Unelectable
On my post about why I’d never run for office, AC touches on something I meant but didn’t explicitly say:
I think one of the answers of getting more folks running for office is to demolish the two party system.
Indeed. I am not a member of either political party and, barring one party either becoming completely insane or completely unfucking itself, I probably never will be.
July 6th, 2006 at 9:34 am
Perhaps, but it seems to me that any system that is “stable” with more than two parties lends itself to, well, going off the rails. Frankly, I like that there isn’t a viable communist (or nazi) party in the US, and it isn’t because it’s illegal.
In order to change the two-party system, you’d have to change the voting structure greatly. (e.g., trading winner-take-all for proportional representation) For all the problems of the two-party system, would you really argue that the parties in, say, England (or anywhere in Europe) better represent the population? (Yes, libertarians tend to get the shaft here, but, honestly, libertarians aren’t exactly a huge majority. Maybe they could be if this and that, but aren’t.) I wish I could remember the source, (and the details) but some rather large percentage of Brits think that homeowners should be able to defend themselves (with what? I don’t remember) but as far as I know, no major party is at all interested in changing the laws. You could make an argument about illegal immigration here, but there is a sizeable chunk of the Republican party that wants better enforcement/etc.
July 6th, 2006 at 11:20 am
“Becoming completely insane” seems to be a pretty good description of today’s Democratic Party, actually, at least at the national level. They’ve been steadily devolving into nothing more than a hate group ever since losing control of Congress in the ’94 elections, and it’s only gotten worse since they lost the White House as well. The Democrats just don’t seem to stand for anything anymore beyond malice, childish spite, and the unprincipled, ruthless pursuit of political power by any means necessary, regardless of what laws they have to break, what lies they have to tell, who they have to personally destroy…or what damage they’re doing to the country in the process. Frankly, the Democrats act as if they’d be perfectly happy to see America lose the War on Terror, be humbled before our various foreign enemies, and face total economic collapse, if it would get them back into power. Not to mention the fact that too many Democrats these days seem to be ashamed of being American…and to have contempt for the guiding principles of their own country.
For that reason – since libertarians, alas, aren’t much of a political force – I usually describe myself as “Republican by default.” At least the Republicans still have principles, even if they don’t often live up to them. Although I’m starting to worry about the sanity of the Republican leadership as well, given their increasing disregard for the concerns of the Republican base (drunken-sailor social spending and the refusal to enforce our borders and immigration laws being two outstanding examples of this).
Myself, I’m waiting for the unstable Democratic Party to implode. I’m hoping that the Kos Kidz and the rest of the left-wingers go off and form an ineffectual third-party along the lines of the Greens, while the few remaining reasonable progressives join with the Libertarians to form a new liberal party to counterbalance the Republicans. In our system, we need two coherent, functioning political parties – left and right – to make America work; the competition tends to keep the parties relatively honest, and provides a clear alternative to whichever party is currently in power. At the moment, we don’t actually have an alternative: only the Republican Party seems to be functional…and it isn’t working all that well, is it?
July 6th, 2006 at 11:35 am
I’ve always put it thusly: I hate the Republicans and the Democrats. I just hate the Republicans a little less.
July 6th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
Wes S:
The Democrats just don’t seem to stand for anything anymore beyond malice, childish spite, and the unprincipled, ruthless pursuit of political power by any means necessary, regardless of what laws they have to break, what lies they have to tell, who they have to personally destroy
Yes, because it was the Democrats who forced through an unprecedented self-benefiting
gerrymanderingredistricting in a non-census year. And it was the Democrats who were responsible for SBVT. And it was the Democrats who labeled a thrice-amputated war veteran as a “coward.” Boy howdy, those Democrats sure do have a monopoly on attack politics, don’t they?And of course, apart from education, health care, freedom of speech, freedom to choose, social responsibility, living wages, separation of church & state, government accountability, and rule of law, you’re right, those Democrats don’t stand for very much…
P.S. Don’t the Libertarians actually support open borders? Oh yeah, they do:
July 6th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
Thomas Sowell at Townhall has (IMO) an excellent article (it’s pro’lly a year old by now) on the subject of running for office.
His proposal – in a nutshell – is to take the $5 billion budget of the Department of Agriculture and apply it to the salary of all elected Federal officials – Pres, VP, Senators, Representatives. He proposes that their salaries be $1 million per year and they be limited to one or two terms.
His logic is that the result would have three positive effects:
– Successful business people would take a break from their careers to serve office. Less ‘career’ politicians.
– Income at that level would greatly decrease “soft bribes”. If a politician is already a millionaire, a $10,000 bribe isn’t very effective.
– Fierce competition for the job. The current wage for some is about $150,000 per year. Successful professionals make more than that. But at the higher level, many, many successful, smart, and wise people would be interested. That would increase the quality of the person serving in office.
Also, he projects it would cost less than funding the Dep. of Ag. I agree.
July 7th, 2006 at 1:13 am
The problem, as I see it, is that a 2 party system is basically constitutionally protected. A third party that hives off electoral college from another party would mean that Congress would get to choose the President if a particular person didn’t get half of the electoral votes. Having said that, there have and will always be third party candidates that capture peoples imaginations. Ross Perot and Teddy Roosevelt did get significant amounts of the vote when they ran.
July 7th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
Perhaps. But such a policy would be going into dangerous “unintended consequences” territory. Take a disputed election, not only is there the whole political battle over it, but now add in the small lottery payout. Ugh. And every state official will now have his goal to become a congressman/senator and will plot and scheme accordingly.
You would make holding office very appealing to otherwise successful folks who wouldn’t consider it now. But, you also make it very appealing to otherwise unscrupulous types. So, the effect is ambiguous. It could work; or it could backfire greatly. And, it will never happen. What congressman would propose a 6-fold increase in pay? He’d get terrible press. And the term limits have been struck down in court. So, what could happen is you get a law through that does both, then the courts strike down the term limits, and the end result is congress critters make $1M per year, and no term limits. Ugh.
July 7th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
Well, one of the reasons I pimp his idea is to learn of possible failure points.
I would love to make this country better and I think his is a great idea. So beating it up and seeing how it would play out is an important thing to do. Thanks for the input.