Charting and Blazing a Pathway to Building a Centrist Third Party Opposition to the Two Major Parties
Though the Republican primaries and the presidential race now dominate the news, the disgust over governmental dysfunction and disdain for the two current parties remains. Polls have shown approval of the Republicans and Democrats at their lowest levels ever, along with ratings for Congress in the single digits. There is also a lack of enthusiasm for the presidential candidates of both parties. Americans may be ready for another political option – a centrist third party.
In fact, a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that two thirds of respondents would consider voting for a third party candidate with whom they agreed on most issues. And about half said they thought there was a need for a third party. Various surveys have shown that 35 to 43% of Americans are self-labeled as moderates, an indication of fertile soil for planting a centrist third party. (A Gallop Poll that came out on January 9 had 40% of Americans identifying themselves as independents.) Moderate Republicans, centrist Democrats and independents at present have no appropriate political home. Many of them do not participate in elections, as the candidates running for offices do not represent their beliefs. A recent article in USA Today reported that more than 2.5 million voters have exited the Republican and Democratic parties since the 2008 election, with the number of independent voters growing.
Middle path, less traveled
Given all the discontented citizens who might support a centrist third party, how could it be created? To differentiate itself from the current parties, a commitment to integrity, transparency and pragmatism would be required, with a willingness to compromise and find common sense solutions to America’s problems.
There are already a number of organizations and nascent parties with a moderate or centrist orientation, though their objectives vary. Some are national in scope while others are limited to individual states. These include Americans Elect, No Labels, the Reform Party and state Moderate Parties among other groups.
Americans Elect believes that a non-partisan presidential ticket will change the political dynamic in the country and is presently attempting to get on the ballot in every state. They intend to have an online convention for Americans to directly nominate the candidates. All voters, Democrats, Republicans and independents will be able to participate in the selection. However, this process does not address the problem of a gridlocked Congress that will have even less incentive to deal with a president who does not have the support of a political party.
No Labels aims to reform Congress by changing its rules and the behavior of its members. Its prescription for reform is reasonable, but many of the ideas have been considered for years without any action. Among No Labels recommendations are- No Budget, No Pay for Congress; Up or Down Vote on Presidential Appointments; Fix the Filibuster; A Monthly Question Time for the President; No Pledge but the Pledge of Office; Monthly Bipartisan Gatherings and Bipartisan Seating. While No Labels’ objectives are laudable, the partisanship in Congress and demonizing of opponents are not going to suddenly go away to permit these proposals to take hold.
The Reform Party still has a national footprint, albeit considerably weakened since its hay day in the 90s. The organization of the party varies by state. It is pro-reform with many centrist ideas. Among its objectives are removing special interest money from politics and making government more efficient, but it also has populist goals, particularly in regard to free trade agreements and the WTO.
The above three groups along with several moderate state parties could form the core of a national centrist third party that would have instant credibility and exposure. Though their visions of how to address the problem of gridlocked government are somewhat divergent, they all agree that change is necessary and want pragmatic solutions. However, these organizations and their founding members would have to be willing to suppress their ambitions and egos in order to coalesce into a centrist party. Though Americans Elect and No Labels emphasize that they are not political parties, true effectiveness and the ability to reform the nation’s politics will only come if they join with the Reform Party and compatible state entities into a single, strong party. The question remains whether these disparate groups are capable of compromising and unifying. Another question is how quickly they would be able to challenge the current parties if they did unite. Each of these groups has already set an agenda for the fast-approaching 2012 elections. Thus it might be more reasonable for this new centrist third party to set its sights on the 2014 and 2016 contests.
Hopefully in the near future, the organizations of the moderate middle will be able to overcome their differences, develop a unified vision and present Americans with a real alternative to the current political duopoly. It is a logical path to a centrist third party.
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History suggests it will take a cataclysmic event to shake us off our historical two-party inertia. The last successful third party, the GOP, got traction because of the Kansas-Nebraska Act with its opening the door to the expansion of slavery. Lincoln, Seward, Chase, and others made that a clarifying event for a growing majoritarian public opinion. Given the incredible turbulence in the world economy, we may be just a bank failure away from a clarifying event for our time. (SOPA was a teaser.) Like the 1850s, the battle lines are drawn–in this case, between the defenders of a government that no longer works and those excited by the new economy and its enormous potential for an era of global prosperity that will only happen with a massive debt restructuring that favors the new over the old. As the current talks underway to restructure the Greek sovereign debt show, we are still a long way from an undeniable political consensus in favor the future. Stay tuned. The abolitionists toiled for years before their day arrived.
“The last successful third party, the GOP, got traction because of the Kansas-Nebraska Act with its opening the door to the expansion of slavery”.
Excuse me, but this is horrible bunk. The GOP was a re-tread of the Whig party and was therefore one of the two major parties already, and not in 1860 as you are inferring with the name Lincoln, but rather, already in 1856, with Fremont as it’s Presidential candidate!
It was the remnants of the Whig party, the ones who refused to allow the name retread, that became the third party in 1856 as former President Millard Fillmore led an attempt to regain control – and lost. The remains of the Whig party even renamed itself to “Whig-American” in order to try and gain traction. It didn’t work. As of 1860, the “Whig” party was not even on the national ballot and not on even one, not one, state ballot! Nice try re-writing history, but the statistics are gonna give you a thumpin, here.
Republicans from that era are nothing more than re-named Whigs. End of story.
I think if the two parties continue to be polarized, the idea of a Centrist party may become more popular with disenchanted voters. If there is a Centrist Party, that means the dynamics of Congress will no doubt change. There will have to be coalitions between parties to reach majority votes. How well would something like that work? Could it ultimately alienate one party, if Centrists decide to favor one party over the other?
All it would need is something like 3 or 4 seats in the senate, and everything contentious would need to go through them. A tipping point would be when said party was able to get somewhere around 10-15% in both the House and Senate, at which point it would be all but impossible to work around them.
It would be up to the two major parties to either continue along the path of ideological purity, and get nothing accomplished, or work with us to get some of what they want. Would defeat the purpose of having a seperate party if we necessarily favored one over the other, and didn’t just work with whichever side put in an effort to really compromise with us.
News poll found that two thirds of respondents would consider voting for a third party candidate with whom they agreed on most issues.
But no third party candidate will agree with 2/3rds of them on most issues in all liklihood because they don’t agree on 2/3rds of most issues.
And? Nobody serious is claiming this centrist party would have anything remotely like 2/3 of voters with it. A more realistic educated guess would be 30-40%, depending on the demographics and state of the two major parties of the state in question.
In response to Robert, I would just point out that the leaders of Americans Elect and No Labels are anti-third party. Both organizations are premised on the idea of fixing the system by getting the two parties to work together. That’s a much more serious concern for me than egos or ambition — it’s a fundamental disagreement upon a theory of change.
I really appreciate the skepticism of making a third party viable. History doesn’t teach us that it’s impossible, but rather that it hasn’t been approached in the right way. In my view, the only way a third party will succeed is if it gives sitting incumbents an incentive to defect from their current parties. The only way that will happen is if there’s widespread appeal among voters. And there will only be widespread appeal if we can make it sexy. In other words, a new third party needs to connect with a targeted segment of voters in a visceral way.
It’s going to take a sophisticated approach that entrepreneurial risk takers are willing to pursue. That’s your real problem: most people who are smart enough to launch an effective third party are too risk averse to try it. Only after someone who’s willing to take the risk of demonstrating a new approach that actually works will folks follow. I’m hoping to blaze some trails in that respect, but to be quite honest: the more in depth I get, the more complicated it becomes. There are way too many moving parts and I think we tend to oversimplify the “If you build it, they will come” mentality (“it” referring to having a good message >> this goes way beyond message).
It’s going to take something much grander that I can’t even articulate at the moment, but will soon be ready for public consumption. At least I hope.