Electoral Reform Project Third Party Potential Diaries

From dKosopedia

Third Parties: Why Democrats need them and How to Make them Viable.

There is a large, articulate, politically aware and potentially volatile population in America called left-wing and progressive. How large is not well known, but large enough to be feared by the Democratic party during close elections as evidenced by the ferocity of the attacks on the candidacy of Ralph Nader. The huge expenditure of time, effort and money that went into the combating Nader also generated a significant amount of hostility and resentment among potential allies.

There is a strategy that the Democratic Party could have pursued vis-à-vis Nader that would have led to a possible win-win solution of the “Nader problem”. Electoral reforms, at state levels, of Instant Runoff Voting, either cascading or pair-wise (IRV-C and IRV-P) could have been part of the rhetoric of their attack on Nader. If they had said upfront that they had to fight Nader because of the lack of those reforms it would have laid the groundwork for future tactical coalitions.

The Democratic Party is a party being constantly pulled in two opposite directions. On the one hand (right) they need to appeal to the voters to the right of the party, the so-called “centrists” in order to win elections, while on the other hand (left) they need to appeal to the voters on the left of the party in order to keep them from defecting into the non-voter roles. This schizophrenic dance results in efforts that work poorly for both sides.

If the party could cut loose its troublesome left wing it could successfully pursue its “centrist” goals of ruling partyship. With electoral reform it could “halve its cake and eat it too.” As its left-wing is spun off into various flavors of “third parties”, each choosing as their second choice the Democratic Party, the Democrats could concentrate its own rhetoric at attracting the “centrists” it feels it needs to be the governing party. Or it would discover that “centrists” have been attracted into various third parties and it will know by their relative sizes how to tailor its messages.

That’s why Democrats need third parties. But third parties already exist and many people support their efforts whether or not the Democrats help them. We/they want these parties to succeed. The problem for believers in third parties is that the current electoral systems doom third parties to eternal failure. Certainly failure as measured by significant success in electing their members to office holding positions. That third parties can have a real impact on the issues that rise to public consciousness is not to be denied. But without success as measured by elected officials these parties will be constantly loosing converts to the “real” politics of the major parties.

There is only one way to make third parties viable and that is with electoral reforms. Electoral reforms will not happen without some support from the major parties. The major parties will not support electoral reform unless they can see what’s in it for them. The Democratic Party can be shown that for them there are two reasons to support electoral reform: one the Nader spoiler problem and two freedom from rhetorical balancing acts.

So third parties have a carrot (rhetorical freedom) and a stick (election spoiling) to use in the pursuit of electoral reform. But these tools are only as strong as the third parties themselves. The spoiler tool is especially powerful, yet as dangerous as a double edged sword as well. Used unconsciously by Nader and the Greens in 2000, it came back to destroy the Green Party in 2004. You cannot threaten to use a gun unless you are prepared to use it. If your third party is not large enough to withstand the recoil, the results of using such a weapon can be disastrous.

Since all third parties are doomed without electoral reform, what must they do to achieve that goal?

Firstly they must quit beating around the bush and be upfront with their membership about their own doomedness. They must spell out constantly to their members that they are going nowhere without electoral reforms and that that must be goal number one of all their efforts.

Secondly they must participate in tactical alliances with all other third parties with the tactical goal being electoral reform. By participating in these alliances they have a chance of becoming big enough to survive the use of the tool of spoiling and large enough to be believable with the tool of rhetoricing.

To these ends I propose that the two largest third parties in the U.S. today, the Libertarians and the Greens enter into such an alliance. They should agree to abandon their respective party names and form a new national party called the Electoral Reform Party. They should invite all other third parties to join their combined efforts.

The hardest work third parties must do is attain and maintain ballot status. By combining the duplicated efforts into one effort that work will be greatly lessened. Where (or if possible) they could simply change the name of one of their existing parties to the new Electoral Reform Party.

Once established, the Electoral Reform Party would choose whom to run in local elections at its state conventions or in its primaries. Depending on which branch of the party was strongest in a given locale, that branch would run its candidate in the general election. Wherever possible the primaries or conventions would be run using IRV-P. This would tend to favor candidates who could appeal broadly to the diverse membership rather than the narrower purists from either branch of the party. In any case this is a temporary tactical situation and who is being run is less important than the stated party goal of electoral reform.

To sum up, then, the goal of the Third Party Project here at dKos is electoral reform, because that is the only long-term realistic goal for any third party. Our strategy is to use the tools of threatening to spoil elections and offering a home for hard-core idealists to convince the major parties to work with us in our electoral reform goals. We intend to urge existing third parties to form tactical alliances under the umbrella Electoral Reform Party.

For those interested in these plans come on over to the Third Party Project think tank project in the dKosopedia, and give us support.

wegerje 08:52, 17 Oct 2004 (PDT)

The "Life of Brian" problem

There's a great bit in Monty Python's "Life of Brian" which is so apropos to our situation. Brian has just offered to join the "People's Front of Judea" in opposition to the Romans:

• Reg: Listen. If you really wanted to join the PFJ, you'd have to really hate the Romans.
• Brian: I do.
• Reg: Oh yeah? How much?
• Brian: A lot!
• Reg: Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the f**&ing Judean People's Front.
• PFJ: Yeah
• Judith: Splitters.
• Francis And the Judean Popular Peoples Front.
• PFJ: Oh yeah. Splitters.
• Loretta: And the peoples Front of Judea.
• PFJ: Splitters.
• Reg: What?
• Loretta: The Peoples front of Judea. Splitters.
• Reg: We're the Peoples front of Judea.
• Loretta: Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.
• Reg: Peoples Front.
• Francis: Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?
• Reg: He's over there.
• --------[A single old man sits on a lower seat.]
• PFJ: [To the old man.] SPLITTER!

It's going to be an uphill battle to get everyone singing from the same page. Celebrating and respecting diversity is a morally just core value for the Democrats, but it's a double-edged sword from a political perspective. It expands the potential constituancy for the party, but herding all of the cats into the tent is a huge problem.

Electoral reform is an issue that can unite a lot of voters, and can even be a wedge issue for Republicans, cleaving the Christian Coalition from the Forbes-style Republicans.

-- RobLa 11:57, 6 Nov 2004 (PST) (also posted as comment)