Peggy Noonan sees a potential groundswell emerging for a third party to cater to the purples out there. Money quote:
Their idea is that the two parties are too polarized to govern well. It is certainly true that the level of partisanship in Washington seems high. Nancy Pelosi seems to be pretty much in favor of anything that hurts Republicans, and Ken Mehlman is in favor of anything that works against Democrats. They both want their teams to win. Part of winning is making sure the other guy loses, and part of the fun of politics, of any contest, of life, can be the dance in the end zone.
She continues with the litany of concerns by many Americans that are not being met, from spending to security. Given her background and her paper, she is, of course, speaking largely to the current schism in the GOP. She doesn't feel it necessary to include the erosion of civil liberties as one of the current hot-button issues about which Americans are concerned. She also doesn't address the large uncommitted center that dislike Kennedy liberalism as much as the religious right or Bush-style incompetence. But I couldn't agree more that the time is ripe for a third option. She refers to a nascent web group called Unity '08 who has the following mission, "By electing a Unity Ticket to the White House, Unity08 plans to force the country’s Democratic and Republican leaders to cease their runaway focus on the issues of outlying special-interest groups and once again align with the aspirations and will of average Americans."
Sounds like an excellent idea where I may be able to find a home. I'll be following up.
5 comments:
i.e. a politician who is socially liberal (protecting civil rights and the environment) and fiscally conservative (reigning in pork and paying down the national debt). I'd like to think it can work on a national level.
I think it's been tried at the state level (Governors Ventura and Schwartzenegger) with mixed results.
Another cigar, Governor Friedman?
No kidding. But if it could be done with a non-gimmicky candidate, it could take shape.
Plus I'm for a governor who supports cigar-rights.
Okay, fine, but I have yet to hear what "socially liberally and fiscally responsible means"
Just to further the conversation, where besides obvious pork projects, do we cut? Our biggest expenditures are military and entitlements, not in that order.
Interestingly, Omaha, Nebraska and Louisville, Kentucky just got a bonanza of homeland security grants. Not sure how much Alaska and Utah got, but I'm sure Ted Stevens and Orren Hatch hooked us up.
"Socially liberally" (your words, not mine) means: keeping govenment out of people's medical decisions (abortion, also see Teri Shivo), war as a last resort only (i.e. re-instating the Powell Doctorine), protecting privacy, environmental protection (or at least not subsidizing the degradation of public lands), among other things.
These days, voting for a Democrat in Texas practically is throwing away your vote. Why not vote third party in the hope they get enough votes to qualify for Federal Matching Funds?
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