Monday, October 23, 2006
Glenn Reynolds takes a poll
9 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Oct 23, 01:38:00 PM:
Tigerhawk,
I don't understand why you say there are no good choices. It seems to me those are the only choices. Either the GOP keeps both houses, or they keep one, or they keep none. If they don't keep a house, the Democrats get it.
What other choices were you looking for?
By 
Final Historian, at
Mon Oct 23, 04:14:00 PM:
The choice where you can teach the GOP leadership a lesson, yet not end up with a Democratic controlled Congress.
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Mon Oct 23, 04:49:00 PM:
Evidently the lesson is a vast majority of Instapundit readers are going to vote for them regardless. As long as the opposition is sufficiently fearsome, they can do whatever they want to the base.
By , at
Mon Oct 23, 06:40:00 PM:
If you're going to try to teach the Republican party a lesson by not voting for them, at least vote Libertarian. That way you can still not support the Republicans and help insure Libertarians get on the ballot. The only true way to keep political parties honest is to break out of the two party system.
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon Oct 23, 08:09:00 PM:
This country will always be dominated by a two party system due the nature of our voting process. (i.e. choice of candidates, per district, majority takes all)
There's a fine and logical (and mathematical) reasoning, but I'd prefer that you just take me at my word.
Though I do think that the time is ripe for a third party to arise and dethrone one of the big two...
By Final Historian, at
Mon Oct 23, 09:35:00 PM:
Dawnfire is correct, the First-Past-the-Post system, aka, the plurality-vote system, naturally encourages two-party voting behavior. That has long been known.
As for one of the parties being replaced, well, that has only happened once in American history, and the party in question wasn't that old to begin with. Its not impossible, of course. I have long speculated that security issues could do that do the Democrats, and Immigration might do it to the GOP. Although for the later I thought it more likely that it would merely result in a replacement of much of the elite.
By GreenmanTim, at
Tue Oct 24, 12:00:00 AM:
I wonder if readers of this blog might be able to agree on some of the building blocks of that wished for third party? One trend I have heard here is for a party that is strong on defense but more moderate on social issues. Is this one of the planks of a third party platform as you imagine it? What else?
By Final Historian, at
Tue Oct 24, 01:45:00 AM:
You make an interesting distinction in saying "moderate on social issues." What exactly does that mean?
If I would venture to guess, I would say that it means you take a more libertarian approach to social issues. This is not, however, the same as a liberal approach to social issues. One of the major mistakes made by many pundits, journalists and even some political scientists is that libertarians are socially liberal and fiscally conservative. However, that is not true. Socially liberal and socially libertarian are not the same. Libertarian social thought is that social issues are not the government's business. That is not the Liberal take, however. Liberal's push progressive social views. While in the abstract they may hold similar views on an issue-by-issue basis with liberals, libertarians don't want those views to be pushed. Liberals, however, do push those views. And there are some, like multi-culturalism, among others, that are not libertarian at all.
This illustrates why creating a viable third party, or replacement party, is no simple matter. Parties are complex organisms, they are coalitions built up over time to push a consensual view of how government should be run. Now, as organisms, they have to adapt or die, but physical principles apply here as well: inertia matters. A party may keeping going long after it has passed away. Hence, the need to not merely kill a party, but absorb it as well. This is why the Progressive Party, the Bull Moose Party, failed, but the Republican Party succeeded.
Sorry for that big block of text there, I realize now I rambled a bit.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Tue Oct 24, 02:26:00 AM:
You don't have to create a third party. You simply have to create a modern version of the old political machine--a machine of like-minded people powerful enough to give or deny the Republicans victory. Then you negotiate with the parties/candidates, remaining pragmatic enough not to drive away the base of the party you select.
In today's divided political climate, a machine that controlled only a few percentage points of the total vote could set the nation's agenda.
It's a lot easier to gather together five percent of the vote than to build up to 51 percent of the vote.
