I haven’t written much at all about the effort to create a new political party called ‘Americans Elect.’ It seemed so stupid that it didn’t merit my attention. My only interest in it was to see who they nominated for president because it could potentially change the outcome of the general election in November. But every time I checked on their progress I discovered that no one was paying any attention to them and they were failing to nominate anyone at all. Now they’ve basically given up on getting a ‘bipartisan’ ticket nominated according to their bylaws. No one showed up to vote, so no one can be nominated.
They’ve already secured a ballot line in most states, so there is a powerful incentive to change the rules and pick some ticket, if only to vindicate the tens of millions of dollars these hedge fund managers invested in the effort. I enjoyed this comment on the meaning of their failure:
“The worst thing would be for people to look at a failure to field a candidate and conclude that there is no appetite for this kind of change, which would be just completely wrong,” argues Mark McKinnon, former chief strategist for the Bush campaign, a fellow Daily Beast columnist, and a member of the Americans Elect advisory board. “I think part of the issue is that politics have become so ugly that it is simply difficult to attract good people to participate,” McKinnon adds. “And who can blame them?”
This is the guy who, along with Alex Castellanos, ran the infamous ‘Rats’ commercial during the 2000 Bush campaign, now complaining about our politics getting ugly.
I also liked this choice piece of analysis from senior columnist for Newsweek and The Daily Beast, John Avlon:
Perhaps the biggest obstacle was the basic fact of this particular election cycle—when a president is running for reelection, it tends to be a referendum. Third-party candidacies do best when there is not an incumbent on the ballot; think Ross Perot ’92 versus ’96.
For those of you who are not numbskulls, Ross Perot did much better in 1992 running against the incumbent George H.W. Bush than he did in 1996 running against the incumbent Bill Clinton. Since there was an incumbent on the ballot in both elections, John Avlon is making of a fool of himself with this analysis.
Americans Elect is failing because it is based on a failed premise. The problem with our politics is not that our government isn’t run by some middle of the road consensus between Ben Nelson and Olympia Snowe or Joe Lieberman and John McCain or Lincoln Chafee and Arlen Specter. Our problem is that we have one party that wants to govern but isn’t allowed to, and another party that thinks Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and Rick Perry have something meaningful to say. If you honestly think that the Democratic Party is too beholden to the left, you know nothing about politics, here or globally. And if you think the Republican Party, as it exists right now, is capable of responsible governance, then you’re the type of fool who buys swampland off the internet or answers those emails from Nigerian princes.
The country has capable leadership right now. We just need the GOP to get out of the way. Americans Elect has nothing to contribute, and everyone knows it.
Boehner proved your central point once again a short while ago. Debt ceiling crisis, here we go again. http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/boehner-debt-limit-default-peterson-geithner.php?ref=fpb
Good. I’m glad they aren’t moderating their approach. I want this election to be about the real differences between the parties.
Drum illustrated the media idiocy on this. The guys who wrote the book blaming the media and republicans suddenly can’t get an invitation to the Sunday shows.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/05/disappearing-man-followup
And what’s funny is that both of them have been, up until now, members in good standing of Versailles.
Over simplification of the issue, generalizations like the above don’t become you, and don’t further the discussion (if indeed that is the goal here).
You’re again making the convenient excuse that the democrats are great leaders who govern well, but those darn repuglicans keep “getting in the way”.
Relevant anecdote- to prove I’m not the only one who questions our “two” party system: years ago I happened to catch an interview with former democratic congresswoman Patricia Schroeder. The interviewer inquired about third political parties. Schroeder’s response was, “I’m not sure we have a two party system”- to which the interviewer was of course taken aback by.
This was wayyyy before Nader started talking about “our one corporate party system”.
While you and other numerous “progressives” scoff at and deride “third” party efforts, and continue to maintain the answer is more and better democrats in office so we can overcome the eveel repuglicans, you fail to face reality- that being that plenty of voters are very happy with repuglicans doing what they do.
You fail to realize democrats are losing ground in key states where they can’t afford to. Wisconsin being a perfect example- where a great progressive senator, Russ Feingold, was dumped by the voters, and apparently most of them were dumb enough to vote Walker in as governor- only to succumb to buyer’s remorse within days of Walker taking office.
Regarding the “recall” in WI, the brilliant political strategists at the DNC won’t even contribute $500,000 in the effort to get rid of Walker. Thus proving again just how incompetent and UNcredible the DNC is.
I just don’t see where they, or you, have a credible, realistic answer.
I obviously don’t expect you to read or the have read everything I write. But you seem to be making assumptions about me and my position on third-parties.
I would love to have 100 parties. I could go join the party that wants drug decriminalization and a massively scaled-back foreign policy and accountability for torture and strong enforcement of the 4th amendment and prison reform and much stronger efforts at addressing climate change, and so on.
I’m a progressive, and I’d love a progressive party.
The reason I scoff at third parties is entirely practical.
First, the winner-take-all nature of our federal elections is written in stone (or our Constitution). The best we can do is to have run-offs so that the federal official at least eventually wins a majority of the vote (Louisiana did this for a while before deciding it was too expensive).
But the 49% of the people who voted the other way will always get 0% representation in our system. What this means is that third parties have to win the election outright. They have to win a majority. If they fail to do that, they will always help the party least aligned with them. Thus Ralph Nader almost certainly handed Florida to the Supreme Court and, thus, to Bush.
So, simply put, a left-leaning third party is a threat to the left and an aid to the right. I don’t like that situation, but I can’t deny it.
Second, while I am interested in many policies and reforms, the thing that most concerns me is the nature of the Republican Party and their policies and the threat they pose to peace, to the economy, to the climate, to people’s rights, to our courts, and to the issues I care about.
There are no issues I care about more than I care about denying the Republicans power.
As a result, I am not sympathetic to anything that helps Republicans gain power.
I see Booman’s already given his response (with which I largely agree). I just want to add a couple of things:
1 – Booman didn’t make “the convenient excuse that the democrats are great leaders who govern well”. He made the modest, unexceptional statement that the country “has capable leadership right now”—presumably in the person of President Obama, and in the Democratic caucuses in the House and Senate.
2 – Most progressives—particularly those who come out of a labor or community organizing background— don’t underestimate the number of American voters willing and able to vote for Republicans.
In the world as it is, a “credible, realistic answer” is to work for Obama’s re-election, to work to keep the Senate Democratic majority, and to work to elect a Democratic majority in the House.
Even if we accomplish all three goals (unlikely), it won’t bring us into a land flowing with milk and honey. It will just mean that the next four years will be less worse than they’d be if Republicans won.
That may not make a big difference in your life or mine, but it will undoubtedly make a big difference to millions of Americans and they people they care about. (That’s good enough motivation for me.)
Wonderful and well expressed additions to Boo’s comments. Thanks!!
If you honestly think that the Democratic Party is too beholden to the left, you know nothing about politics, here or globally. And if you think the Republican Party, as it exists right now, is capable of responsible governance, then you’re the type of fool who buys swampland off the internet or answers those emails from Nigerian princes.
Hah! That should be on a billboard, or something!!
More weight to this is the news from CNN’s Jeff Toobin that Souter wrote a dissent on the Citizen’s United decision that included, as a bravely frustrated shot, a harsh critique of John Roberts’ leadership of SCOTUS and the Conservative bent allowed to sway legal decisions. That Roberts pulled a procedural maneuver and it will not be published in our lifetimes just frosting on Roberts’ lemoncake.
All this to point that no we don’t need a 3rd party but a Rep party and Conservative movement to come back to being Americans first.
Link for Souter
The worst thing would be for people to look at a failure to field a candidate and conclude that there is no appetite for this kind of change, which would be just completely wrong…
Well, no. Your failure to field a candidate proves there is no such appetite, whatever you want or claim to believe.
A guy like Avlon that doesn’t know that an incumbent ran in 1992 should have zero credibility.
However, it’s shocking that you would lump Lincoln Chaffee in with the likes of Lieberman etal. On all the biggies such as the IWR, Chaffee voted with the ‘mo betta Democrats in the Senate and not with all the other neo-cons, neo-liberals and neo-facists.
That is definitely a major brain-fart on his part. Hugely embarrassing.