'We Got 'im'

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Originally Posted by The One and Only...

Because several smaller parties hold opinions closer to various individuals than the two dominant ones.

Take, for example, the Republican Party. How many ideologically moderate libertarians and conservatives voted for Bush despite better suited alternatives (i.e. Reform Party, Libertarian Party)?

Right, but it all depends on how you perceive electoral politics and its purpose. If a "popular front" will get your ideas into the public sphere, even a tiny bit, isn't that worth it? Ideological conservatives spent a lot of time in the 20th Century frustrated, being relegated to ideological think tanks and small organizations of intellectuals. The Goldwater and even the Wallace 3rd party campaigns were seen as popular fronts, a mixture of frustrated conservatives and and southern moralistic populist types. It was Reagan who first used this front, with the Republican Party as its conduit, and made it work. So I guess the question you have to ask is, did it work? Did the Reagan administration push the economic values you cherish enough...?

Now, the reason I mention the Democratic Party is due to the fact that it does not have a very well established base as far as political theory. The Republican Party does: it has favored neoconservativism in recent years. The DP has a greater variety - environmentalists and supporters of big labor are both left-wing, but sometimes come into conflict.

This hasn't always been the case, and I tend to agree with Schlesinger, who viewed politics as cyclical. The Republicans were once divided ideological, between liberals and conservatives. Both parties polarized after the New Deal, but that increased competition, and clarified the stances the parties would take.

I think your comment about the Dems. as an interest group based party-- it's slightly true, but not entirely. That is more a result of the 60s and New Left 70s, when the lower-class/blue collar types that traditionally voted Democrat sort of turned away for good. I'm Irish Catholic, and my family has a long Democratic tradition, but they haven't actually voted Democratic in years. They are, for all intensive purposes, "National Liberals," of the FDR/Truman/LBJ ilk.

I think you're right, if both parties are "big tent" parties as it's popularly put, then the Republicans are more cohesive than the Democrats. But, IMO, the Right has ALWAYS been better at that. It was Pat Robertson's and Newt Gingrich's "no enemies to the Right" policy in the early 90's that led to the Congressional take over. The Dems. are a big tent with a lot of pissed off clowns and lion tamers (to keep with the circus analogy), all pulling back and forth for power. I personally prefer that party model, and find two large, stagnant, overly-bureacratic parties to be dull and even dangerous for civic health. The Left is too divisive, too full of intellectuals and know-it-alls who all have the solutions to everything. That makes a popular front difficult.

I think that a few dominant, broad parties would arise out of the chaos that followed so as to ensure enough support to be strong. On the other hand, I think that a few of them would be very different from the ones that we have now.

I wouldn't mind seeing it, I just don't know that we ever will. Keep your eye on the Illinois state legislature. Years ago, they had something that essentially resembled a parliamentary/proportional voting system. Multiple parties had power, and that was the problem. Communists began getting seats on the legislature, so the then Republican governor did away with the system somehow. Now, Republicans are kicking themselves, because they are the political minority in Illinois, and there's actually a big push to get that system back. If it happens, it could be a "trend starter" for multi-paty representation. Who knows.....

Whoo! Haven't posted that much in a long time....