
And that’s why Anderson sees himself getting right wing support.
Lots of biker libertarians out there in Nevada, you know.
That seems to be what he’s thinking of.
When the biggest news for months in DC has been the question whether the Dems would cave and help the GOP undermine Medicare and Social Security this guy Anderson says not one word about any of that at his website.
Not a single word to tell us where he stands on the class war or even, for that matter, on the culture war and the sexual revolution.
And you’re in love?
What a pushover.
For weeks, Bernie Sanders has been screaming about almost nothing but the Democrats wussing out on the New Deal and the Great Society and turning their backs on the working people of America.
Do you love him?
Do you even like him?
All of the focus on third party Presidential candidates is a distraction from what needs to happen. Some third party candidates in Congressional races might be helpful in some places (Anoka MN, Tyler TX, Gastonia NC, Boone NC, Janesville WI, Richmond VA, for example).
in 2008. Nader arguably cost Obama Missouri
This group is never going away, and I doubt it is really possible to win them They make a lot of noise, but their numbers aren’t very big.
Anybody who voted for Nader in 2008 – his 4th run for president, by which point a lot of people who completely agree with him ideologically still thought his candidacy was a bad, ego-driven joke – would not have voted for Obama otherwise, so it’s ridiculous to say Nader “cost” BHO Missouri.
I’ve always suspected that the number of disaffected people who vote for third party candidates is usually dwarfed by the number who, for the same reason, either don’t vote or don’t vote in that particular race. Given the enthusiasm gap several folks have mentioned, that’s the far bigger concern.
It is absurd.
Because you say so.