(A great read and a nice historical perspective. I would note that if adherence to intra-party democracy was as willfully denied to any rightful Democratic Party nominee as it was to Roosevelt, then my opinion of the person engaging in a third-party campaign would change dramatically. Flaunting intra-party democracy by, say, a Democrat endorsing Joe Lieberman after Ned Lamont defeated him in the primary, is sufficient grounds to deny anyone rights within the coalition. The coalition only works if we abide by intra-party democracy, as I have argued before. So, I generally agree with Nonpartisan that there are circumstances where a third-party run is the only means to achieve intra-party democracy. However, those instances are rare and extreme, and do not apply to Sheehan. She did not win a primary against Nancy Pelosi, and then have her rightful place as the Democratic nominee in the district subverted by party elders. Anyway, it is hard to imagine she would ever win a Democratic primary, or that she ever even really considered herself a Democrat, after expressing views such as those in her announcement diary at Dailykos.
- promoted by Chris Bowers)
[Cross-posted at ProgressiveHistorians.]
Discussing Cindy Sheehan's likely Independent run for Congress against Nancy Pelosi, Chris Bowers wrote this:
The fact is, that if you leave the Democratic Party, it clearly signals that you do not want to work with the people within the Democratic Party anymore. It means you don't care about building coalitions. It means you can't stomach dissent in the party. It means you would rather be pure than build a coalition that would actually pass the sort of public policy you want, including impeaching Bush. The bottom line is this: if Cindy Sheehan were to run her campaign as a Democratic primary challenge to Nancy Pelosi, then her arguments might hold some weight. Personally, I would still encourage people to vote for Nancy Pelosi, but I wouldn't begrudge others who planned to act differently. I think primary challenges are a good thing, a way we can have discussions within our coalition, and a way to pressure fellow Democrats to adopt more of your positions. ...
Unfortunately, it appears that Cindy Sheehan adheres to the concept of intra-party democracy about as much as Joe Lieberman. That is her decision, and her embrace of irrelevance and self-defeating means of achieving power is her own.
Under most circumstances, I would agree with Chris that a third-party candidacy is anathema to attempts to work within the intra-party Democratic coalition. In fact, I would agree with him entirely, were I not familiar with a historical instance where a third-party run played the function of intra-party democracy: the Presidential election of 1912. |
 It is, from the standpoint of our country, wicked as well as foolish longer to refuse to face the real issues of the day. Only by so facing them can we go forward; and to do this we must break up the old party organizations and obliterate the old cleavage lines on the dead issues inherited from fifty years ago. Our fight is a fundamental fight against both of the old corrupt party machines, for both are under the dominion of the plunder league of the professional politicians who are controlled and sustained by the great beneficiaries of privilege and reaction.
-- Theodore Roosevelt, August 6, 1912
In 1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt did something no American had ever done: mounted a concerted campaign for a third term as President. (Ulysses S. Grant had wanted a third term, but never actively campaigned for it.) Roosevelt was dismayed at the policies of his hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft, whom he felt was too conservative and pro-business (in fact, it was Roosevelt who had radicalized in the intervening years), and this, coupled with Roosevelt's own boundless ambition and his exceedingly high popularity, convinced him to have another go at the Presidency.
In a barnburner of a campaign, Roosevelt criss-crossed the country on a neverending speaking tour, followed closely by Taft and Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin. Roosevelt's goal was to win so many of the thirteen state primaries that the stunned bosses in the other states would abandon Taft and support him instead at the convention. This Roosevelt did, winning over 80% of all convention delegates awarded by the primary system. However, this advantage did not prove to be enough for Roosevelt; he was unable to win an outright majority of delegates, while Taft still controlled a large bloc of boss-selected delegates. Some states had sent dual slates of delegates, one for Taft, the other for Roosevelt; Taft succeeded in installing one of his supporters, Elihu Root, as chair of the convention, and Root then proceeded to determine nearly all the disputed delegate slates in favor of Taft, giving him an outright majority on the first ballot.
It was then that Roosevelt made his fateful decision. Crying foul at the exclusion of so many of his delegates from the convention, he summoned several hundred of his supporters and marched out of the Republican Party convention. It was the largest convention walkout between the 1860 Democratic Party split over slavery and the 1948 Dixiecrat rebellion against Truman. Roosevelt then set up his own third party convention, the Progressive Party convention, in opposition to the Republican slate.
John Milton Cooper, in The Warrior and the Priest, absolutely the best book out there on the 1912 campaign, has written of Roosevelt's desire to "shed" the Republican party, and with it its more conservative elements, like a worn-out husk. Roosevelt had been a Republican his entire life, and had sided with party regulars over reformist independents time and time again, most notably in 1884 when he opposed the Mugwumps and voted for the odious James G. Blaine for President over Democrat Grover Cleveland. In 1912, he viewed his campaign as essentially Republican in nature; his goal was to take so much of the Republican Party with him that, after he won, the Progressive Party would be the Republican Party under another name and without the elements of the old party that he disliked.
As crazy as Roosevelt's plan sounds, he had actually had a pretty fair calculation of his chances to achieve it -- especially since the likely Democratic Presidential nominee, who was not chosen until after Roosevelt walked out of the Republican convention, was Speaker of the House Champ Clark, a boring party regular who was not good at public speaking. Up against two wooden puppets, Roosevelt reasoned, he would be able to prevail in the contest on engaged personality alone. Unfortunately for Roosevelt, the Democrats nominated not Clark but Woodrow Wilson, who was nearly as progressive as Roosevelt and nearly as good a public speaker. An inwardly-crushed Roosevelt knew he didn't have a chance after that action, though he managed to make things interesting by delivering a complete speech three weeks before the election with a would-be assassin's bullet lodged near his heart -- surely the most dramatic political stunt in the history of Presidential politics. In the end, Roosevelt came in second in both electoral and popular votes, but Wilson bested him convincingly in both categories, taking 40% of the popular vote to Roosevelt's 27% and Taft's 23%.
Now, there are a lot of differences between Cindy Sheehan's and Theodore Roosevelt's independent candidacies. Sheehan is a major figure in the progressive movement, but she has nowhere near the iconic stature of Roosevelt, who was easily the most popular living political figure in America in 1912. Perhaps more importantly, Roosevelt wasn't running completely on his own. Several prominent senators, including Albert J. Beveridge, walked out of the Republican convention with him and became Progressives themselves (nearly all of them lost reelection as a result). In addition, Roosevelt had the support of a powerful and already-established Progressive Party machine in California under the charismatic leadership of Governor Hiram Johnson (Roosevelt's VP nominee in 1912), and a related bloc in Wisconsin under La Follette, who hated Roosevelt personally but could be expected to caucus with him if Roosevelt attained the Presidency. The equivalent today would be if Al Gore ran for President as an Independent and gained the endorsements of Russ Feingold and Deval Patrick and the tacit support of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Despite these vast differences, Cindy Sheehan has the potential to effect a similar change to the one Roosevelt tried to accomplish, though on a smaller scale. The kicker here is the fact that Cindy is running in a district that is pretty much divided between Democrats and Greens, and where third-party candidates like Matt Gonzalez, who was almost elected San Francisco Mayor several years ago, stand a real chance in what is otherwise essentially a one-party town. Cindy's chance of beating Pelosi is extremely remote, and she doesn't appear to have any interest in resurrecting the Democratic Party under another name, if her comments at Daily Kos are any indication. Nevertheless, the end result of a Sheehan victory would be exactly what Roosevelt hoped to achieve with a 1912 win. By defeating the Speaker of the House, Cindy would make Democratic officeholders as a whole more fearful of losing their seats to popular pacifist activists, which would lead them to take a more active role in opposing Republican policies in general. Basically, Cindy would have the same impact that Ned Lamont did by beating Joe Lieberman in his primary race in 2006 -- realign the entire Democratic Party slightly to the left.
I don't support Cindy Sheehan's candidacy for Congress, and I don't appreciate the comments she made on Daily Kos about the Democratic Party. But I also don't think her run for office will seriously damage the Democratic Party in any way. On the contrary, it stands a chance of causing a substantial leftward realignment of the party in general and of its officeholders in particular -- just as Theodore Roosevelt's 1912 campaign for President stood a chance of doing the same to his Republican Party. |
