Our Political Parties - V

Declining to State

You must pick one or the other although neither of them ought to be what they claim. –Bob Dylan.

I’ve scarcely mentioned one the biggest political blocs of all, the self-styled independents. They don’t rate an initial capital letter because they do not exist as a political party. They are defined by what they are not.

In my state, people who don’t choose a party when they register to vote are referred to as “Declined to State.” It makes them sound like they’re trying to hide something. I think “Unaffiliated” is a kinder moniker, and a more precise term.

Whatever you call them, unaffiliated voters are a big percentage of registered voters, about 30%. The biggest group of all, of course, is composed of those who don’t vote or don’t even register. At least the independents participate in the process.

In presidential election years, usually a little over half of the voting-age population actually makes it to the polls. Some years it will break the 60% barrier. In off-year elections, it’s usually less than 40%. (See http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html for statistics from the years 1960-2008.)

The breakdown of Republicans, Democrats, and independents is roughly one-sixth of the eligible population each. Every year a few members of each of the two major parties choose to vote for the opposition candidate, but most of them stick with their own parties. That means that the independents are actually deciding general elections. The problem is that they have no voice in primary elections.

In order to win, a candidate from either party has to keep his party’s voters motivated and convince a majority of the independents that he is the best choice. Many good candidates who could put such a coalition together never get the chance, because the views of party members don’t always match those of independent voters. The result is a complicated dance to attract party members during the primary season without alienating independent voters who will be needed the following November.

I can understand why many people choose not to participate at the party level. They may see the parties as unnecessarily partisan and vociferous, but ironically they help make them that way by not getting involved and diluting the venom. Others simply find politics uninteresting. I can understand that. I feel the same way about sports, and ballet, and whatever the heck Lindsay Lohan does besides get in trouble. I can’t tell you who won the last World Series, or what teams are still in the running for the Super Bowl, but I can give you a pretty accurate list of the U.S. senators whose seats will be up for election next time, and which ones are likely not to run. Different strokes for different folks.

Some say we should have more than two parties, but no one seems to be able to put a viable third party together. Ross Perot came close, as did George Wallace before him, but there never seems to be a critical mass. Even if someone did succeed in creating a viable third party, I’d bet that it would soon replace one of the existing parties rather than compete with them both.

So I expect independents to remain a major force in our government for the foreseeable future, and I think that’s a good thing. A candidate from either party who sticks too closely to that party’s core message won’t make it. The party faithful may not support compromise, but their candidate has to. Independents haven’t found it desirable or comfortable to register in either party, so neither party line will attract their votes. The large number of independents requires candidates, especially presidential candidates, to espouse a less partisan approach and speak to the issues that concern the unaffiliated at the moment.

Two days after he barely won the 2004 election, George Bush, Jr. said, “I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.” Just after the 2010 election, the new house speaker-apparent, John Boehner, said, “The American people spoke and I think it’s pretty clear the Obama-Pelosi agenda is being rejected by the American people.”

Well, Mr. Speaker, maybe that sentiment will work better for you than it did for Mr. Bush, but I doubt it. “The American People” in this case were a motivated Republican base and a majority of the independents who chose to vote this time around. If there was a mandate, it was for more jobs and a better economy. It remains to be seen if the tactics of the GOP in the House will bring those things about to the satisfaction of the independents who supported its candidates, or if they will decide to do so again in 2012.

Even the biggest landslides in recent history represent the votes of only 25% to 30% of eligible voters, and in no case was the winning party able to duplicate its success two years later.

Those of us who have chosen to be Democrats should remember that if we win next time around and avoid saying that it’s pretty clear the Boehner-McConnell agenda is being rejected by the American people.

Our Political Parties - IV

Ethical Cleansing

I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat. –Will Rogers, 1879-1935.

In my experience, the Democratic Party is like a bus. Those who get on first every four years get to drive, but they have to pay for the gas, too. If they don’t, someone else takes over and the rest of us are happy to be along for the ride. Sometimes we get as far as Washington.

Traditionally, the Democratic Party is the party of Labor, of the common people. Common people may be common, but they’re incredibly diverse, and you will definitely find all kinds of people at a Democratic meeting or rally or barbecue.

A simplistic view of the difference between Democrats and Republicans is that the former are fighting for something and the latter against something. Consequently, the words “liberal” and “conservative” have some validity in describing them. When they’re at their best, the Democrats are working for their vision of fairness and equity, strengthening the middle class, and reducing poverty. At their best Republicans are working for their vision of fairness and equity, protecting the upper class, and keeping Democrats from going overboard in their efforts.

Years ago my brother-in-law signed up to run for country commissioner in our little county on the Republican ticket. If he had signed up as a Democrat, we would have welcomed him with open arms along with anyone else willing to run for the seat. But he chose the GOP, and he didn’t consult with the county chairman or the other powers-that-were at the time. They had already chosen someone else to run for the position and they were not happy with this impertinent upstart.

Despite their best efforts, he won the primary. In retaliation, those powers-that-were redoubled their opposition in the general election. This time, they won. They got his Democratic opponent elected, and considered it a victory.

I have always considered that incident indicative of the differences between the two major parties. It’s one reason I’m a Democrat. When we’re at our best, we encourage participation from all sorts of people and we make rules, sometimes ridiculously complex rules, that give everybody a voice in the process.

In recent years the Republican Party, at least those members led by Limbaugh and his clones and the Tea Party, has been “purifying” itself to make sure everybody in the party who holds office or speaks out toes the party line. Everyone has to be for tax cuts for the rich and famous, prayer in school, capital punishment, and automatic weapon ownership, and against abortion, immigration, health care for the poor, wardrobe malfunctions, and so on.

This purification is sowing the seeds of the party’s demise. My greatest fear is that the Democrats will follow suit.

In the last primary election, MoveOn.org spent a lot of money trying to defeat Blanche Lincoln, the Democratic senator from Arkansas, because not all of her votes fit in with MoveOn’s version of the party line. (She opposed the “public option” for health care.) Sen. Lincoln had a hard fight without such assistance because it was a Republican year and because Arkansas is not a safe Democratic state. She managed to limp through the primary and a subsequent run-off to get the nomination, but was defeated soundly in the general election by Republican John Boozman.

I don’t think Lincoln had a chance this year, but I think MoveOn’s efforts were against the party’s long-term interest. We Democrats need to be inclusive, or we’ll end up pure – and irrelevant. Such “ethical cleansing” on the GOP side will drive people out of the party, and many of them will end up as Democrats – unless the Democrats do the same thing. Then they’ll end up as independents poxing both our houses.

Instead of trying to purge our party, let’s build it up. There’s one constituency of the Republican Party that has been disgruntled in recent years: the fiscal conservatives. Our party has a better record in that regard than the GOP, at least since the Bush, Jr. years. If we take up that mantle, and make it clear that we are for social justice within a financially sound system, some of those disaffected people can feel comfortable on our side of the aisle.

One of the things I find most annoying about the GOP, especially in Congress, is its lockstep mentality. Trying to get Democrats to sing in unison is like herding cats (or as author Ari Berman put it in the title of his recent book, Herding Donkeys). I like that. I’d sure like to see a few more Republican legislators crossing the aisle when they recognize that a pending bill is a good one. But their party tends to be very retributive when this occurs. Consider the fate of Sen. Arlen Specter: a Republican Party that doesn’t have room for Arlen Specter is a Republican Party in trouble.

Capitalists, conservatives, corporations, and the cautious deserve a voice. I think a healthy Republican Party is good for the Democratic Party. Despite its recent gains in Congress and across the country, I don’t think the Republican Party is really that healthy, and I don’t think that’s good for my party either. We are forced to respond to the loud but largely irrelevant tirades of the GOP’s lunatic fringe, and it dumbs down the discussion.

We have very pressing problems in this country, and it will take rational compromise from both sides to solve them. The longer we delay the worse they get.