Greenberg Quinlan Rosner finds that:
[A] striking 53 percent (of voters surveyed) say that they will consider voting for a third party candidate next year.
This put me in mind of something Jay Ackroyd said a few weeks ago:
Voters have been throwing them out since 2006. It’s really all they can do. Hasn’t worked yet.
The last three elections were wave elections against the party that was in power at the time. I would argue that, in effect, all three were effectively votes against elitist, “centrist” opinion. In 2006, the “suck on this” war drove the Democratic victory, in 2008, the continuation of the “suck on this” war and the Maestro Greenspan-ravaged economy drove another Democratic victory, in 2010, the Kaplan-approved, insufficiently-stimulated economy drove a big Republican victory.
That is why there is something so incredibly perverse about the new pundit-and-plutocrat party that Friedman and his ilk are pimping: voters are unhappy precisely because of the policies that pundits and plutocrats pushed on the country. I can’t think of a better illustration of the shock doctrine than “centrist” elites driving the country into a ditch so that they can put Michael Bloomberg in charge of everything.
Of course, this is already going on, as Very Serious People use our austerity-throttled economic crisis to argue in favor of more austerity.
trollhattan
Where’s my John Anderson tshirt?
Zifnab
It’s the fucking wars. No one will end the wars.
mike in dc
Well, I think disaffected voters might like a party that stands for something. The GOP mostly stands against things, and the Democrats often don’t seem to be willing to stand up for the things they allegedly believe in. The other part would be wanting a party that actually accomplishes things that help people(namely, the disaffected voters and their interests).
Reality Check
BREAKING:
US Appeals Court rules Obamacare Mandate UNCONSTITUTIONAL!
jheartney
An old order staggering from crisis to crisis is what you usually see before the revolution comes.
(Note: Revolutions are really really sucky things to live through. You don’t want to have one during your lifetime. Honest.)
Villago Delenda Est
When they start cutting back on Georgetown cocktail parties, I’ll believe that austerity is being shared.
But they never will, it’s all “austerity for thee, peasants, but not for me”, me being the courtiers of the Village.
These assholes need tumbrel rides very, very, badly. The entire “centrist” crowd.
Reality Check
Is the latest ruling on Obamacare another example of Teh Dizazter Kapitalizm? Perhaps the KOCH BROTHERS!!!! were involved!
Hunter Gathers
This just in : 75% of Americans believe that there is an invisible man who lives in the sky.
NonyNony
@Villago Delenda Est:
I believe the phrase you’re looking for is “then let them eat cake.”
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
How many years have the voters indicated that they would vote for a third party candidate, and then really don’t? I would argue they’ve been saying that for a long time.
Corner Stone
@Zifnab:
wrb
edit:
posted the wrong quote
dude
So basically the Centrist Party will have Republican economic policies but not do anything about social issues, like abortion and gay rights.
What does that remind me of? Oh year, 2001-2009, when Republicans were in charge, pushed Republican economic policies and accomplished little of their reviled social agenda.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@mike in dc: The Democrats stand for things that most people agree with, but the people vote against them anyway because it’s not what they want to hear.
Villago Delenda Est
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Yup, they insist on voting for Kang or Kodos, no matter what.
Also, the last time a third party candidate wasn’t a loon was with John Anderson.
srv
Don’t worry, Obama has placated the Confidence Fairies and the economy is going to go up, up, up!
Notice how the stock market has rebounded – proof that more downgrades will make things go up! Creative Destruction!
Chris
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Most of the people who’re activist enough to want a third party don’t actually want a third party, just a version of their own party that’s more in line with ideological purity. (See the teabaggers).
And frankly, I don’t see what a third party would bring to the table.
Suffern ACE
@Corner Stone: Ummm. I think it could be both. Simply put, we can vote for anyone we want, but serious people who control foreign policy and economic policy will let us know what the economic and defense priorities are, and those will not be changed.
gbear
I wish that Krugman would have named some names in that column (and then told them to suck on it).
Also: I love my scroll wheel.
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: I voted for John Anderson.
Should have voted for Pres. Carter.
Davis X. Machina
@Chris:
Everyone wants an immaculately-conceived politics, one without politicking. Which is to say, without politicians.
Which is impossible.
You had politicians before you even had voting. Peisistratos, tyrant of Athens, got the Athenians to play along with his coup by having Phyē, the tallest woman in Athens, and good-looking too, dress up like Athena in armor and ride with him in a golden chariot as he entered the city, indicating by gestures that he, Peisistratos, was the goddess’ favorite. (Herodotus 1.60)
If we live long enough, we’ll see someone do that in New Hampshire in the run-up to the primary.
Calouste
Good luck with getting a third party in an electoral system that only allows two.
Jay B.
And frankly, I don’t see what a third party would bring to the table.
True. The trouble is I, like most everyone else, don’t see what any party is bringing to the table.
Steve Earle had a great line in “Christmastime in Washington” off his insanely good El Corazon disc — this was just after Clinton won re-election:
The Democrats rehearsed. Gettin’ into gear for four more years. Of things not gettin’ worse
Earle, a left lefty, thought that maintaining the status quo wasn’t all that good. And here I am, what, 15 years later or so wishing things were just treading water from the mid-90’s. They aren’t, of course, and it was a total bi-partisan effort. The GOP is infinitely worse, but then again, the Democrats’ fingerprints are all over most of the worst things too. The only difference, really, is that there is a rump group of Democrats who, generally, do the right thing.
But that’s about it. It’s not so much that we’re center-right or center-left, it’s that our political representation’s goals and efforts are almost entirely geared toward capital over people. That’s why there’s so much deficit talk and next-to-no employment talk. That’s why we have an Administration employing an economic team that’s almost indistinguishable from what a GOP administration would puke up. Well, since Bush I, at least.
And when the inevitable result of this concerted policy happens, it shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s no wonder people are looking for something else. Who wouldn’t rather have representation that actually addressed their needs instead of the insurance industry, or finance, or war industry, or all the other dollar-laden fuckers who run our lives.
FlipYrWhig
If only there was a political party that agreed with my views in every respect. I’d like that one. Also, if there was a house at the bottom of my price range that had all the space I needed, was in perfect shape, and was close to work, I’d consider buying that.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Paul in KY:
Me too. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Suffern ACE
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: I voted for him, too. But in all fairness, I was ten and the Weekly Reader ballot probably didn’t count.
FlipYrWhig
@Paul in KY: I was too young to vote in that election, but I remember my parents — who spent the ’70s in Berkeley — voting for Anderson because they took issue with Carter’s “born-again” identity.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
I never get the sense that that sentiment is what most people feel. Sure there are some, but not many.
I personally have never met a self ID’d Democrat who felt that way.
NonyNony
@Corner Stone:
Not many, but they’re overrepresented on the pages of the national journals of news and opinion. Which is a problem.
CaseyL
@Paul in KY: Should have voted for Pres. Carter.
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: Me too. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Me three. I bring this up every time I talk to someone who’s pissed off at the Dem candidate, or thinks an election intended to determine how the country will be governed for the next 4 years is a great time to “make a statement” and “send a message.”
‘Course, those folks never listen, because THIS TIME IT’S DIFFERENT! Always, always…
Gus diZerega
Under current electoral law third parties cannot be viable. It was designed that way by the major parties. It workd OK for a long time because we were not so tightly intertwined with one another and an oligarchy had not gotten as strong as it is now. But it’s terribly dysfunctional and unlikely to get better.
The two party system now represents three broad groups, but does so very unevenly, and at the cost of showing my bias, they are a corporate oligarchy that now funds both parties but lacks the votes on its own to win, a theocratic and largely nihilistic right wing appealing to anger and resentment, and those Americans who take our founding principles seriously. Because both parties are controlled by the same money interests, they offer little hope of anything better than choosing the least bad corporatist tool slightly biased in a good direction or maybe strongly biased in a bad.
I think there is a solution that is practical. But it involves thinking two steps ahead instead of one.
If those who care about American values would push for initiatives in states with them to allow majority election of candidates that would give third party candidates a chance to be real alternatives rather than ego trips for the occasional celebrity. That would give people a real choice.
Until then we are stuck with perpetual disappointments and worse.
Sly
53% of respondents saying they’d consider a third party tells you nothing. What’s the spread on the partisan disaffection? Is it even, somewhat lopsided, or mostly on one side? Given the polling of the Republican primary field over the past few months, compared to the relative stability of the President’s numbers, it’s hard for me to come to the conclusion that this is some kind of “a plague on both their houses” effect.
The reemergence of white resentment politics as a political force on the right has complicated matters extensively for the GOP. It was always there, just subsumed within other factions of the Republican constituency (specifically, the godbotherers and the foam finger wavers), making it easier for Republican candidates to tap into it with simple platitudes.
Now, not so much. Nominees have to say crazy shit like the U.S. should default on Treasury obligations in order to appease those engaged in white resentment (because that’s the only way the government will be forced to stop giving all their hard-earned tax dollars to brown people and banks) while simultaneously trying to raise gobs and gobs of money from the financial elite. They have to say they think that the U.S. is a Christian nation and should be governed by Biblical law, but also that government shouldn’t exist.
The rise of white resentment didn’t create these factors, they just made explicitly acknowledging them necessary. The emergence of white resentment as its own political force has not weakened the other factions, but made differentiating them easier. Republicans, above all, want to know what kind of Republican a particular candidate is, and if they are a particular kind of Republican, there are factions that will not support them.
The white populists and the godbotherers won’t support someone like Romney. The financial elite and the libertarians won’t support someone like Bachmann. Neoconservatives, godbotherers, and the financial elite won’t support someone like Ron Paul.
I still think that Perry is the closest to the ideal nominee that they have, but even he has liabilities within the Republican asylum and even more severe liabilities in the general election.
Alwhite
And we are very likely to get some bozo (ala Jess Ventura) with no political past so that everyone can toss their own beliefs up on his blank slate.
And how with this mythical 3rd party president govern? With no support in either party and his own enormous ego constantly in the way how would any useful thing get done?
These assholes still think ‘none of the above’ is a viable option. It isn’t, its a cop out from having to make the tough choices we are going to make.
Sly
@Chris:
It would allow for wingnuts to vote for someone who is neither a Democrat nor Mitt Romney.
Paul in KY
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: I was young & foolish. Was very, very pissed off at Pres. Carter for boycoting the Olympics (we only had 4 fucking channels back then & Olympic watching was a treat at that time), thus I did what I did.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone:
But in a survey question like this, it’s implicit. “Would you consider it?” “Sure, why not, I’m not a knee-jerk partisan, I vote for the best candidate. Maybe the third guy would be better than the other two. I’m not ruling it out because I’m open-minded.”
More generally, the wish for a political organization that corresponds almost exactly to one’s own ideals can be expressed from a “purity” perspective or, in the Thomas Friedman-esque way, from a “what the public really wants is exactly what I want” perspective.
I’d love to see a vibrant multi-party politics in America, especially with some candidates who stand with labor and the working class (even if they’re not necessarily ‘liberal’ on social issues), so that there would be a different discussion and a different kind of choice. Maybe then every election wouldn’t be about The Party of Tax Cuts vs. The Party of Old People’s Low-cost Medications, when it’s even about policy at all. But I just don’t have a sense that the moment for that is anywhere near imminent.
liberal
@Davis X. Machina:
Not completely true. Google “sortition”.
Zifnab
@Calouste:
US politics favors a two-party system, but it doesn’t favor the Democrats and Republicans by default. Vermont elected Bernie Sanders – a confessed Soci alist – to Senate, and doesn’t have a Republican in its Congressional delegation. Likewise, Minnesota has its own spin on the Democrats in their Farmer/Labor/Democrat party. Certainly, there’s a bit of air between the Tea Party Republicans from the deep south and the old guard Republicans from the Northeast.
I suspect some southern states like Texas and Alabama would do better having a Libertarian Party and a Republican Party rather than a Republican Party and a Democratic Party, if only because all the mud flung at national Democrats wouldn’t constantly cling to local politicians.
liberal
@Suffern ACE:
Well, I was about 7 when my dad hoisted me in the voting booth and I pulled the Dem slate lever that included George McGovern for president.
liberal
@Zifnab:
Especially because the latter no longer exist.
Chris
@Zifnab:
And here in DC, the Green Statehood Party actually gets more votes than the Republicans sometimes. Much saner than the overall national scene… Too bad our representative in Congress can’t vote.
FlipYrWhig
@liberal:
The _voters_ still exist, at least in some nonzero quantity. The politicians are disappearing, though.
reflectionephemeral
I’m late to the parties, here, but Thomas Ferguson drove home this same point right after last year’s midterms:
Sly
@Zifnab:
In practical terms, Sander’s official designation as an independent is irrelevant. In four out of nine House elections, Sanders ran unopposed by the Democratic Party. In the five elections when there was a party nominee, the party only gave money and minimal support to that nominee in 1994, when Sanders first ran. 1994 is also the only time the Democratic nominee broke into double digits in the general election, with 18%. The next highest was 7%.
Also, too, Sanders was a member of the House Democratic Caucus and is currently a member of the Senate Democratic Caucus. He co-founded the largest caucus within the House Democratic Caucus. He’s endorsed every Democrat that’s run for President of the United States as well as Governor of Vermont and other state-wide offices.
He’s a Democrat in all but name. There will never be more than a handful of those, on either side of the aisle, ever elected to national office.
Chet
@Paul in KY: See, I’d always been under the impression that Anderson peeled more votes from the Repubs (who still had a moderate Rockefeller wing then) than the Dems.
Methinks a Reagan victory was sadly inevitable that year, regardless of what the Smart People did.
Sly
@Chet:
Statistically speaking, in the final tally Anderson drew as many votes away from Reagan as he did Carter (just as many Anderson voters said their second choice was Reagan as those who said their second choice was Carter). The election likely would not have changed had he quit after losing the Republican primary.
I think the basic calculus of a lot of liberal Anderson supporters was that he’d be a spoiler for Reagan in the same way that Kennedy was supposed to be a spoiler for Carter, so along with the Rockefeller Republicans they would keep Anderson alive. But in the end, Kennedy endorsed Carter and Reagan picked H. W. Bush as his running mate, placating, to a large extent, the liberals and moderates in the party. So partisans ended up backing their own horse, while independents swung to Reagan. There was a slight decline in votes among self-identified liberals compared to 1976, adjusted for population, but I don’t remember it being enough to fully swing the election Carter’s way had they voted and independents went with Reagan.
Calouste
@Zifnab:
In every scenario you describe you still only have two parties, they really just a few quirks.
Danny
Building your firebagger cred, Doug? Plugging Ackroyd is no better than plugging Hamsher in my book. He’s a guy that spends his time floating conspiracy theories about how Obama is secretly scheming to dismantle medicare and promoting Romney on various netroot comments sections.
Davis X. Machina
@liberal: Sortition changes the composition of the body before which the political issues come up. Pericles, and Cimon, each did his business in arguably the most sortition-heavy actual polity in history…
So long as people live in poleis, there will be politics.
les
Late to the game; but where would a third party line up? The existing parties pretty well cover the space from raving fucking crazy right wing, to moderately left of center. Both are owned by the oligarchy. There don’t appear to be enough actual leftists to staff a football team, much less a political party; to say nothing of funding. Is generic anti-corporatism enough? Of course, if such party was successful, the corps would just buy it. Fuck party identification or formation; shorter campaigns with solely public funding may be the only thing that weakens the grip.
Thoughtcrime
The CBO is obviously not Very Serious People(TM) :
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/documents/2011/08/letter-to-huelskamp.php?page=1
Chris
@les:
Even if there were, the way back into power involves taking over one of the existing parties (or forcing it to respond to you, however you like). That’s more or less what happened in the early twentieth century when populist/Progressive pressure for reform shook both parties (though it started among Democrats and eventually made them its home). Third parties never accomplish squat other than splitting the vote in one party and handing victory to the other (Teddy Roosevelt, George Wallace, Ross Perot).
@les:
Already happened in the Tea Party Movement. I read a pretty decent amount of “generic anti-corporatism” from teabaggers – mainly denouncing collusion between business and government as opposed to the pristine and uncorrupted “free market” they imagined. Of course, it was bullshit, and corps “bought” that message probably before it was even formed.
Chris
@Sly:
Well hell, if it’s about ratfucking the ratfuckers, ideas are welcome. I’m still praying for a day when the teabaggers get so much momentum behind an insane idea that they just HAVE to deliver on it, but the idea’s so insane that the business base just CANNOT allow it – so, debt ceiling fight on steroids. But it hasn’t happened yet.
@FlipYrWhig:
I was impressed by the number of people, mostly Northerners who around 2008 were telling me “I’ve been a Republican all my life, but those crazy fuckers have gone far enough. Gobama.” Forty years after the Southern strategy, I thought pretty much every conservative Democrat and liberal Republican would’ve switched parties a long time ago, but apparently there were still tons of Rockefeller Republicans out there.
John N
“Centrism” is not a governing philosophy. Even if our “centrist” president had dictatorial powers, and could bypass the obvious issues that would arise from having to work outside of the structure of both major parties, eventually, our “centrist” president will have to actually DO something, and then, BANG, we’re right back where we started.
TK421
What on Earth does that mean?
Paul in KY
@Chet: No, I think Mr. Anderson pulled more votes from Pres. Carter. He was quite liberal (more so than Pres. Carter), and I think gave dissaffected Democrats a place to go & be peeved (like I was), rather than holding our nose & voting for the President.