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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Geez... they will have to choose a mascot...what will it be...what will go up against the elephant and the donkey?
Two-Headed Aligator Party...No assholes...which keeps them mean...
From the Tea Party movement will come a new political party, a Party of the Radical Middle. This will be Ross Perot’s old Reform Party under a new name and new management. I suspect it will go back to early American history and label itself the Federalist Party, or perhaps the New Federalist Party. Unlike Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Party, which was a centralist party, this will be a party dedicated to genuine Jacksonian federalism. (Andrew, not Jesse.)
It will favor the Constitution in Exile, not the Living Constitution. It will favor states’ rights over federal control. It will favor low taxation, less government and taking many functions out of government hands altogether.
On cultural warfare, it will either dodge the issues of abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage by leaving them to the states (federalism), or finesse them by saying that the principles of small government should keep government out of people’s most private decisions.
On the Middle East war, it will stand for coming home, but defending the homeland itself against foreign religious fanatics.
It will take a stand -- with teeth -- against illegal immigration.
This party will owe nothing to the groups that make up the Far Left. There will be no attempt to woo poor blacks, teachers, homosexuals, radical women, and Greens.
Likewise, this party will owe nothing to the groups that make up the Hard Right. There will be no attempt to woo single-issue Evangelicals.
Political Independents have always disliked the fact that a Hard Left nominating electorate controls the Democrats’ nominating process and a Hard Right nominating electorate does the same with Republicans. They feel voiceless and abandoned by the two party system.
A party that can harness Independents and disaffected Democrats and Republicans will become the majority party overnight.
No.
Failure to vote for a RINO does not imply affirmatively voting for a Rat.
I will strongly consider voting for Palin if she runs.
But..I will not vote for Romney, Huckabee, Giuliani, McCain (heaven forbid that he run again), or any of the stupid "Obama Lite" RINOs.
The Integrity Party.
Having perot-clinton flashbacks. I sure wish the republican party could get its act together.
I was replying to another Freeper and just decided to cc you.
John / Billybob
The best mascot the new party could have of course would be a Jackalope.
Lion...king of the jungle
;-)
The Eagle.
As far as I’m concerned this is a dumb idea. We have the republican party.......CLEAN IT UP......rid ourselves of the RINOS and the republican establishment....build the Republican Party into a conservative party. 3rd parties never go any place and today it is still a very bad idea.
John / Billybob
What do term limits have to do with anything? If my representative is good on the other three, why kick them out?(voting is term limits, however it's seldom used, why?, I don't know)
Now, if you want to impose some limit on dynastic empires like Kennedy for instance, I'm with you. "No stinking relative of any long-term stinking Senator shall be allowed as a stinking candidate for anything in this stinking state, um, er, ah,er.", for instance.
Agree 100%, and have posted similar posts as yours numerous occasions.
One thing that people that want to form a 52nd party need to do is promote their own candidate, you can’t just fawn over a leading republican and fantasize that she is/will be your candidate, she is a leading, and a lifetime republican with no plans of abandoning her party.
Perhaps we have had “third parties” in the recent past, only they were not “officially” recognized as such. If you think about it, we had such a thing in the 1980’s, when a third party of sorts, called “The Reagan Republicans” elected the President of the United States. He had long coat tails too. Anyone who was similar in ideology to him was successfully elected to office too, up to and icluding 1994.
I’m for making non-major parties major parties. The duopoly in charge now is unacceptable.
I say we make the first requirement for a Republican candidate for office to be able to describe exactly what a republic is, and demonstrate an understanding of the meaning of the word "sovereign".
“The eagle”
I love it...
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