Monday, December 09, 2002

 
Become United, Save the Courts

Two of my favorite pundits in the blogsphere (Kos and Matthew Yglesias) recently suggested a couple of political strategies. Let's take a look.

To get right to the point and with all due respect, I thought that these particular ideas simply missed the fine points (i.e. they could stand as icons for the current progressive political strategies in America.)

Matthew Yglesias suggests that moderate republicans would do well to disband from the GOP and start their own regional party, one more reflective of their moderate values.

"I do wonder, though, what keeps northern moderates like Collins, Snowe, Chafee, Pataki, Giuliani, Romney, etc. in the southern-fried GOP. I can see why they don't want to cross the aisle and become Democrats, but why not just, well, pull a Strom Thurmond and start a regional party that would compete in the Northeast. It would hardly be worth it for the GOP to mount candidates against them, and America's single-member constituencies are ideal for this sort of regionalist appeal. Of course, anyone joining such a party would never get elected President, but none of these people are ever going to get elected president anyway. And they'd hold the balance-of-power in the House and Senate and be able to steer a course between both the Confederate nostalgia of the Republicans and the union-backed governmentophilia of the Democrats. I'd still (usually) vote for the Democratic candidate against my hypothetical third party, but politics would be more interesting and I think this strategy would definitely serve the interests of GOP moderates better than their current plan."

Later in his post he notes that such an opportunity would also exist for southern Democrats but that it would not be in their best interest to separate from the national party since African-Americans are such a power in their core constituency and are also beneficiaries of the national Democrat's agenda. So, I can only assume that if African-Americans were not a large part of southern Democrat's voting base, then he would encourage them to splinter form the national party.

On its face, this reasoning seems both logical and prevalent within the progressive community, "If you have a different agenda, form a different party." What this reasoning seems to miss (or avoid) is that we live in a nation with a 2-party political system. It has been that way for most of its history and will probably remain that way for some time to come. If Collins, Snowe, Chafee, Pataki, Giuliani, Romney, etc decide to create a regional party of their own, they will be ensuring several things, 1) Republicans will always lose, 2) Their new "Moderate Conservative" party will always lose, 3) Democrats will always win. True the "Moderate Conservative" party will draw over some moderate progressives but in general the two conservative parties will be competing for the same votes. The story is the same with every 3rd party run, Greens suck voters from Democrats and Libertarians suck votes from Republicans. (Note that Greens suck millions more votes from Democrats than Libertarians suck from republicans).

The idea of a moderate conservative party is not a new one. It exists even today as a shell of what it used to be. It's called the "Reform Party". Indeed, the "Jesse Ventura" Reform Party was theoretically centrist (socially liberal, fiscally conservative) but the fact of the matter is that the party leaned conservative. The "Ross Perot" Reform Party was far more conservative and drained many more republican votes than democratic votes. This conservatism was highlighted with the Pat Buchanan nomination for President in 2000 that ultimately put the party's viability at zero. Wisely, most viable political candidates avoided an alliance with this splinter group, thus the nomination of Buchanan.

The Bottom Line: What republicans seem to recognize better than progressives is that it is necessary more often than not to sacrifice some details of your ideology in order to promote your overall personal agenda. You know. Forest and trees type of stuff. This is illustrated with great clarity in the republican's "loyalty statistics" (e.g. Whenever polls are taken about voters preferences for a given set of candidates, the result is invariably something like this: republican candidate receives support from 87% of republicans and 22% of Democrats while the Democratic candidate receives support from 71% of Democrats and 4% of republicans with the rest undecided. In any case, republican voters are far more reliable sources for the republican vote than Democratic voters are for the Democratic vote.) An interesting benefit to party loyalty is that, if a candidate can rely on his or her party's core vote, perhaps s/he wouldn't feel that s/he has to present such a centrist position in order to draw in the republican moderates (who will inevitably vote for the republican candidate anyway.) Only then could they push a truly progressive agenda.

Of course we all have distinct personal agendas infallibly differing in some respects from our political party of choice. So why do we vote for that party even if we disagree on some very important issues? Answer: Because we know that such a candidate would bring us closer to our goals than would the other candidate. Although it sometimes feels like we're selling-out our principles by voting for a candidate that we might think is too tied to corporate interests or too supportive of Bush or pro-war or pro-gun, etc., we still have to unite and understand the political machinations of the U.S. In this country we need majorities in the House, Senate, governorships and courts if for no other reason than to counter the agenda of the opposition. Some say it's choosing the lesser of two evils and that's okay as long as they realize that the lesser of two evils will do more for them than will an "ideal" candidate with absolutely zero chance of being elected. (Read: Ralph Nader).

Strategy: Unite. Make ideological sacrifices in order to promote a wider progressive national agenda. Choose the best candidate that has a genuine chance at taking the elected position at stake. Any other vote or non-vote can only be against your best interest. Republicans know this. They live it and it works. Idealism is necessary for a positive vision of the future and, as a political strategy, works very well in fairy tales. We, however, live in a practical world that needs practical actions to bring about practical results.

Meanwhile from the pages of "DailyKos", we find this one in reference to an imminent announcement by Tom Daschle (FYI: The announcement turned out to be the naming of John Corzine as head the 2004 Democratic Senate campaign effort):

"I REALLY hope it's not the defections of one or two Republican Senators. I don't want Bush and Republicans to rant about a "stolen" Senate again and use the Senate as a foil for their own failures. Ideally, everyone stays put while Chaffee, Collins, Spectre, McCain, etc., vote with the Democrats to stop some of Bush's more heinous acts."

First, let's get one thing straight. Regardless of the circumstances, republicans will attempt to use the Democrats as a foil for their own failures…but admittedly, such a move would give the GOP an easy target. With that said, on a personal level, I couldn't agree more with Kos. From a political perspective, I couldn't disagree more…primarily because I have little confidence that any republicans will stand in the way of Bush's judicial nominees while they are still using the "republican" moniker. When it comes to ANWR or working with the UN or women's rights, etc. They will certainly (I hope) vote for what they believe in. When it comes to judicial nominations (including perhaps as many as two Supreme Court vacancies) no republican will vote Nay. In the long term, I perceive this risk to be one of the greatest threats to the freedoms that we enjoy (at least Pre-bush) as Americans. Defections are welcome.

Without the judicial issue, I agree with Kos. Indeed, I am hoping that the republicans overreach and seriously put off the American public as Newt Gingrich did in the mid-nineties. If a couple of republicans "save" the Democrats then the Senate will be the whipping boy/scapegoat for the administrations' failed policies (Read: Obstructionists). If all branches of government remain republican (God help us all) then all problems are their problems for which to take responsibility and our problems for which to suffer.

Summary: 1) Become United as progressives in support of our "Best Hope" candidate and 2) Pray for anything you can think of that will shut-down Bush's extreme judicial nominees.

posted by Thomas Ball 8:10 AM