MV as far as maddy goes, i recall the GOps attacking and questioning whe she was in powe,kinda the way she is doing now.
maybe topic for a diff thread but is their more polarization b/w the two parties now? i.e. ppl blindlu voting for their parties and senators/reps blindly supporting party lines? has this increased in the last 2 decades or has it been this way before and i was just not into politics enough to note it back in carter’s days
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*Originally posted by Fraudz: *
MV as far as maddy goes, i recall the GOps attacking and questioning whe she was in powe,kinda the way she is doing now.
maybe topic for a diff thread but is their more polarization b/w the two parties now? i.e. ppl blindlu voting for their parties and senators/reps blindly supporting party lines? has this increased in the last 2 decades or has it been this way before and i was just not into politics enough to note it back in carter's days
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For a period of about 50 plus years (1932-1982), the Democrats basically controlled both houses of Congress (I think there were 4 years that the GOP controlled either the House or Senate during this period). Additionally, for 36 years (1932 to 1968), there was only one Republican President (Eisenhower). For most of those years, the Dems had a pretty comfortable majority controlling Congress. Essentially, the Republicans accepted life as and survived as a minority party. Among voters, straight party voting was pretty common.
I think the partisanship that you refer to is a product of the fact that our political system has become much more competitive. It is getting to the point that control of one or both houses of Congress is at stake every two years and the Presidency is at stake every 4 years. Straight party voting has been replaced by ticket splitting and those who identify themselves as more or less independent is as large as those who identify themselves with a particular party.
Thanks for the background..i for some odd reason feel a lot more tension between teh 2 parties now. the competetiveness may be at the heart of it.
Your welcome.
Something I didn't include in the earlier post because of time constraints is the fact that the ideological gulf has widened somewhat too. The Reagan Revolution represented the culmination of the takeover of the Republican Party by the Goldwater wing. In all the years the GOPers were in the minority, the majority of prevailing GOP candidates tried to eschew the "conservative" label and represented a more centrist/left position. In other words, they tried to look like Democrats.
The philosophical bent of the majority of the country finally caught up to Goldwater/Reagan and conservatives were elected in large numbers. Now the Democrats eschewed the "liberal" label and wanted to look conservative in order to survive. In other words, Deomcrats wanted to appear more like Republicans. The Democratic Party is now engaged in its own internal ideological battle. The Pelosi/Dean/Leftist camp is trying to control the party laying off the last big electoral defeat on the more centrist/conservative wing of the Democratic Party. Thus, there is a greater philosphical/ideological chasm between the parties than has existed combined with a much more competitive political environment. This results in nasty partisan politics.
One man's opinion.
Thanks it would be so interesting to have some threads just discussing and understanding polkitical process, issue. challenges, hisotry etc of diff countries..i mean i learnt quite a bit today would be great if something likre this could be a dialogue or discussion on an ongoing basis about diff states, diff countries or even diff organizations liek UN
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*Originally posted by Fraudz: *
Thanks it would be so interesting to have some threads just discussing and understanding polkitical process, issue. challenges, hisotry etc of diff countries..i mean i learnt quite a bit today would be great if something likre this could be a dialogue or discussion on an ongoing basis about diff states, diff countries or even diff organizations liek UN
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I agree. I love talking politics in a theoretical/historical context. No need for heated and angry and partisan confrontations. Although, I confess I like to poke at my liberal, defeatist, left wing, anti-American Democratic brothers and sisters from time to time.
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*Originally posted by myvoice: *
I agree. I love talking politics in a theoretical/historical context. No need for heated and angry and partisan confrontations. Although, I confess I like to poke at my liberal, defeatist, left wing, anti-American Democratic brothers and sisters from time to time.
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Does that mean that you are ok when your democratic brothers poke fun at the conservative, self-righteous, right-wing, isolationist Republican party?
I really dislike the two party system in the US because I can see them both in the terms described above. We need a viable 3rd party that takes the best of both parties and throws the rest of the crap away. The moderates of both parties should come together to form this 3rd party.
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*Originally posted by Seminole: *
Does that mean that you are ok when your democratic brothers poke fun at the conservative, self-righteous, right-wing, isolationist Republican party?
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Absolutely. I even poke fun at that teeny, weeny, little fringe element of the Republican Party from time to time. :) Thank goodness that 98% of us in the GOP are so well grounded in our common sense, moderate, compassionate outlook on things.
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*Originally posted by Seminole: *
I really dislike the two party system in the US because I can see them both in the terms described above. We need a viable 3rd party that takes the best of both parties and throws the rest of the crap away. The moderates of both parties should come together to form this 3rd party.
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I think our 2 party system is all screwed up too. IMO, the reason is that each party's philosophical underpinnings are absolutely internally inconsistent. To me, the issue is the role of government in society. To me, the less intrusive the government, the better. This philosophy should extend to both economic and social policies.
Instead, the conservative GOPers want less government meddling in the economy but more meddling in the personal lives of the people. The liberal DEMS want no government regulation of personal lives, but think nothing of excessively regulating business and industry and the economy.
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*Originally posted by myvoice: *
Absolutely. I even poke fun at that teeny, weeny, little fringe element of the Republican Party from time to time. :) Thank goodness that 98% of us in the GOP are so well grounded in our common sense, moderate, compassionate outlook on things.
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I'm not doubting the rank and file. It is the bozos in Washington and particularly the ones pulling Bush's strings that scare me.
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I think our 2 party system is all screwed up too. IMO, the reason is that each party's philosophical underpinnings are absolutely internally inconsistent. To me, the issue is the role of government in society. To me, the less intrusive the government, the better. This philosophy should extend to both economic and social policies.
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I totally agree. My party would have a socially liberal and fiscally conservative agenda. The government is too instrusive in both areas.
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*Originally posted by Seminole: *
I totally agree. My party would have a socially liberal and fiscally conservative agenda. The government is too instrusive in both areas.
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u start a party, I will sign up..cuz thats exactly thetype pf party i would like (of course second to toga party)
Toga parties will be welcomed and encouraged in this party. There will be no retrictions on who is allowed to attend, but there will be no government funding of the events.
the interesting thing with other parties is that they sometimes end up hurting the party they were closest to in terms of ideology. e.g. If it were not for Nader, Gore would have beaten Bush.
i also think that buchanan hurt republicans when he ran because some of the ultra right wingers may have supported GOP but instead voted for buchanan to make a point.
Nader mentioned he is running again..some conspiracy theorist may say that he is on the GOP payroll.
Seminole..lets be inclusive..not just toga parties but B-L-T parties..no its a sandwich..but Boxers-lingerie-Toga party :D
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*Originally posted by underthedome: *
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UTD when I told u to make your point..thats not what I had in mind
As I understand it, the biggest obstacle to development of a third party in the US is the single-member winner take all districting we have. In other words, say California gets 200 representatives in the House of Representatives. 200 separate electoral districts are created and whoever gets a PLURALITY of the vote wins the seat. A third party candidate might get 20% of the vote, the GOP candidate 41% and the DEM 39% and the GOP guy wins. If all 200 seats in the House were awarded by percentage of the state-wide vote and you had the same voting percentages, the GOP would get 82 seats, the DEMS would get 78 seats and the 3rd party would get 40 seats.
We'll never get such a system as long as the Congress and State Legislatures, which are almost 100% DEM and GOP, draw the district lines and set election laws.
We occasionally have a 3rd party insurgency at the national presidential level. These one time deals though are more personality or single issue driven than based upon some underlying political philosophy. In 1912, former President Teddy Roosevelt split the GOP by forming the Bull Moose Party and got 27.5% of the popular vote and 88 electoral college votes putting the DEM Wilson in the White House and knocking out GOP Taft running for reelection. In 1968, George Wallace split from the DEMs and ran as an American Independent and got 13.5% of the vote and 46 Electoral College votes helping Nixon (GOP) defeat Humphrey in a close election. In 1980, John Anderson split from the GOP, ran as an Independent without any third party affiliation, attracted good pre-election poll numbers and ultimately settled for 7.1% of the popular vote, 0 electoral college votes and Reagan still trounced Carter. In 1992, Ross Perot ran without party affiliation as an Independent and secured 18.9% of the popular vote, 0 Electoral College votes and helped Clinton beat Bush I. And we all know about Nader who received very little percentagewise in popular vote but probably tipped the election to Bush because of how close the vote count was in so many states.
In all cases, except for Anderson, the third party/independent insurgency did contribute to the loss of the candidate/party that most closely resembled the philosophy of the insurgent.
MV so its in GOP and dem vested interest to not change election laws? thats what I am sensing from your post.
I did ntounderstand this when i was an undergrad, but my friends used to debate whether they should register in the state we were in or the state they are from for elections, because they felt that being in a heavily republican state their vote did nto matter but it did matter in their state where it could help dems win.
I always thought that was a bit strange because a vote should mean a vote..one person, one vote. There may have been advantages to the system in place but i wonder if it would not be more representative if it were done along popular lines and as you stated on percentage basis
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*Originally posted by Fraudz: *
MV so its in GOP and dem vested interest to not change election laws? thats what I am sensing from your post.
I did ntounderstand this when i was an undergrad, but my friends used to debate whether they should register in the state we were in or the state they are from for elections, because they felt that being in a heavily republican state their vote did nto matter but it did matter in their state where it could help dems win.
I always thought that was a bit strange because a vote should mean a vote..one person, one vote. There may have been advantages to the system in place but i wonder if it would not be more representative if it were done along popular lines and as you stated on percentage basis
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The DEMs and GOP do share that interest. Why invite a third party to share in the trough from which you are feeding if you don't have to?
While I am no great scholar on the Constitutional Convention and the Founding Fathers, it is my belief that they did not factor in the role of political parties when they institutionalized our government. Remember, it was only landed male property owners who were extended the right to vote. No need to think in terms of political parties when the people voting all shared the same vested interests.
It's only when you expand the electorate that different interests begin to compete for political power. The political parties emerge as the organizing and mobilizing entities. Over time, two parties came to dominate and they have been setting election law and competing without serious interference for 150 years. That's lots of time to institutionalize competitive advantages against interlopers.
MV I am better able to understand Gore Vidal's statement that he left politics when he realized that the two parties were basically one party. I may not agree with Vidal on most of teh stuff, but i think he had a point here.
Here in RI we have the Cool Moose party. The guy in charge (and practically the only member) almost won the Lt. Governor position! His platform was, that if elected, he would not serve. He would maintain his current job as a lawyer, and if the Governor was killed he would be ready for the position. Eliminating the Lt Governor expenses would have saved the state nearly 750,000 per year. I voted for him.
While I was living in Wshington DC, my roommate was the Volunteer coordinator for the joahn Anderson Campaign. Even though I was working for a democrat at the time, I volunteered evenings for Anderson. got to see his Announcement at the National Press Club breaking form the Republican party, very fun. More than Nader, and Perot, Anderson was a good man with solid ideas. To bad he did not have the energy to form a third party.