Posted on 09/04/2009 8:06:05 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob
by John Armor (BB 670, Even, 4 Sept, 707 words)
The last time a new American political party came into being, one strong enough to elect a President, was in 1854. As you have guessed, that was the Republican Party. Its first elected President was Abraham Lincoln in 1860.
Many third party and independent campaigns have been mounted since then. The Progressive Party around 1900 managed to elect Governors and majorities in the legislature of several states. Their high water mark was in 1912, when former President Teddy Roosevelt chose that Party as his vehicle to run again when the Republicans declined to nominate him, again. (No, there never was a “Bull Moose Party.” Don’t send letters and postcards claiming that there was.)
What’s the relevance of this ancient history to the off-year, congressional election in 2010? Well, take a look at that history and see what seems familiar.
The Republican Party began with a meeting in Ripon, Wisconsin, in 1854. Present were members of the Free Soil Party (favoring continued homesteading rights) and Conscience Whigs (northern Whigs separated from their southern members over slavery). The meeting was led by a disgruntled Democrat (who also split with his Party on slavery).
Remember this point. The new Party was created by people who had been elected under other party labels, but became dissatisfied with their current parties’ stands on key issues. The current two major parties are both fractured over key issues, including taxes, public debt, growth of government regulations, and respect for the Constitution.
All new party efforts since 1854 have failed at the national level. The reason for that unbroken history of failure is because all those new party efforts sought to reinvent the wheel and create parties from scratch. All successful efforts up to 1854 followed a different path. In the successful examples, elected officials changed their party labels, and later captured the support of voters who’d made the same shifts.
In 1856 the Republican candidate, John Fremont, won a third of the votes though his Party wasn’t one of the two strongest parties, going into that election. By 1858, the Republicans held a majority in Congress, not because they had elected a majority of the Senators and Representatives. They elected many. But the Members who put them over the top had been elected under other party labels, but switched to the Republicans.
All right, what is the situation of the current major parties? The Democrats are split into three groups, the hard left, the center, and the moderate right. There is no love lost between the right and left wings of that Party. Votes coming up in Congress will probably demonstrate that the wings of the Democrats hate each other enough so they will refuse to vote together.
The Republican Party is also fractured, into the hard right, and the squishy moderates. The hatred within the Party may be less, but the refusal to hold together for votes in Congress will be equally apparent.
And where do the American people stand? They have contempt for both the Republican and Democrat Parties. On the issues, public opinion is more against the Democrats than Republicans. Experts on both sides of the aisle expect the Democrats to lose seats in both Houses of Congress in 2010. But because the Republicans are also disrespected, they will probably will not win a majority in either House.
Some Republicans talk of “rebranding the Party.” Such efforts will fail. Just because the cat has kittens in the oven, doesn’t make them biscuits. However, if a majority of Republicans and a minority of Democrats all support these four issues -- obey the Constitution, cut taxes, reduce government control of lives of Americans, and support term limits – as a group they will dominate the elections and control both Houses of Congress.
What label will they adopt? The Tea Party Party is too casual. They will dump the current leaders of both Houses of Congress, assuming that Senator Reid has not already been dumped by his Nevada constituents, a preliminary shock heralding the coming earthquake.
No pundits are currently talking about this new party possibility. It is a long shot. But those who ignore the political history of American parties do not even realize this has happened several times before, and can happen again.
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About the Author: John Armor practiced in the US Supreme Court for 33 years. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu His latest book, on Thomas Paine, is available here: www.TheseAreTheTimes.us (Note the suffix, .us)
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Look at the definition of the word!
Even Republican and Democrap websites refer to the animals as a mascot!
What is your problem?
The Republican party is not on the verge of being replaced by some nonexistent party that only exists in your personal fantasy.
Any organization whose leadership isolates itself from its customers can die. The name of the person whose patience is exhausted by betrayals by the Republican Party is "legion, for we are many." Your #57 says,“You can’t just pretend that a top republican is your candidate, respect Governor Palin and President Reagan enough to recognize them as GOP leaders and icons of the party that they have fought for and devoted their lives to.”
I noted that Reagan was hardly a lifelong Republican. Now let's talk about Gov. Palin. I don't know that she has ever been a Democrat, but Todd is an independent and she herself is a maverick Republican. In a quite different way, thank God, than John McCain. McCain's "maverickism" lies in his propensity for going along and getting along with AP journalism and thus with the Democratic Party which itself does little-to-nothing else but go along and get along with AP journalism. Palin's "maverickism" lies in her propensity for fighting and beating the old-boy network in the Republican Party whenever it runs at cross purposes to her perception of the public interest. She does it her own way, twice resigning when nobody thought that that was a career-enhancing move until after she had done it.The people who held their noses and voted for McCain last time, hoping against hope that Obama could be defeated, now have one more confirmation of the fact that Republicans can't please AP journalism - and those who try to, don't please anybody. Possibly even, less than a third of the voters. People tend to not bother going to the polls to swim against that kind of tide.
Rush has cautioned against third party, and rightly so. He sees the possibility that Palin could split the party if it doesn't nominate her. Third parties are by definition foolishness. What matters is to be the first party - and the country club Republican is comfortable taking a second party attitude (John McCain, Exhibit "A"). When the rich Democrat and the "poor" Democrat (whose life style compares favorably with that of the middle class only two generations ago) gang up with the monopoly Associated Press to attack the middle class, "second party" is not good enough for the quintessential middle class nation.
Sorry. I think we reached a tipping point where a majority of Americans will vote for “free stuff” over “obey the Constitution, cut taxes, reduce government control of lives of Americans, and support term limits.”
Face it. Nearly half the voting population pays no income taxes whatsoever. Worse, their numbers are going through government subsidies for illegitimacy. Are they going to vote to cut themselves off from the public trough? Somehow, I don’t think so. Even if they see that it is emptying, they will fight for the last scraps rather than pull back and let it refill.
Some Republicans talk of “rebranding the Party.” Such efforts will fail. Just because the cat has kittens in the oven, doesn’t make them biscuits.
Quite true, and an awful lot of people do not see this. 'Pod.
I will gladly throw the Republicans under the bus, even one heading for the cliff ....
This is the critical point which is NECESSARY for the success of a new party -- it MUST have members who have been prominent in OTHER parties (not an unknown one or two term Congressman who has been out of office for a decade or more, but politicians that people have actually heard of).
I've long maintained that part of the reason that the Republican party was successful in the 80s and 90s was because we purged the wackos (the Klan, the neo-Nazis, et al) from the party in the 70s and early 80s. The Democrats embraced their wackos (the communists, the hard greens, etc) and now it shows. Most of the country disagrees, violently, with what the hard left wing of the Democrat party believes. If they fail to purge their extremists, a good chunk of the middle will move to the Republican party, not because the middle suddenly became conservative, but because the Republican party would offer the only voice of sanity.
I can see three de facto parties emerging thusly: A hard left seriously wacko party (10-20%), a moderate party (40-50%) and a conservative party (30-40%). They may still be under the names "Democrat" and "Republican," but it'll be three parties nonetheless. We're already seeing the seeds of that, with the Blue Dog Democrats and the Tea Party movements.
This has probably been addressed, but -
why aren’t we concentrating on kicking out and marginalizing the elitists in the GOP?
Hmmm, how about a Kodiak Bear? :)
I think that is a good idea except for the reality that it is really difficult to kick people out of the party and there are a whole lot more than people realize and they are pretty firmly entrenched.
I'd go a step further - a national Primary day. I lived in Georgia during the last election. By the time Georgia had its primaries, my effective choices were down to McCain, Romney, or Huckabee, none of whom I thought were worth anything. I voted for Fred Thompson, even though he'd already pulled out of the race. My first choice was Duncan Hunter, but he'd been out of contention for so long that he wasn't even on the ballot anymore.
John / Billybob
John / Billybob
I’ve read a whole lot about the demise of the Whigs and the simultaneous rise of the GOP and I know it’s possible. I knew that a new party’s success hinges on having “big names” as members and I really like the way you described it. This has been the reason that third parties like the Libertarians and Constitutionalists have never made it, NOBODY (aside from hard-core political junkies) knows who their candidates are.
Evidently you are willing to repeat your fairy tale a lot, Palin is GOP, Reagan is GOP and no party is going to rise up suddenly and replace the GOP or the Democrat party.
You noted that Reagan switched from the Democrats to the GOP, big deal millions do that and always have, that isn’t a “third party”, Sarah Palin has always been a Republican.
I’m not much interested in her husband’s registration but since the family went national he has registered Republican, which is something that I have never done, I am a lifelong independent.
You want to beat an imaginary dead horse, and you want me to continue to waste time on your imaginary 2012 election where a non existing party, with powerful and charismatic, non existing candidates, running on an exciting vote winning non existing party platform is swept into office by it’s non existing members and voters.
Your personal fantasies are not worth wasting this much time and effort for.
I haven’t given much thought to a national primary day, but on the surface, it makes sense to me. I hate the fact that states like Iowa and New Hampshire crown the leaders early on.
I liked Fred Thompson too, despite his lousy campaign and after he left, I was hard pressed to find a conservative in the race.
We’ve got a young man, a genuine Reaganite, in the Indiana 9th CongDist to take the seat away from that idiot Baron Hill. Travis Hankins.
If Mike Sodrel decides to run, he’ll most likely take it.
But if Sodrel doesn’t run, I’m afraid the Republican establishment in the district and state will back a party “Yes” man, and I just don’t trust the TOP of the Republican Party anymore.
I’ve been looking at Todd Young, but my feeling is that he’ll just bend and bow for political gain and not operate on true principle.
I’m pulling for Travis Hankins.
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