Why Party Matters
Mar. 3rd, 2004 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydyRalph Nader has announced that he'd going to run for president, again. *sigh* At least this year, he looks to be mostly harmless. I'm still upset with the people who argued four years ago that there was no real difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, and voted for Nader. Surely even blind, paralytic monkeys on heroin could see the difference between the Democrats and Republicans. I'm not singing the praises of the Dems. I'm not totally dissing the Reps, either. I am saying that you can tell the difference, that it's a difference that matters, and that when you vote, you are making a choice between those two parties. Never mind your bloody conscience. I'm interested in the real world and the consequences of actions here and now.
In Civics, first in eighth grade and then as a senior in high school, I was led to believe that the "right" thing to do was vote for the candidate, despite party. I was told that it was important to vote my conscience, that real change was most likely if people stopped being awed by the two party system, and voted for the best candidate. I was led to believe that political parties were primarily engines of corruption, such as Tammany Hall. This would have been late Seventies, in case it matters.
I think that my Civics teachers were good people, and that they taught me what they thought was true. I also think that what they taught me is pravda which serves to divide people from each other so that they are less powerful. The fundamental truth of politics (as well as life, but let that go) is that things get done by organizing groups of people. (And not very bloody organized, if one extrapolates from my experience with the Democratic caucus last night! Lords, could those people organize themselves out of a paper bag? I'm unclear.) Americans think highly of individuality, and I would never argue that individuals are powerless, but no single person has the power that one hundred organized people do.
What the founders intended, and what is the best possible structure, are interesting considerations, and might be useful for forming goals. I'm willing to concede that the two party system is badly flawed. However, neither of those has anything to do with the facts on the ground. Here and now, politics are dominated by the Republicans and Democrats, and that matters. Personally, I think that it is a horrible infringement of my rights as a person, as well as a political disaster, for marijuana to be illegal, but facts on the ground dictate that I not walk down the street smoking a joint, no matter how much I'd like to, and no matter how much in the right I think that I am. I'm clear on where the power balance is on that issue. I think that the issue of political parties is much the same. You may not like it, but the way power works in this country right now is that the major political parties have more of it than all the minor parties put together.
The reason that parties matter is the same reason why the Ds and Rs are so powerful in the first place: they are large organizations of people. Well, really the Democrats are a semi-organized hodgepodge of other organizations, but you know what I mean. :-) Parties exist to conserve and generate wealth, to extend their influence, and support their members. They raise money, they target the spending of money strategically, they work to get candidates elected. They make deals on the behalf of many elected officials, giving those officials more weight than each would have alone. Parties command greater resources than individual politicians, and so they have more power than any one of their own.
When a politician runs as a party member, he's making an implicit deal with his party. He's agreeing to support his party's policies and goals, to some extent. Oh, he may well have other convictions, and vote against his own party some of the time. This has, in fact, come to be a measure of whether or not a politician is a "good" politician. However, if he refuses his party too often, they'll refuse to support him, too. The party doesn't just help with fundraising, canvassing, and polling. It helps by providing connections and resources, good staffers and good information.
Here's the truth: any candidate that runs on a party ticket is beholden to that party. Here's another truth: that's not necessarily a bad thing. Third and very important truth (I like things that come in threes): you can get involved with a political party.
So, here's my point: When you vote for a candidate, you are implicitly supporting his party. You are giving his party a position, a vote, influence that they can use for various goals. Even if your representative won't vote for the things you most hate, his mere presence as an elected official strengthens the party he belongs to. Look at how often they count up the number of Democratic and Republican governors, for instance. Let's not even talk about balance of power within a legislature. The number of legislators of a particular party will influence how much money the party is able to raise.
You won't ever find a party that fits you to a T. People being people, you're unlikely to find a candidate that does, either, of course. However, don't just look at the candidate. Look at the party. Look at the type of people they've been supporting for election, lately, even if those people haven't won. Look at their platform. Look at the planks that everybody knows are extremist nonsense that will go by the board and think about what constituency those planks are there to pacify. Look at the people currently serving that belong to that party, and their patterns of behavior. There's plenty to hate in both parties, but it matters. "The difference between bad and worse is often more important than the difference between good and better," to approximately quote Heinlein. (My copy of SIASL is at home.)
Situations vary. I am emphatically not arguing that one should become a life-long party ticket voter. There are times when voting for a good candidate in a bad party is a smart thing to do. However, the claim that it is only the candidate that matters is just plain not true.
I'll finish on a personal note. When the House was considering impeaching President Clinton, I listened to the Committee Hearings compulsively. All day, every day, for days and days. I was asked repeatedly why I bothered. After all, they weren't saying anything new. That is more amazingly true than I can express. For all that, I found it enlightening. The process and the rhetoric frightened me in a way that the daily news reports did not. After several days, I vowed that I would never vote for another Republican again for as long as I live. It became clear to me that the Republicans were making an attempt to unseat a duly elected president by unfair means, and that they had absolutely no respect for the government or the rule of law. I've seen nothing since then to disabuse me of that judgment.
In Civics, first in eighth grade and then as a senior in high school, I was led to believe that the "right" thing to do was vote for the candidate, despite party. I was told that it was important to vote my conscience, that real change was most likely if people stopped being awed by the two party system, and voted for the best candidate. I was led to believe that political parties were primarily engines of corruption, such as Tammany Hall. This would have been late Seventies, in case it matters.
I think that my Civics teachers were good people, and that they taught me what they thought was true. I also think that what they taught me is pravda which serves to divide people from each other so that they are less powerful. The fundamental truth of politics (as well as life, but let that go) is that things get done by organizing groups of people. (And not very bloody organized, if one extrapolates from my experience with the Democratic caucus last night! Lords, could those people organize themselves out of a paper bag? I'm unclear.) Americans think highly of individuality, and I would never argue that individuals are powerless, but no single person has the power that one hundred organized people do.
What the founders intended, and what is the best possible structure, are interesting considerations, and might be useful for forming goals. I'm willing to concede that the two party system is badly flawed. However, neither of those has anything to do with the facts on the ground. Here and now, politics are dominated by the Republicans and Democrats, and that matters. Personally, I think that it is a horrible infringement of my rights as a person, as well as a political disaster, for marijuana to be illegal, but facts on the ground dictate that I not walk down the street smoking a joint, no matter how much I'd like to, and no matter how much in the right I think that I am. I'm clear on where the power balance is on that issue. I think that the issue of political parties is much the same. You may not like it, but the way power works in this country right now is that the major political parties have more of it than all the minor parties put together.
The reason that parties matter is the same reason why the Ds and Rs are so powerful in the first place: they are large organizations of people. Well, really the Democrats are a semi-organized hodgepodge of other organizations, but you know what I mean. :-) Parties exist to conserve and generate wealth, to extend their influence, and support their members. They raise money, they target the spending of money strategically, they work to get candidates elected. They make deals on the behalf of many elected officials, giving those officials more weight than each would have alone. Parties command greater resources than individual politicians, and so they have more power than any one of their own.
When a politician runs as a party member, he's making an implicit deal with his party. He's agreeing to support his party's policies and goals, to some extent. Oh, he may well have other convictions, and vote against his own party some of the time. This has, in fact, come to be a measure of whether or not a politician is a "good" politician. However, if he refuses his party too often, they'll refuse to support him, too. The party doesn't just help with fundraising, canvassing, and polling. It helps by providing connections and resources, good staffers and good information.
Here's the truth: any candidate that runs on a party ticket is beholden to that party. Here's another truth: that's not necessarily a bad thing. Third and very important truth (I like things that come in threes): you can get involved with a political party.
So, here's my point: When you vote for a candidate, you are implicitly supporting his party. You are giving his party a position, a vote, influence that they can use for various goals. Even if your representative won't vote for the things you most hate, his mere presence as an elected official strengthens the party he belongs to. Look at how often they count up the number of Democratic and Republican governors, for instance. Let's not even talk about balance of power within a legislature. The number of legislators of a particular party will influence how much money the party is able to raise.
You won't ever find a party that fits you to a T. People being people, you're unlikely to find a candidate that does, either, of course. However, don't just look at the candidate. Look at the party. Look at the type of people they've been supporting for election, lately, even if those people haven't won. Look at their platform. Look at the planks that everybody knows are extremist nonsense that will go by the board and think about what constituency those planks are there to pacify. Look at the people currently serving that belong to that party, and their patterns of behavior. There's plenty to hate in both parties, but it matters. "The difference between bad and worse is often more important than the difference between good and better," to approximately quote Heinlein. (My copy of SIASL is at home.)
Situations vary. I am emphatically not arguing that one should become a life-long party ticket voter. There are times when voting for a good candidate in a bad party is a smart thing to do. However, the claim that it is only the candidate that matters is just plain not true.
I'll finish on a personal note. When the House was considering impeaching President Clinton, I listened to the Committee Hearings compulsively. All day, every day, for days and days. I was asked repeatedly why I bothered. After all, they weren't saying anything new. That is more amazingly true than I can express. For all that, I found it enlightening. The process and the rhetoric frightened me in a way that the daily news reports did not. After several days, I vowed that I would never vote for another Republican again for as long as I live. It became clear to me that the Republicans were making an attempt to unseat a duly elected president by unfair means, and that they had absolutely no respect for the government or the rule of law. I've seen nothing since then to disabuse me of that judgment.
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 03:27 pm (UTC)I'm finding myself more than slight bemused by the number of my fellow MnStfers who did their civic duty last night. Not only attending and participating in the caucuses, but actually volunteering to be delegates.
One might have thought that we would have learned something after years of volunteering on Minicon.
I'm proud of us, even if we are extremely slow learners...
no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 08:38 pm (UTC)I've also attended several of my Senate District meetings. These people don't seem to be able to think in systems. Their idea of an outline is bullet points. When I suggested actually, you know, categorizing the various projects and goals into four major areas (for instance) there was general assent, and then disorganized confusion. Without knowing squat about any of this, I suggested four categories, and the items under those categories, and identified a couple of items that looked like subitems. They went along with every one of my suggestions, which made me feel distinctly uncomfortable. Like, I know what I'm doing? There were people at the table that have been involved with DFL politics for 30 years.
Good old democracy. Nothing like it.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 09:10 pm (UTC)Apparently caucuses vary tremendously among precincts, and over time (at least in the DFL). I've wondered whether the Republicans are more organized. but I don't think I know anybody who attends Republican caucuses. But at least in the DFL, the convener makes a huge difference. I'm not totally crazy about Bert Black (our convener this year), but he sure does know how to keep a meeting moving along briskly. In this instance, I think it was a little too brisk - there were a lot of new people there, and even old people like me who were not familiar with the new rules for apportioning delegates - and I wished he'd slowed down long enough for somebody to ask a question or two.
On the other hand, it's probably just as well. The question I eventually realized I wanted to ask was, "Wait a second. If delegates aren't associated with candidates until the state convention, why bother with the District Convention at all?" Why bother with any convention, for that matter - haven't we just turned the whole thing into a primary? But asking that question would, at best, have slowed things down, and at worst convinced everybody that they didn't want to be delegates after all. And how would that have helped? So I cast my vote and kept quiet.
Sure, party matters...
Date: 2004-03-04 07:58 am (UTC)Actually, it doesn't, in terms of voting. I've got my litmus test issues, just as most others do, and if I don't get to pick theirs, they don't get to pick mine. Hell, even if I do get to pick theirs, they don't get to pick mine.
I caucased DFL this year, again, and was one of the first volunteers to be a delegate, again, but, all in all, the groupthink was pretty disturbing. I guess I could have gone to the Republican caucus instead, where my views would have been more welcome . . .
. . . until I started talking about taxes, and abortion rights, and gay marriage, and the public schools.
Sigh. (Granted, my views on the public schools are liable to get me run out of any caucus.)
A simple way to restore party loyalty, btw, would be to go to a parliamentary system, where people could vote for the party of their choice and let the parties do the compromising in forming a majority. Still, it wouldn't be good for the DFL, probably; a lot of the outstate DINOs might easily join with the outer-ring RINOs, and could easily throw the Senate into Republican hands even under the present distribution.
Still, Minneapolis is a good argument against party voting -- there's more Socialists in Congress than there are Republicans in any Minneapolis-elected political post, and the city's in serious trouble, trouble that's been getting worse in precisely the same ways for years, under DFL, Independent, and Republican governors, with the State Senate always in the hands of the DFL majority, and at least some of the time the House, too ...
... and, of course, blaming the Republicans.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 08:04 am (UTC)As somebody who is almost certainly going to hold his nose and vote for Bush rather than holding it tighter and vote for Kerry, I didn't see the need to try to straighten folks out, and I didn't see the possibility, anyway.
Going to be a very interesting race.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 01:02 pm (UTC)"Does anyone other than Dr. So-and-so insist on scheduling while wearing a silk night-cap?"
"Dr. Where-are-my-keys uses them. Dr. So-and-so has used a night-cap for yearshe tends to leave them lying around. Mary always knows where to find it. Dr. Whatsis, now, he disapproves of night-caps. Of course, there is Dr. Whodingy, who won't wear a silk night-cap, but insists that his secretary wear one."
"So, a silk night-cap is important for So-and-so and Whodingy and Where-are-my-keys, but no one else?"
"Well, you'd really have to ask their secretaries. Dr. Make-me-wait has a beautifully embroidered one that he wears all the time. You don't have to worry about that, though, because you don't need to have it cleaned or buy him new ones. Basically, if they want you to send over leg-warmers after taking a call, then they don't usually want a night-cap. Well, except for So-and-So, who always wants the leg-warmers, and Dr. Always-gone, who's retired and doesn't care about getting the cap before scheduling, but must have it immediately afterwards, or he'll call you up and scream at you. I don't know if he's still practicing, though."
"But Whatsis never uses a night-cap?"
"Whatsis? No, no, but he will wear a woolen one, some days. If he does, then he won't need the leg-warmers."
"How do I find out if he was wearing his woolen cap?"
"I don't know. You'd better ask his secretary. Don't forget, you've got to have a sufficient supply of caps and leg-warmers on hand so that they can get out to the doctors within 15 minutes. Orders take up to two weeks to fill, you know."
"Ok, are there any other doctors that regularly use silk night-caps besides these So-and-So, Whatsis, Where-are-my-keys, and Whodingy?"
"Dr. Whodingy? But I've already told you that he won't wear one. He makes his secretary do that. And you musn't forget Whatsis's woolen cap."
"I don't have to do anything about Dr. Whatsis's cap though, right? Basically, from my point of view, it doesn't matter if the doctor, the secretary, or the cactus wears the bloody night-cap. I just need to know which of them need a supply of night-caps, and which ones I have to ask about night-caps before I can schedule a patient."
"Well, if you're counting night-caps, you really have to remember Dr. Make-me-wait. It's really a beautiful night-cap. You should stop by some time to see it. Oh, and Dr. Thingummy does keep a night-cap on his philendron. Easier on the silk than a cactus. Of course, that's just decorative."
"So, does Dr. Thingummy need the night-cap in order to schedule?"
"No, no. I said it was decorative. But his secretary simply won't schedule unless you've sent over the leg-warmers first."
"Ah. I see. Are there any other doctors that need to have the leg-warmers sent over in advance."
"In advance of what? They all need them prior to the appointment, you know."
You think I'm kidding, don't you?
Well, no.
Date: 2004-03-04 01:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-05 02:15 pm (UTC)But most importantly, I don't agree that people should waste their votes on the Democratic or Republican parties if they don't agree with the policies or platforms of these parties. Every year I invest my vote in the party that I think represents my interests. For many years I voted for the Libertarian Party, not because I thought they would win, but to encourage them to persevere. (I have since given up on the Libertarians because their foreign policy views are utterly unreasonable, founded on myths and ignorance.)
If you must delve into practical matters, candidates try to woo third-party voters by modifying their positions to include third-party ideas. Therefore your vote does influence the election and policies, albeit indirectly. In fact since the main parties tend to view their base as part of their heritage by right, perhaps a vote for a third party is even more influential.
But to vote for a mainstream party just because the third parties have no choice is to give in to despair, and to concede that nothing will ever change. I refuse to surrender.