IRV makes it a little simpler to vote in a multi-party race for a single office, and hence makes it easier for third party candidates to attract support. Wouldn't have to worry about that Nader crap. (Of course, GHWB also would have beaten Clinton- stick that in your alternate reality machine.)

On the other hand, the US two-party system allows the politicians to keep lots of issues simply off the table and out of the realm of respectable discussion, because neither the Pepsicrats or Cokublicans want to talk about it.

I'd love to see a third party that would at least throw some new ideas on the table, even if it only agreed with me 30% of the time. I'm not sure how Yglesias feels about this, but I get a whiff of "shut up and vote Democratic" in this post.

Your args are specious, Matt, and bely the extent of your own commitment to the Dem party.

Historically, third parties have served to keep the main two parties more dynamic, despite their over-arching concern to maintain their duopoly of control over the US gov't.

There are systems that will allow for more options without causing total fragmentation. I, for one, think that the ideal system shd have for the legislative branch, a cross between the majoritarian the proportional system. In the US, it wd be like if we elected the congresspeople at the state, rather than district, level with each party getting the number of positions in a manner quasi-proportional to the percentage of the vote received.

I can't see why for ideological reasons a liberal like you would be opposed to such a change in the rules. It would subvert the gerrymandering process and make elections more interesting. This is the sort of change that could be sought from the top-down and bottom-up at the same time...

I don't think allowing for more options to choose from will put undue duress on voters. The main two parties will still retain a serious advantage and thereby ensure continuity...

dlw

A blog-activist dedicated to the reduction of the faith-based political acrimony in the United States of America so as to make our political system more democratic and just and to improve our witness to the rest of the world.

Matt, you posit that the 3rd party types say
"why can't there be a party that has exactly all my views on precisely that set of issues that are most important to me?". I'd suggest that there's another narrative thread that runs through this kind of thinking, often found in focus groups, which is, in effect "Why can't we find the candidate who will also provide everything I want in roads, free tuition, and everything else I want that costs money, but promises me I won't have to pay for it?" I know that's a little wise-ass, but you do, after all, see a lot of that kind dumbass stuff going around.

But I digress. Actually, this latest 3rd party whoop-de doo is being presented by 2 or 3 washed up hacks, supported by a number of starry-eyed college children (see the web page if you doubt). I think that all of us have fallen into a nasty trap: we've actually spent a few valuable minutes of our time thinking about this stupid idea as if it contained anything worth considering.

Neither Matt nor anybody else here was arguing against third parties because they'd "put undue duress on voters." If you're going to put up straw me at least try for credibility.

The question is whether a more third-party frendly system would give the results that people who push the system desire.

Take the Andersen article. I know the kind of voter he's talking about; you could say I'm one. Not surprising, since I'm a New Yorker of the appropriate culture and class. Let's say his party got off the ground. Would it help his issues, or hurt them? It could very well lead to the rump Democrats and most of the Republicans in an unassailably strong coalition, devoted to economic and cultural populism.

I'm not saying it would necessarily do this -- Andersen's idea isn't too far from Timothy Burke's proposal to reconfigure the Democratic party as a soft libertarian party (http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/tburke1/Road%20to%20Victory.pdf.) But unless you don't care about anything but the process, be careful what you wish for.

Right now, I can imagine a third party devoted to putting land mines along the Mexican border. Everyone OK with that?

I didn't see a single substantive idea for the platform of Kurt Andersen's supposed party.

Andersen was scornful of opponents of the Iraq imperial adventure.

He is totally contemptible -- and he works on Public Radio -- figures.

You're on to something. I think a lot of the problems on the left is that it seems dominated, visibly at least, by people for whom left activism is a choice and not a necessity. Those folks really should be a relatively powerless frosting on a working-class cake, but instead they're the whole movement. The left needs compromise and common sense, but it also needs to be about serving the economic needs of the bottom 75% of the population, and letting those people decide what policies get that done. Then the compromise and pragmatism would happen naturally because those who dominate would have their present and future wallets at stake.

For that transformation to happen the working class needs decisive power within the Democratic Party. Otherwise, that party and the the left aren't going anywhere.

Historically, parties arose when a lot of people had a new agenda.

I don't know if it's a new agenda, per se, but definitely a new issue. The only "successful" third party in American history is the Republican party, running on abolition (or at least anti-slavery) at the same time as the Whigs declined. Generally, third parties have derived their strength from putting new issues on the table -- which is part of why they've tended to have a regional flavor. Such issues tend to either a) fall away into insignificance or b) get co-opted by the main parties, if it's actually "important."

Anyway, the way the U.S. electoral system is structured definitely diminishes the strength and endurance of third parties. That, in turn, bolsters the "center," wherever that may be.

I'm uneasy with the support for third parties "to get new ideas on the table" (where I quote Ned, but the thought arises often here). This happened when the old parties had a division that no longer reflected the division of issues facing the public. Thus the division between Federalists and Republicans increasingly appeared a clash between two elites, one served by a strong central government and banking, another served by strong state governments to protect large farmers and slaveholders; that ignored a newly growing population. The division between Democrats and Whigs didn't reflect tensions betweeen union and the perpetuation of slavery or emerging tensions over an expanding industrial economy. Those led to new parties. The Progressives did get co-opted. But these were major, even traumatic shifts.

More recent third parties, I fear, haven't had that impetus. In fact, they have served to distract us from divisions between major parties that are critical to our future. Dixiecrats helped articulate a reactionary agenda that Nixon and successors co-opted. Perot and other independents expressed, all too much like the article Matt quotes, a vague populism that either party can manipulate and, it seems, the pretend anti-elitism of the GOP has done most successfully. Nadar in 2000 seems to have drawn votes largely by people for whom globalization and trade were the most critical frames for debates over America's economic divisions. Those frames cut across both right and left, and regardless of who's right, Bush's record makes a good case for the price that entirely other economic policies exact on the poor and middle class.

So, no, I don't feel third parties have been energizing things one bigt. I'll add only that a debate over a better constitution that might allow third parties to thrive is so pie in the sky not to merit attention. It's as distracting as the GOP pretend amendment of the moment, gay marriage. Besides, if I had my druthers about amending the constitution. it'd be just to abolish the electoral college and keep elections fairer, by ensuring we can't pretend blacks aren't voters. Those amendments won't pass either, but at least they're within a federal democracy people would recognize as their own. If you want a parliamentary democracy, don't hold your breath.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

Here is a link to a discussion about the origin of that remark - most often attributed to Pauline Kael.

There are suspicions it is an apocryphal remark recycled to illustrate how liberal elites are out of touch with "The Real America" (TM).

I think that the loss of the working class was the heaviest blow (and hence, that "Okie from Muskogee" was the most important political song of the 60s), but I don't know that there's an easy way to build a working class movement without an organized labor movement, and I'm not sure that I see the union model working again. One thing that I think is promising in this regard is the rising immigrants rights movement, and the ways in which it is being welded to a push for incorporating international human rights law into the U.S. The Coalition of Imokalee Workers, made up of farm laborers who mostly don't make much over $5,000 a year, is an interesting group in this regard (I wrote out part of a speech I heard by a Coalition leader, Lucas Benitez, here).

There are Democrats who are Republicans in all but name--and Democrats that were over circumsized. If the abortion issue is of paramount importance to you, should you vote for some putz that voted for cloture on Alito? As a gay, should you vote for Nebraska Nelson? Think Iraq is a disaster, and live in Connecticut, what happens if Lieberman wins his primary?

These are not splinter issues imho, either the Democrats disassociate from these members, or too many will leave the party, in enough elections, that the Republican monolith will survive in 2006. The question isn't whether we need a third party, but, should a party affiliation have core value meaning?

The Republicans changed the rules by voting in lockstep--if we don't follow suit, we lose. This isn't the world we want, but is the world we have today. Goldwater was right--but for a different group, (rephrased to update it) - extremism in defense of freedom and democracy is necessary at times like these.

Anti-Manicheist, the first thing to be said about ideas like this is that whatever the practical merits, the American political system makes sustantial changes in the representative system just about impossible. Unless somehow your system wouldn't reduce the individual power of states? I'm not entirely sure I actually understand what you are advocating.

Even aside from these technichal questions, If you look at proportional representation systems they tend to create undesireable results. Look at Israel where various one issue parties dedicated to ideas that arent' supported by majorities get what they want because the larger parties need them to form coalitions. So you end up with a system that is actually less democratic. At least in a two party system there is a real political cost to supporting unpopular ideas.

1. I don't see how making congresspeople elected at the state level more on the basis of a proportional vs a majoritarian system(or some hybrid) wd reduce the individual power of states. But it wd make elections not winner-takes-all games/contests and give third parties a better chance of getting a toe-hold on power and that's all that they really need to be able to force the main parties to take on their issues...

2. I am not advocating for a strict proportional representation system. I am advocating for a hybrid. I think the rules shd be set up so that third parties are more about changing the priorities of the main parties by appealing to the center than persistently presenting a radically different vision than others. Maybe there'll be some extremist parties that'll get a toe-hold on power for a period, but when they don't deliver on their promises, their influence will fade.

dlw

A blog-activist dedicated to the reduction of the faith-based political acrimony in the United States of America so as to make our political system more democratic and just and to improve our witness to the rest of the world.