A lot of other bloggers here have expounded on what it means to be a moderate, and on the evils of partisanship, and what's wrong with the current way of doing things.
Me, I want to talk about the practicalities.
I strongly believe in the ideal behind Unity08. If we can make moderates a force of their own -- just as conservatives and liberals have become forces within, but separate from, the two major parties -- we can achieve several interrelated objectives. Among them:
- Forcing elected officials to pay attention to moderates, rather than their partisan bases.
- Giving moderate Republicans and Democrats a base of support independent of their party. That will make them less beholden to their party, which should lead to fewer party-line votes and more thoughtful and independent political debate.
- Offering a lever for those moderates to recapture their parties and reestablish the long tradition of "meet in the middle" that the last 15 years of partisanship have all but erased.
- Reasserting pragmatism over ideology, leading to legislation that thoughtfully addresses complex problems, instead of pursuing oversimplified or actively harmful agendas in order to conform to some predetermined principle.
The question, though, is how to achieve this in a winner-take-all electoral system dominated by two major parties, who have gerrymandered most districts to make them "safe" for one party or the other. Where is our leverage?
First we need to demonstrate the political clout of moderates. Sites such as this are a start, providing much-needed organization. But what will really force the parties to pay attention is fundraising. If supporting moderate viewpoints generates huge sums of cash, the parties will become more moderate. Rhetoric and ideology have power, but money is king.
So contribute to moderate candidates, wherever they may be. Support (or create) moderate PACs. Volunteer for campaigns. When party fundraisers call, tell them that you have already contributed to the moderates in the party and if they want a party-level donation they need to start addressing your concerns on a party level as well.
Even more importantly, convince others to do the same.
If moderates indeed represent a large and decisive slice of the electorate, the parties will get the message loud and clear. Even if it doesn't lead directly to election victories, it will strengthen the hand of moderates in both parties.
All the money in the world, though, will still have trouble overcoming gerrymandering. In the last midterm election in 2024, 96 percent of incumbents won re-election -- down from 98 percent in 1998. How
will moderates make inroads when the whole system is
designed to insulate incumbents from the electorate?
This one requires a multi-pronged approach, with both short- and long-term strategies.
In the short term, the key is to note that seats are gerrymandered to make them safe for parties, not particular ideologies. If you don't care about the party label, then the answer is simple: work to help moderates win their party's nomination in a particular district. The more we can make a race be a choice between two moderates, the more we can make the gerrymandered system work for us by electing -- and protecting -- moderates.
At a minimum that means voting in primaries, and doing your homework on the candidates. But that's not really enough, since at that point you're just picking from a pre-selected group of candidates. What it really takes is getting involved in the party of your choice, so that moderate candidates stand a better chance of surviving the internal party debates that precede the public primaries. Anything that weakens the stranglehold that partisans have on party organizations will help move the parties toward the center.
In the long term, moderates should actively support two initiatives intended to weaken the two-party duopoly: some form of instant-runoff voting, and some sort of district-drawing
method that would force districts to be constructed according to objective criteria, with as little political involvement as possible.
That's the strategy in a nutshell: reward parties and candidates for moderate stances, work to build moderate influence within parties, all while establishing electoral conditions that will enable
moderates to get elected without being unduly beholden to their party bosses. It won't be easy, and it won't happen overnight. But that's what politics is: hard work. Let's get to it.
About the author
Sean Aqui is the mind behind Midtopia, a centrist blog launched in March. He is also a frequent contributor to Donklephant. Sean is a veteran -- a former tank lieutenant -- who now works as a graphic designer and writer. He lives with his wife and two children in a suburb of Minneapolis.
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themselves why they are supporting this idea.
The best way I can describe the problem I have with this idea is: At what point in an election campaign with IRV would people be getting the idea that a 3rd party could win?
3rd parties thrive under systems where the risk of a wasted vote is moderated or eliminated.
With IRV, all you have is the post-mortem. That is, you only find out about the winners and losers at the end. Which means at NO point during the election season is a party given credit as a viable alternative.
Theoretically, a large protest could be registered, but it would come too late to make a difference in the outcome, and the winner would ALWAYS have the benefit of a majority of the outcome: A result less representative than the kind we have now.
At least with what we have now, Perot and Nader deprived the Reps and Dems of any real mandate. Under IRV, and any other, "majoritarian," system, even these would be driven out.
This reform is popular because we've really dumbed-down the value of Democracy in this country. Even though subsidies and ear-marks abound in politics we are asked to do our elections on the cheap by eliminating round-one in favor of having the rounds done all at once.
We need to think bolder, and better. Get rid of partisan primaries. Let the Reps and Dems pay for THEIR OWN nominations like everyone else, and allow ALL PARTIES (plus any independents) to run in the qualifying primary as equals. If we REALLY care about our democracy we'll do something like THIS instead.
A couple of thoughts on your comment:
The whole idea behind IRV is that people would feel free to vote for anyone they wanted without having to game the system by asking themselves "Do I vote for whom I support, or do I vote for the lesser of the two evils that are likely to win?" So I would say that part of the conversion to IRV would involve educating voters about this.
Yes, you could end up giving a perceived mandate to someone who doesn't particularly deserve it, but that's far preferable to electing someone who doesn't deserve the office at all simply because a strong third candidate split the vote.
Should parties pay for their primaries? Sure, in principle. But what we get with state-funded primaries is more openness in the system, which is a net plus in the current two-party setup.
Same with "put anybody who wants to be on the ballot, on the ballot." That's great in principle, but in practice that's just a recipe for a 30-page voting form -- without appreciably diluting the power of the two major parties.
First establish the conditions for the growth of third parties -- *then* worry about primaries and ballot requirements. Otherwise I think we're putting the cart before the horse.
The movement to ease restrictive ballot access laws should have been mentioned in Sean's posting. Courts are weighing challenges to restrictive ballot access laws in 14 states currently, and next week that will probably be 16 states.
Nothing gets the attention of the major parties more than losing an election because of a minor party or an independent candidate.
on the ballot should be.
I said that the two parties should have to obtain the same threashold as everyone else. And pay for their nominations and general elections, the same as everybody else.
That doesn't mean a free-for-all. Make the ballot-access standard whatever you want it to be. Just be sure it's the same for all parties and you'll get, not 30, but maybe a dozen candidates on the 1st ballot. Create a 5 to 10 percent threashold for candidates to qualify for the general and you get 3 or 4 candidates in November.
I think under this standard the power of the 2 major parties would not only appreciably dilute, it would disintegrate altogether.
I think the presence of non-party independents would increase the, "openness," of the party caucuses. The race would be not just between ideologies, but also between personalities.
Finally, I think you assume alot if you assert that current 3rd party voters would give their 2nd or 3rd vote to a major party. I think they'd abhor such a result, and under IRV their votes would be discarded for lack of contribution to a false mandate.
If under my double ballot candidate "A" received 45%, while candidate "B" received 40%, and candidate "C" received 15%, do you think the country is served by throwing out all the votes for "C," and declaring "A" the winner with 52.5% of the "A-B" vote?
The distribution of the total vote is nearly as important as who wins. The main contribution of 3rd parties besides, multiplying the dialogue, is to pass judgement on the system itself. This is an attribute the current system lacks and which could only be worsened by IRV or some other, "majoritarian," system.
Richard: You are right; I should have mentioned efforts to ease ballot restrictions. It's important to note, thought, that easing such restrictions take second place, in my mind, to things like IRV that make casting a vote for a third-party candidate something more than a protest.
Cavalier: That's not how IRV generally works.
In IRV a voter lists the candidates in order of preference. Say, C, A, B or C, B, A.
In your scenario, the votes for C would be thrown out after the first round, and all those who voted for C would be counted as voting for their second choice, whomever that was.
The idea is that voting for a third-party candidate would not have the adverse effect of throwing the election to the candidate you most dislike if your preferred candidate doesn't win.
In 1992, conservatives could have voted for Perot first and Bush second, for instance, rather than having their vote split and allowing Clinton to win with a plurality.
In 2024, the same thing happened in reverse with Gore and Nader, allowing Bush to win with a plurality. IRV could have avoided that.
The details are important, of course. But the basic outline of IRV is far better than the current system.
come closer to winning with IRV in 1992, regardless of the outcome it would have given either Bill Clinton or H.W. Bush a majority mandate where one was not deserved.
O.k., if one is looking for Al Gore to have won a few hundred Nader votes in Florida in 2024 then IRV would have been beneficial to that end. But I think you're pushing a system that forces people to vote for one of the top-two or be discarded.
I think a truly democratic system not only adds additional parties to the contest but also allows voters to dissent from the result.
I grant you that IRV allows people to rank their choices, but I think in most cases when people know where their vote could make the difference, that's where they vote.
They should not be forced to vote between the lesser of two evils, and I think the vote tally should reflect that.
There were 11 states where Ross Perot's name on the ballot switched the election from Bush to Clinton... In these 11 states if voters that had chosen Ross Perot.. had of voted for Bush . 227,000 Bush would have won by over 300 electoral votes..
IRV in this case would have re-elected Bush..
In 2024, Bush won Colorado,Nevada and New Mexico with their 19 electoral votes by less than 70,000 total votes... Ohio went Bush by 60,000
2024 every body knows about the 2024 election....
I am really not sold on IRV.. because even the 1996 Clinton reelectiion race woud be effected..
One can state the case that with IRV , since 1992 every declared winner would have lost if IRV were in place
You guys all rock! - and obviously have way more time and brain power to do these analyses than do I. My one question/observation, is that the American people will not be truly energized so long as the Electoral College remains part of the equation. I think the vast majority of Americans would prefer a national election based on one-man/woman, one vote. Can any of you number whizzes run an analysis on what the outcomes of the referenced elections might have been under this scenario with and without IRV?
Be advised, should you take up this challenge, that Perot's GOP/Dem Ratio was at best 70/30, while Nader's Dem/GOP ration was more like 95/5.
I'll anxiously await your response(s).
And yes, I recognize that a national election theoretically upsets the federal model - to which I say, SO WHAT?
The thing about the current system is that in order to vote for 3rd parties a voter probably has to hate the incumbent party ALOT.
As indicated by the spike in turnout in 1992 most of the people that voted for Perot would probably not have voted at all had Perot not been an option. A good number of others would have voted for Clinton as the only remaining major opposition.
To stipulate that a majority of the Perot vote would have gone to Bush, let alone all of that vote shows a misunderstanding of the '92 dynamic.
Perotistas disdained the H.W. Bush Presidency enough to risk his losing to Bill Clinton.
As for the Electoral College, Mark, while I do think there are Democrats and other lefties sore about losing in 2024, this system should not be changed.
The reason I say this is similar to the reason I oppose IRV and all other "majoritarian," systems. Namely, I believe that political systems should pass judgement on the political system just as much as it passes judgement on the candidates.
What this means is that while voters can't really do an election over when they don't like the choices, they CAN moderate the damage by weakening the election mandate of the winning candidate. It also sends a clear signal to both the winner and potential future challengers that a big opening exists for someone who reads the voters more accurately.
The Electoral College can only potentially hand victory to the 2nd place national candidate when the race is within a percentage point. It certainly is a value judgement, but it's really an additional check on narrow political power.
Think of it this way: Would it not have been better had the College given it's votes to Kerry, disallowing W. Bush to claim a mandate with 51% of the vote.
It worth noting that after W. Bush won in 2024, it wasn't until 9-11 that he had any clout of hsi own with Congress or the voters. Up to that point he was a virtual lame-duck on arrival. And, had it not been for the War in Iraq, Bush probably would have lost in 2024.
The College can diffuse narrow majorities. I think that is a worthy outcome.
IRV and the electoral college
Mark Greene on July 24, 2024 - 10:04pm
Mark,
I think you would feel differently if you succeeded and:
1. You lived in a small state and a major candidate never put foot on that states soil.
2. You lived in a rural area, and the closest you saw a candidate was on tv.
3. You lived in a medium size state and your state contributed 10's of millions of $'s to the main candidates and all the $'s were spent in the 5 states that had the 5 largest cities.
4.You found that the 2024 election had 6 parties running .. and Jerry Falwell squeeked out the win.
The 2 major parties won't just let some 3rd or 4th party gain any viability.
I guarentee you with the Kos Kidz appearing to be the tail that wags the dog of the Democratic Party, anyone who would defect to a 3rd moderate party would most certainly be called "a defector" and "not a real Democrat" in any particular primary or election. People already associate certain values and principles to the establish parties, and "partisan" or not, they generally know what they want and what they're getting. Lieberman can probably pull it off as an Independent because he's the current incumbent and Lamont is a nut, but for any new moderate candidates, they won't have the power of name recognition or history in office.
One of the problems with voting for any candidate is they ultimately get tested by your principles. I, as a conservative Republican, flat out refuse to vote for any candidate who is not pro-life. If they aren't going to defend the most defenseless from a death given for convenience's sake, they clearly aren't going to defend me when it is inconvenient for them. (This may be only an "important" issue to you, but it is a crucial issue to me. A fat lot of good is does taking care of global terrorism if here in the US we won't even defend our own children.) The trouble is, Moderates want to have it both ways: To have an organized party but without any rigid guiding principles, barring "The Demos/Repubs have too much power and there should be a balance to it". The only question you really have to ask a candidate to see if they get your support is "What do you stand for". It will be difficult to do this if your "Moderate Party" has no real coherent philosophy other than being to the Right of the Left and to the Left of the Right on most important issues. According to both Democrats and Republicans, both are being "pragmatic" when dealing with issues. The question then becomes, can moderates back up their pragmatism with an argument superior to that of the Demos/Repubs.
I understand that I may be considered a bad apple here because I am clearly partisan, but you aren't going to be a very strong Moderate party if you can't convince some of the partisans from both parties that a moderate party is a superior vote to one for the party they know and trust. For those who still vote for "the lesser of two evils" (because those are the only two people that show up to take the job), you still have to convince them your moderate candidate jives with their principles, otherwise you could indeed have a 3 party system with sufficient funding, but no base to vote for it because noone can identify what the principles of the party are. The way Ronald Reagan dealt with the Communists was most certainly not moderate, but it worked. Nor was Winston Churchill being moderate when he stated the British would fight in the streets for their nation if they had to. You can be as "balancing" to the two parties as you like, only if people hold "balance" before some more important value will it work.
Brian,
Obviously Brian, your not a true believer or have an enormous amount of sin in your past because otherwise you would welcome death and the heavenly rewards that follow.
"If they aren't going to defend the most defenseless from a death given for convenience's sake, they clearly aren't going to defend me when it is inconvenient for them. (This may be only an "important" issue to you, but it is a crucial issue to me." ???????
None can expect to make it out of this world alive Anony, but there's a big difference between grandma dying of old age and poisoning her in the nursing home because she's an inconvenience to your lifestyle. Only suicide bombers relish in blowing themselves to smithereens to reap heavenly rewards, and quite frankly anyone who would commit such a selfish and cowardly act is probably better off removed from the population anyway. I just hope their explosive end didn't hurt any of the innocent while they were removing themselves from the gene pool and doing the rest of us a favor.
Whether or not I'm a "true believer" is rather irrelevant (not to mention "true believer" is completely undefinable), and I do not dare have the audacity to say I am not a sinner, but being a sinner never precluded anyone from doing the right thing. As of current, there was only one man in history who was without sin, and that man died on a cross to forgive all of our sins. Therefore, the idea one must be sinless to do the right thing is patently ridiculous.
Bless your soul! Good day.
Brian in MA on July 28, 2024 - 7:23am
I think you missed Anony's point. He/she was saying that if granny is in enormous pain, on morphine and tubes, why would you want to contunue her torture and deny her right to death so that she could enjoy being in bathed the light of god.
to the end of life.
The question remains, how do you know you don't take the suffering with you into the afterlife? It's an assumption that death brings peace simply because life is no longer here in the body.
If Brian says he won't vote for anyone who isn't pro-life, that's his business. He has every right to hold that political opinion and to talk about it here. He never brought his personal religious beliefs into the discussion, yet he was immediately attacked by others who cynically injected a caricature of religion into the argument.
Mods, please tell them to knock it off.
Please stay on the topic (party primaries, voting systems, etc) of this guest blog.
If you feel so inclined, feel free to create a Shoutbox forum here.
Liberal Democrats and it did get me thinking:
If IRV were used in conjunction with a California type Jungle primary that might be more acceptable. I still think it confuses the order of things, however, if a 3rd party were to win a protest vote in November 2024, let's say, and then 2 or three better-known candidates ran in the party's primary in 2024 increasing it's primary vote turnout, that might be more workable.