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October 08, 2003
Splits
Yesterday I was thinking about the possibilities of splits, but it was about the Democrats. On the one hand, you have eight or nine candidates for the Democrat's nomination and on the other, nobody running against GWBush. Yet while the election of Schwartzenegger suggests that the Republicans are off track, the Democrats can't even decide on whom to run.
Both parties have the same problem which is that they offer too little to too many people whom they end up selling out in the end. There has been so much frission over the contretemps at CIA and the White House over Plame that people really get out of hand with the kinds of excuses they make simply to score something against the other side. Truth survives and serves neither party well, but it is awfully depressing to watch people bend themselves out of shape in an endless cycle of reprisals and oneupmanship. I don't like the partisanship of a two partys system because half the people have to be wrong or perverse just to be comfortable.
There are several political/cultural commentators that I am gravitating towards who don't go for that, and so after a year of blogging I think I am finding myself more comfortable with the likes of Totten and Simon. There are more of that style but that's where I hope to fit in.
To the issue, I don't think that Libertarians are a significant enough minority to hold their own on the national scene, and it is unclear to me how they would attract a broad coalition of voters. I beleive that the Libertarians, as they present themselves, are entirely too yuppified to sustain themselves outside of the wings of the Republican Party. But I'm also terrified of what a Republican Party without direct libertarian influence would become. I believe it would become hostage to the Limbaugh coalition and the Christian Right. Would Arnold Schwartzenegger (or someone with his ideological positions) go with the Libertarians and leave the Republican party to people like Tom McClintock? Perish the thought. Instead, the Libertarians should strive to control the Republican party and force the Conservatives to bolt and form their own Right Wing.
This Republican party could then easily recover the Center, which Clinton moved cynically right, and allow Democrats to snap back to their pre-1990s dimensions. Alternatively, the Democrats could split into a real Labor party and form common cause with the Greens.
Posted by mbowen at October 8, 2003 01:15 PM
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