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The Third Party Challenge

by destor23 10/4/2010 - 10:11 am

We got into a discussion of third parties a bit over the weekend.  Over the last week, there were a couple of items in the larger media that touched on this, but as is usually the case, not in the way that we would like.

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg seems to carry the hopes of people like Thomas Friedman who want a centrist third party to emerge.  Larry Kudlow claimed that Obama will tap Bloomberg to be his Treasury secretary when Geithner leaves. Friedman didn't mention Bloomberg but there's really nobody else who fits the bill of the third party candidate he thinks will emerge in 2012.

I'm not buying Kudlow's Treasury Secretary scoop.  I don't think Kudlow has the sources to make claims like that (the Obama White House isn't telling Kudlow anything, so all he could possibly get would be Wall Street rumor).  I also think people overestimate Bloomberg's ability to generate national appeal.  He does fine in New York City but this is where he's been part of the power structure for decades.  People know him here and they mostly respect him here and he still had to buy three terms as Mayor (including just eking out the last election, mostly because he amended the city charter to let himself have a third term, which ticked a lot of people off).  He's a fine mayor.  He's certainly competent and he's certainly bright.  But he's also too overbearing to ever be president and he lacks charisma.  But he's also richer that Croesus and that counts for something.  I don't think he could ever win a presidential election but he can certainly affect the outcome in key states.

The formula for the centrist third party candidate seems to go something like this:

One part bashing public sector unions, especially teachers.

One part deficit hawk and willing to cut Social Security to prove it.

One part environmental steward (it's not all bad).

One part tax cuts for business.

One part reasonable immigration reform.

Mix vigorsously with ice, strain into a highball glass and you'll get what people used to think was John McCain before he went nuts and revealed himself as the paleocon he really is (and ever has been).  The result is called centrist but it isn't really.  It's more just a Republican you can talk to because he isn't batshit crazy.  Friedman would add one more bit on the left side of the column: a willingness to regulate Wall Street more forcefully than the Republicans would allow.  If it's Bloomberg you can forget that.  Wall Street is his base and Bloomberg pressed hard to get New York's federal representatives to go easy on lower Manhattan.  It's understandable.  Not only did Wall Street make Bloomberg into a tycoon, it accounts for more than half the city's tax revenues even in a bad year.  If Bloomberg is the centrist spoiled in the 2012 elections he is not going to be the vanguard of economic populism.

If Bloomberg or someone like him runs in 2012 (an "independent-minded, self-financing mogul" type) it could actually be good for Obama.  But only if the media presents the candidate honestly as a moderate Republican wearing the independent label.  There's really nothing in it for a Democrat to vote for Bloomberg.  What do you get, environmental and immigration promises that the Democrats are offering anyway alongside the typical Republican financial plan?  No thanks.  A guy like Bloomberg should win the votes of northeastern-style Republicans who would like tax cuts without global warming.

The problem is, this is asking a lot of our media, which will probably fail us by not presenting the Diet Coke Republican choice for what it is.

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Third parties that try to begin at the top, be it a mayoral, gubernatorial, or presidential election, are a completely asinine notion.

Do you begin building your house from the roof-peak down?

Did they start the Empire State Building with the mast?

Can a ship be built from the crows-nest down?

Unlike many who will read this, I have lived in a state with a third-party governor.  The Legislature was divided, one chamber to each major.

The result was grotesque and incredibly damaging.  Triangulation was finally revealed as the recipe for paralytic political chaos it always has been.

The last genuine good a third-party candidate did at the national level was Ross Perot preventing Bush the Elder from being reelected in 1992.

Sure, a protest vote feels good, like the rush from a super-sized hot fudge sundae on an empty stomach.  Then, though, comes the crash.  It can be the degenerative stasis that Jesse Ventura spawned in Minnesota, or it can be the very real strong probability that Ralph Nader gave us Bush the Younger.

I'd encourage disenchanted Republicans to begin a third-party crusade posthaste, Democrats, not so much.

Did I mention it's a bad idea if you like winning elections?

by Austin Train 10/4/2010 - 10:28 am

If Bloomberg does run it'll be less about building any party than about one man's quest.  And I think it'll be up to us to try to convince others that Bloomberg is more a Republican than anything.  Let him split their vote, not ours.

by destor23 10/4/2010 - 10:39 am (re: Austin Train)

I said:

I'd encourage disenchanted Republicans to begin a third-party crusade posthaste, Democrats, not so much.

Then you:

And I think it'll be up to us to try to convince others that Bloomberg is more a Republican than anything.  Let him split their vote, not ours.

We do appear to be at least close to, if not exactly on the same page here.

by Austin Train 10/4/2010 - 10:48 am (re: destor23)

I have no interest in being ruled by the superrich.  Bonus no interest points, I have no interest in being ruled by any mayor of New York City.  I love the New Yorkers I'm friends with, but that mayoralty is no qualification to run the world, local views to the contrary notwithstanding.

You raise the great point that a Bloomberg could screw up the northeast for the Democrats.  Perot helped Clinton in the south and west, a reverse of that would be a great recipe for President Pence.

I just don't see how in the wake of a financial crash that decimated our economy, a man whose entire wealth was devoted to chronicling and valorizing Wall Street would have the lack of shame to run for President.  Oh, wait, I guess I do see.

by Articleman 10/4/2010 - 10:53 am

Even more of a great recipe for the other Hoosier - President Daniels.

by Another Trope 10/4/2010 - 11:21 am (re: Articleman)

It's very odd to me that third parties still get so much attention.  The findings of political science over the last several decades have been pretty solid in understanding that the electoral system is the overriding factor in how many parties emerge.  Political scientists call it Duverger's Law, but it's really more like an overwhelmingly strong tendency because a few exceptions do exist.

Overall though, single-member districts with a plurality rule yield two dominant parties.  If you think about it, it's not hard to see why.  If the rule is that someone has to get 50%+1, then there will only ever be two coalitions that can mathematically get within striking distance of a win.  You just can't have three near-half coalitions.

I think Bill Domhoff's essay on this topic is germane.  As much as we might take issue with many aspects of the contemporary Democratic party, it's the best tool we have by virtue of being the only tool we have.  That's frustrating, but it is, as they say, what it is.

by DF 10/4/2010 - 3:41 pm

Why is Britain different, with a third major party kind of dragging along after the Tories and Labour?

by Articleman 10/4/2010 - 3:48 pm (re: DF)

Like I said, there are exceptions.  The Wikipedia entry I linked explains a bit about Britain:

A prominent restrictive feature unique to the SMDP voting system is purely statistical. Because the SMDP system only gives the winner in each district a seat, a party which consistently comes third in every district will not gain any seats in the legislature, even if it receives a significant proportion of the vote. This puts geographically thinly spread parties at a significant disadvantage. An example of this is the Liberal Democrats in the UK, whose proportion of seats in the legislative is significantly less than their proportion of the national vote. The Green Party of Canada is also a good example. The party receives approximately 10% of the popular vote, but has not yet won a seat in the House of Commons. Gerrymandering is sometimes used to counteract such geographic difficulties in local politics, but controversial on a large scale. These numerical disadvantages can create an artificial limit on the level at which a third party can engage in the political process.

So it's less of a mystery that there is a trailing third party and more of a mystery that they aren't more widely represented, unless you buy Duverger's Law.  It's also a relatively recent phenomenon.  Fifteen years ago, the Reform Party looked like it might have some kind of viability here, but that clearly isn't the case now, unless you want to draw some kind of lineage from Reform to Tea.

by DF 10/4/2010 - 4:00 pm (re: Articleman)

I think Artie is asking a more basic question: why does Britain produce fairly durable third parties despite the fact it's also a first-past-the-post system?

I think the answer is the difference between a parliamentary and a presidential executive. Since the U.S. electoral college doesn't function as intended, the presidency is also effectively first-past-the-post. But the British prime minister (and the Canadian, Australian, etc.) is chosen -- and, more important, governs -- on the basis of commanding a majority or a de-facto coalition of members of Parliament. Right now, you have minority PMs in Britain, Canada and, if I recall correctly, Australia.

Third parties in those countries wield veto power over which party forms the government. And can bring down the government, forcing an election, by simple majority vote. So unless a single party wins an absolute majority of seats, a vote cast for a third- or even fourth-party MP is not wasted. By contrast, the U.S. system can throw up a third-party challenge every fourth or eighth year. But once its presidential candidate fails, the dissident movement is effectively neutered until the next electoral cycle. No sustainability -- which is why Anderson, Perot, Nader, etc. were one-shot wonders, never managing to organize long-term parties.

Here, it's pretty obvious New Democratic leader Jack Layton will never become prime minister of Canada, but that's no reason not to vote NDP. Even if it's only to keep Stephen Harper's Conservatives short of the absolute majority that would free them to implement their full right-wing agenda.

by acanuck 10/5/2010 - 4:20 pm (re: Articleman)

Germany's Green Party is experiencing an unprecedented rise in public opinion polls. But why? German commentators say that disgust with other parties is on the rise -- and the Greens have profited by moving to the center.

The World from Berlin: 'Green Party Issues Have Gone Mainstream' - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

 

by eurogirl 10/4/2010 - 9:58 pm

I was looking at the state-by-state election polling from der Spiegel the other day, and I coun't help but notice that the green party membership has spiked most dramatically in Baden-Würtemburg and the some of our neighbors.  I suspect that at least some of the rise is due to publicity from the Greens' opposition to Stuttgart21, which is constantly in the news here.

by CaliforniaPaige 10/7/2010 - 8:40 am (re: eurogirl)

Nate Silver just weighed in on the plausibility of a third party 2012 Presidential candidacy, and those factors that would make it likely:

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/odds-against-third-party-bid-not-as-long-as-they-seem/?hp

by Articleman 10/5/2010 - 12:13 am

An awful lot of ifs there. 

by LisB 10/5/2010 - 12:25 am (re: Articleman)

 It is time for a major third party to emerge. Right now the people aren't fully represented and their political choices are limited.  A major third party would end the gridlock in our government that for years has stalled the growth and direction of our country.

 In my opinion, in order for a third party to emerge nationally, it's going to have to start at the state level.  There are many states right now that have residents with centrist views on many issues. This is recoginizable from the constant swings in the state from blue to red to blue etc.  If the voters in these states can come together and thrust viable third party candidates into their state level governments, this will give that party a chance to grow, depending on results from their time in office.  If those 3rd party candidates can obtain a majority in that state and positively effect issues such as job creation, improving education (rise the states scores on a national level by implementing new education systems), create a surplus for the state, tackle illegal immigration within the state, enact reasonable oversight when needed and eliminating useless overeaching oversight, etc. If that third party has a significant positive impact in any certain number of these areas without significantly effecting any of these in a negative way, then the rest of the nation will come to notice and that party will QUICKLY rise to the numbers needed to fill national level positions and take hold of our current corrupt officials (reps and dems).Which state is up to the task? I'm trying to make it my wonderful state of KY. We have to get the ball rolling before it's too late.

Justin H

by Justin H (not verified) 11/4/2010 - 11:36 am (re: LisB)

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