A version of this post went out to OpenLeft e-mail action list members in New York State and Connecticut. If you're not on the OpenLeft action list, you can sign up here.
Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars
There's been a lot of talk in various progressive circles about sending Democrats a message, either through voting or staying home. But messages need to have a clear signal in order to communicate with politicians. So, what if you could support Democrats tomorrow, but send a message at the same time? It's the best of both worlds.
In my home state of New York, and in Connecticut, you can- and I want to tell you how.
In New York and Connecticut, third parties are different, because they can endorse candidates also running as Democrats or Republicans (a unique kind of system called electoral fusion which enables candidates to run on multiple ballot "lines". For over a decade, the Working Families Party has used this power to endorse the most progressive major-party candidates running for office and make sure they win -- without spoiling elections Nader-style.
It's a strategy that works. The Working Families Party has raised New York's minimum wage, passed living wage laws, fought hard against transit fare hikes, pushed for a moratorium on unsafe natural gas drilling, and helped elect real progressives in every corner of the state. Tomorrow, you can vote, and send a message, by voting on the Working Families Party line.
I grew up in suburban Buffalo and went to college in Rochester. Since I turned 18, I've been voting Working Families Party every election I could. And I'm not alone- over 155,000 people voted for Spitzer on the Working Families Party ballot line in the 2006 gubernatorial election, and nearly 160,000 for Obama in 2008, as well as for other elected officials up and down the ballot, from Rep. Louise Slaughter to NYC City Councilmembers. Votes on the Working Families line count the same as Democratic votes for these candidates, but they lend a more powerful message: that you want Democrats to fight - really fight - for progressive values.
Matt Damon explains it all:
At a time when many people feel like Democrats in New York State or nationally haven't done much, the WFP has done more for ordinary New Yorkers. That's because they focus on issues, not personalities. Living wage jobs. A fair tax system. Better and affordable mass transit. Fair treatment for the elderly. LGBT rights. Investment in education. It's a common-sense progressive party, with a strategy that lets progressive New Yorkers hold their politicians accountable. When an elected official gets into office, he or she can see how many of those votes came from people trying to send him a message that they want him/her to be a progressive- and act accordingly while in office.
On November 2, thousands of progressive New Yorkers will be voting for Andrew Cuomo, Eric Schneiderman, and the rest of the Democratic ticket on the Working Families ballot line - Row E. In Connecticut, Dan Malloy, Richard Blumenthal, and others will also appear on the Working Families line. Here's hoping you'll join us- and spread the word.
A slow news day has me thinking meta. Specifically, it has me thinking about how far I have drifted in my politics over the past decade, becoming disillusioned with the radical, agitating left, and growing much more willing to engage politics from the mainstream and institutional inside.
It may be the worst-kept secret in American politics today, and it's apparently about to become a reality. Reliable sources informed me today that embattled Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, whose early lead in his US Senate Republican primary race against former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio has essentially reversed itself in the polls, is preparing to announce sooner rather than later that he will leave the GOP and continue his run for Senate as an independent. Sources add that the speech Crist will use in his announcement is now being drafted.
This isn't a surprise, as Crist had been openly considering this possibility lately.
It also makes sense. Crist trailed Marco Rubio by 25.5% in the Republican primary for Senate:
However, in a three-way general election, he only trailed by 7%:
Florida Senate, three-way general election, 60-day polling average Rubio (R): 34.5%
Crist (I): 27.5%
Meek (D): 25.3%
With the vote split three-ways, and $7.56M cash on hand (compared to $3.91M for Rubio and $3.37M for Meek), Crist actually has a chance in the Florida Senate campaign. He had no chance in the Republican primary, so this was an obvious, unsurprising, and necessary move.
At least according to current polling, this move does not actually help Democrat Kenrick Meek much. In a two way campaign against Marco Rubio, Meek only trailed by 6.0%, less than the 9.2% he trails by in the three-way matchup:
Florida Senate, Rubio vs. Meek general election, 60-day polling average Rubio: 43.8%
Meek: 37.8%
So, this is actually a set back for Meek, at least right now. He is facing a larger deficit, and much more money, in the general election than he would have against Rubio. Then again, reaching 40% is a much more doable task for Meek in this state than reaching 50%+1 would have been.
Meanwhile, in a separate inquiry, the IRS is also looking at the tax records of at least three former party credit card holders - former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, ex-state party chairman Jim Greer and ex-party executive director Delmar Johnson - to determine whether they misused their party credit cards for personal expenses, according to a source familiar with the preliminary inquiry.
Even though Rasmussen will inevitably release a poll later this week showing Rubio with a commanding lead in the three-way general election, at this point it looks like all bets should be off in this campaign. Any of the three have a chance to win at this point, and with the situation so fluid, it is too early to declare a frontrunner.
Since a televised debate last Thursday between the leaders of the three major parties in Great Britain--Gordon Brown (Labour, prime minister), David Cameron (Conservative), and Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat)--the Liberals have surged into a dead heat with the other two major parties for the first time in decades. With only 18 days until the May 6th general election, the three polls conducted entirely since the debate now show the Conservative lead to have disappeared entirely:
While not precisely analogous, since the Liberals actually have a few dozen seats in Parliament, this would be not unlike the Whigs surging back into major party-status in the United States.
Even though Labour is now in third in general election polling, the Liberal Dem surge appears to have saved.... Labour. Before the Liberal surge, the Tories (Conservatives) had been projected to win several dozen more seats than Labour. Now, however, Labour is actually projected to win more seats due to the uneven distribution of party support.
Unless Liberal support snaps back to Earth, a hung parliament, where no party has enough seats for a majority, is now the likely outcome. The most likely coalition would be between Labour and the Liberals, which Gordon Brown is openly considering.
This shift has few implications for the 2010 American elections, but might contain some for 2012.
Lacking a cult of personality a cohesive, unifying force, third parties perform terribly in congressional elections in the United States. Peak third-party performance in congressional was actually 1994, but even then they only combined for 6.1% of the national popular vote. Don't except a third-party breakthrough in congressional elections, soon, or possibly ever, in American politics.
However, in Presidential elections, a third-party surge appears quite possible. Both Democrats and Republicans are running, on average, a net negative favorability ratio right now. If the economy does not improve much, and if Sarah Palin is the Republican nominee in 2012, it is entirely possible that both Democrats and Republicans could nominate candidates with net negative favorability ratios, too. This could very well leave a huge opening for a strong third-party presidential candidate in 2012. Fourth and fifth parties might even perform well, too.
If economic problems persist over the long-term, and neither existing major party appears to be making any headway on them, it is only a matter of time before strong candidates for President begin to arise from outside the two-party system. While there will be no third-party breakthrough in American 2010, 10% remains a good over / under on collective third-party performance in the 2012 Presidential election.
Media Matters catches Lou Dobbs confirming that he is considering an independent run for the White House:
In an interview to be published in the May 2010 edition of GQ Magazine, Lou Dobbs, the nationally syndicated radio host and former long-time CNN host, confirms he is "considering" a campaign for President.
From his chat with Jeanne Marie Laskas (emphasis added):
"I never said I'm running for president," [Dobbs] says.
"You never said you aren't."
"No, I haven't. I'm not ruling anything out. I don't know what I'm going to do."
"You're running for president."
"If you say so."
"You're considering it."
"I am."
"You're talking to Debi about it?"
"I am."
"And she says?"
"I think that's off the record-"
"But she's not against it-"
"She's probably more open to considering it than she's ever been."
"Oh, my God, you're running for president."
A November poll from Democracy Corps tested both Ralph Nader and Lou Dobbs in a four-way general election matchup with Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Dobbs received 6% of the vote, and Nader 4%. those numbers for Dobbs are likely inflated, as third-party candidates tend to a better in polls than they do in terms of actual votes. For example, in 2000, Nader averaged just over 4% in final trial heat polls, but finished with just under 3% of the vote. Another good example comes from the 2009 New Jersey Governor campaign, where third-party candidate Chris Daggett polled at 10%, but finished with 6%. The equal name recognition third party candidates receive in polls does not reflect the highly unequal name recognition, and GOTV operations, they have in reality.
While it is unlcear if Dobbs could actually have an impact on the campaign by drawing 2% or more of the vote, if he did have an impact on the campaign it would likely be to the benefit of Barack Obama. Not unlike Perot, Dobbs would draw nativist support that would mainly come largely from demographics and ideological groups that lean Republican.
I'm not a big fan of post-partisan America, a notion that seems to amount to running the government through two political parties but taking care that one of them not perform in any significant way better than the other one. But I am a fan of the idea, which nobody ever seems to consider, of actually disempowering parties.
That idea has a precedent in the first dozen years or so of our republic whose Constitution never planned for party rule, although nonpartisanship would obviously have to look very different today. I suspect we could imagine ways of making party-free government work if we tried. At the moment, however, Americans' political thinking is so party-saturated, that any talk of opposing parties is met with the question "Which one?" or with the statement "Yeah, I'm for a third party too!"
Organizers say they "absolutely do not support a third party."
Well, that's that. Any hopes that Democrats will preserve their large congressional majorities in 2010 through a wave of tea party candidates who splinter conservative votes should be dashed.
Tea partiers are correctly identifying increasing their electoral power within an already powerful electoral institution--the Republican Party--as an easier path to overall power than a creating a new electoral institution altogether.
There is, without a doubt, a certain emotional satisfaction to third-parties. Whether it is the sense of rebellion, of getting back at politicians that have let you down, the feeling of breaking with a corrupt system, the promise of dramatic change, or of making an uncompromising public statements of your beliefs-siding with a third-party can feel very good. Having voted for a variety of Democrats and third-party candidates from 1992-2002, I know this from personal experience. Whatever the consequences, sometimes it feels good not to feel owned.
However, beyond the emotional, the bottom line is that third-parties have accomplished little to nothing in the way of electoral and legislative ends over the past several decades. Less than 1% of the people elected to Congress have been on third-party or independent tickets. Even the very few third-party and independent candidates who do make it to Congress caucus with the major parties and enter into their seniority systems, effectively making them no different from (usually) Democrats or (occasionally) Republicans.
Fifteen months ago, I speculated about the possibility of a strong third-party resurgence in 2012. Not a victory, mind you, but a strong performance of 10% or more.
Now, in early 2010, my prediction of a strong third-party performance in 2012 still stands, even if the specifics of my theory back in 2008 have become a bit obsolete by the tea-partiers. There are a number of factors pointing to third-party strength in 2012 (or, at the latest, 2016). Read all about it in the extended entry.
There is fertile ground for third-parties in the coming Presidential elections:
It never ceases to amaze me how much politicians bend over backward to appeal to moderate swing voters, while simultaneously attempting to appeal to third-party swing votes through insults and lies. Case in point, take the latest missive from New York Representative Peter King to conservatives considering voting for right-wing third party candidate Doug Hoffman in the NY-23 special election:
In a statement, King made the case that voting for Hoffman will only help Democrat Bill Owens win.
"Dede is the only Republican candidate in this race, and the only candidate with a proven record that Republicans can trust in Washington," King said. "A vote for either of her opponents is a vote for Nancy Pelosi and her far-left, radical agenda."
Statements like these, whether they are made by Republicans or by Democrats, are loathsome pieces of political arrogance.
It is a lie. Voting for a conservative third party is simply not the same thing as voting for a Democrat, just as voting for progressive third party is not the same as voting for a Republican. Rather, voting for a third party has the same effect on the overall outcome as not voting (except in the unlikely event that a third-party actually has a realistic chance to win, in which case voting for a third party would be exactly like voting for a third party).
No matter what happens, voting for a third party is never the same thing as voting for the opposing major party candidate, since a vote like that actually adds one to the column of the opposing major party. But I guess Democrats and Republicans alike think that people considering voting for third-parties are too stupid to grasp this fairly obvious fact, and so they just lie to those voters instead.
People considering voting for third-parties are swing voters, too. I simply don't understand why swing voters who regularly flip between Democrats and Republicans receive fawning attention from politicians, while swing voters who regularly flip between third parties and major parties are overtly insulted by those same politicians. It's true that voters who oscillate between third parties and one major party are only half as valuable as swing voters who oscillate between the two major parties, but they are still swing voters none the less.
Neither the liberal nor the conservative vote is static, and changes in those voters can cause candidates to win or lose elections. Fully one-quarter of the electorate thinks that either Democrats are too conservative or Republicans are too liberal, beliefs that can often cause them to stay home or vote third party. As such, politicians might actually try to win those voters over, instead of insulting them by grouping them in with their ideological antipodes.
Its arrogant. The implication whenever politicians send out missives like these is that the votes of ideological die-hards are the permanent, lifelong property of one political party or the other no matter what that political party does in office. Its flagrant, anti-democratic arrogance from elected officials who are effectively telling their constituents to STFU and do as they are told. Which is, of course, the opposite of democracy.
I haven't voted for a third party is quite some time, and have no plans to do so anytime soon. However, it is still disturbing to me that swing voters who oscillate between one major party and third-parties are treated with such insulting, arrogant, and downright false missives from many elected officials. Whenever I see language like this, I hope that a strong third-party vote ends up costing the major party issuing the language the election in question.
People who oscillate between the two major parties, between voting and not voting, or between voting for one major party and a third party, are all swing voters. If you want to win elections, you need all of these groups to break your way. As such, I don't see how insulting and being dismissive to any of these groups is a particularly good electoral strategy, or particularly good for democracy. Big donors and the mushy, uninformed middle should not be the only groups of voters to whom elected officials are accountable.
This entry builds on what Something the Dog Said and rossl wrote in their own entries. Before I get to the meat of my own text, I just want to summarize what each of the previous entries state. Starting any political party, or building an existing one, is going to be a lot of hard work and progressives are going to face an uphill battle regardless of what we do. If we're going to break away from the Democrats, however, it's worth the effort; there are parties such as the Progressives (currently in Vermont and Washington) and the Greens, among others, that have made substantial progress at local and state levels.
That's the short version of what Something's and rossl's entries have to say. I highly recommend reading them both in full. Now, on to my own contribution to this subject. Because I want to provide a real-world context to the topic at hand, I'm going to pick an existing political party (The Progressives), though feel free to substitute your own. I'm going to lay out some first steps that can be taken to get the ball rolling.
One more thing before I begin: know WHY you are forming a new political party, know what your goals are, and have realistic expectations about what you hope to accomplish. Don't hold any illusions. Unless either the Democrats or the Republicans implode, chances are you're not going to replace one of them on the national stage. At most, and if you do things right, you'll force the Democrats to shift back to the left. That's it. If a new political party does rise to prominence, great, but that is only icing on the proverbial cake. All you'll want to do is force one of the major parties to experience an ideological shift to the political left. Expect at least a generation to pass before you get this result. It was twenty years between the 1912 election, when Theodore Roosevelt led the Progressive Party and split the presidential election three ways (thus handing it to Democrat Woodrow Wilson) and that of 1932 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the New Dealers to power. It was another generation before the Republicans built their party back up to the point where they could begin taking back political power in government. Finally, don't let the progressive movement become subservient to your party - make the party subservient to the progressive movement. David Sirota explains why far better than I can, so I'll let his words do it.
President Obama's approval ratings are, as was probably inevitable in this type of economic climate, declining. The Democratic advantage in the generic congressional ballot is eroding (I see no reason to exclude Rasmussen from that average). Job ratings for congressional Democrats are also going down. Fewer Americans are self-identifying as Democrats, too.
At the same time, Republicans are not showing an increase in support. Fewer Americans are also self-identifying as Republicans, and the GOP has made up no ground in partisan self-identification. Republicans have not increased their numbers in the generic congressional ballot, even though they are closer to Democrats than before. The Republican Party is viewed as, or more, unfavorably than it was in late 2008. Further, congressional Republicans have not seen any increase in their job approval during 2009.
Overall, what we are seeing so far is not a shift toward Republicans from Democrats, but rather an increase in the number of people who dislike both parties and have become "undecided" as a result. As such, if 2010 was a presidential election year, I would say this environment was ripe for a Perot-style, third-party challenge to once again break into the double-digits of popular support. The best bet for such a challenge would be an anti-Wall Street General, given the extremely low popularity of Wall Street and the high favorability maintained by the military.
For such a challenge to reach 15%-20% national support, the American exceptionalist, Perot line of anti-trade, anti-immigrant, anti-war, and now, in our own era, pro-coal is probably the best bet. It wouldn't win, but it would temporarily shake a lot of voters loose. Such voters would mainly come from the Republican coalition.
However, 2010 is not a presidential election. As such, given the consistently poor performance of third-parties in congressional elections, it is highly unlikely that increasing dissatisfaction with both parties will lead to a third-party breakthrough in the midterms. Here are the national popular vote totals for all third parties, combined, in House elections since 1978 (more in the extended entry):
After reading through a number of diaries complaining about Democrats, I felt compelled to write this. Most of us - the sane, honest ones anyway - seem to agree that the problem now isn't the far-right Republican Party, but the equally far-right Democratic Party.* What we don't seem to agree on is what to do about it.
The general point of argument amongst progressives and liberals is whether to leave the Democrats to organize around a third (or fourth or fifth) political party, or to stay the course and try to reform the party from within. I hold that after roughly three decades watching Republicans so put off by their party's ideological excesses join and usurp the Democratic Party for their own warped interests, with cycle after cycle further weakening what passes for the progressive movement in America, we have to accept that we cannot continue trying the one-pronged approach of working from within the belly of the beast. We're being digested, and after that there really is only one outcome.
It is long past time for us to organize around a truly progressive political party. Understand that this is not something we should do lightly. Those of us who make the split do so knowing full well how difficult it will be to form a viable third political party, and the level of venom and hate we'll receive from Democrats in retaliation, but it's got to be done.
The reason for this is that without the very real threat of electoral defeat, no politician is going to take the concerns of his constituents seriously. Look at how H. Ross Perot's candidacies for president affected the Republicans. They did not spend their time trying to suppress third party turnout directly, rather, they actively worked to (in addition to vote fraud and other voter suppression tactics) bring the wayward conservatives back into the fold. They did this by pandering to the entirety of their party, both the lunatic religious bloc and the big business folk. In short, after getting their asses handed to them in two consecutive presidential elections, the GOP got the message: don't ignore your base. Embrace it.
Beginning in 1992, Republicans began the process of winning back disaffected Republicans by focusing on local, state, and finally, national elections. They had the resources to make a huge coordinated effort, and within just two short years managed to win control of the U.S. House of representatives. As they built their power base, Republicans united the disparate factions of their party by unifying their positions on everything from religion in government to tax breaks for the wealthy, and from dismantling the New Deal and progressive Era reforms of the 20th Century to expanding imperialist policies through military supremacy.
While the enemy was doing this, the left collapsed under the weight of its own corruption and inability to come together. Divisions between the progressive wing that ushered in the Civil Rights era and the recently-formed and empowered DLC - which represents right-wing, corporate interests - combined with voter backlash to remove Democrats from power. By the time Bush and Cheney stole the 2000 election from Al Gore (with absolutely NO help from Ralph Nader, whether haters want to admit it or not), the party was really nothing more than an extension of the Republicans.
If we can all agree on the fundamentals of this brief and admittedly incomplete history of the last seventeen years, then it's pretty clear that we on the left have our work cut out for us. Given the level to which the Democratic Party has sunk in its shift to the far right, we must honestly evaluate our chances of reforming it from within. According to sources such as OpenSecrets.org, large corporations and their bundlers gave far more money to Democrats last year than they did to Republicans, correctly betting that they could buy out the supposed opposition so as to maintain the status quo. We on the left simply do not have the resources to combat that kind of money-gaming politics.
Another thing we lack is the will to embrace new methods for change. If we can't get past the barriers to shift Democrats back to the left, we have to find ways around it. That's obvious, but too many of us don't seem to want to acknowledge that our options for working from within are now zero. At this point, we can only hope to change things by leaving the right-wing Democratic party and organizing around a new one. This does not mean we should completely abandon it, giving up on any and all attempts to shift its ideology leftward. It simply means we must find an effective way to do it. We have to build a viable third party.
History has shown this method to work. During the 1912 presidential election, progressive Republican Theodore Roosevelt broke away from his party to form the Progressive Party (nicknamed the Bull Moose Party). In so doing, Roosevelt took most of the progressive wing with him, permanently shifting the ideological makeup of the GOP to the right. After causing incumbent William Howard Taft to place last in a three-way race between Roosevelt and Democrat Woodrow Wilson, many Progressives switched over to the latter candidate's party, paving the way for FDR and the New Dealers to come to power just twenty years later. That this led to a long-lasting era of relative prosperity for Americans and the eventual drive to bring civil rights to everyone cannot be in doubt, but it is significant in another way. It drastically altered the existing political structure; Democrats were more left-wing, and the formerly progressive Republicans became solidly right-wing, big business representatives. This can be done again, but not as long as we refuse to do it.
We need to form a third party, maybe a fourth as well, in order to recreate this ideological change. Currently the Progressive Party exists primarily in Vermont and Washington, possibly a few more, and from my research I have seen that it has gotten solid results at the local and state levels. Members have implemented working electoral strategies to win races Democrats no longer try to run in, gaining seats in the state legislatures. There's no reason to pass up the opportunity to rebuild the namesake political party of progressives throughout the country. We can re-open organizations and cooperate with existing ones to craft a solidly progressive, uncompromising platform, and run on it. We would have the advantage of starting from the ground up, taking and keeping control of the process and preventing the corruption that brought down the Democrats. We can also use a viable Progressive Party to build bridges with other independents to bring them on board. While we do this, we can hone our positions so that they, as Bill Maher said, are properly argued and defended.
We should be realistic in our expectations and our goals. We won't get results overnight, and a Progressive Party may or may not become a large enough political bloc to gain appreciable numbers in Congress. We should remember that our primary mission is to swing Democrats back to the left, and if it does generate an enduring presence in the halls of power where we can do the most good, that's a bonus. What we must not allow is for our principles or our determination to be compromised. That way has led to the current disasters we now find ourselves in. Let the cowards and capitulators "compromise" (read: surrender). Let the power-hungry and ambitious join up with the Republicans; it's not as though they don't already side with them on virtually every issue anyway. Let us stop making excuses for not doing what's necessary.
I'd like to hear some ideas for how we can do this. If we're all agreed that this may be our last, best strategy for taking back our government from the wealthy, there are no more excuses.
I read with some interest the mean things that Markos said about Ralph Nader, arguably the greatest journalist who has ever lived. I voted for Barack Obama but with eyes wide open. I think he'll be better and more sensible than the Republicans in power. But we really need to take a deeper look at our loyalty to the democratic party and the democratic party only if we're really serious about things like the rule of law applying to everyone or even getting out of wars that would be more honestly defined as crimes. In short: if you really want to put the fear of god into Democrats, then you need to start supporting third party candidates. This crazy idea that we just keep giving them more money no matter how horribly they treat us simply isn't beginning to fly anymore.
One potential 2012 scenario I have been considering for the past week is that his biggest threat to re-election in 2012 might come from a third-party, rather than from Republicans. This threat would be in the mold of a more populist and likeable Michael Bloomberg, or a more informed and less insane Ross Perot, rather than a minor party such as the Greens or Libertarians rising from obscurity. He would be male, white, extremely wealthy, have no real downticket support, center-right (possibly hard right-wing on economics), and fueled by corporate, big media, bi-partisan elitist, punditry disgust with Barack Obama. I term this the "billionaire king" scenario, and in the extended entry I describe how it could play out.
Gallup just released a very useful poll, one that is, in fact, my favorite poll of the year. What makes this poll different from all other polls released this year is that it is open-ended, and does not include the names of any candidates or parties in the question. Thus, this poll measures hard support for each candidate, and also provides an accurate gauge of third-party support:
We can tell from this poll that Obama leads by 7% in "hard" support. That is, among voters who seem to have made up their mind to the point where they no longer have to be prompted in their choice, Obama holds a decent advantage. Removing the 7% who indicated they won't vote, and combining the third parties / write ins together, here are the results:
In addition to Obama's strength among "solid" supporters, it looks like there will be decent third-party support this year. The combined third-party vote will probably be about 4%, but not the 7% currently projected by polls that include third-party candidates. To get the most accurate reading on third-party support, the best option for pollsters is probably to ask Obama, McCain, or "someone else," rather than listing the specific third-party candidates.
Cool stuff. Very useful and informative. I wish there were more open-ended polls like this.
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