MaxedOutMama
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
DU Thread - Which party?
The thread can be found here, and is about the question of party identification. The thread begins with a person questioning whether it might not be more effective to join the "moderate" wing of the Republican party, saying in part:
It is hard for me to see myself as any brand Republican, but I'm beginning to think more can be accomplished in the sensible, moderate, McCain/Hegel/Guiliani section of the Republican party. This fight for DNC chair shows me that the Democrats want to remain losers for the forseeable future.
In response to questions, the original poster explains:
They aren't the most important issues to me--universal health care is my main issue. Education. Social Security. Medicare. These are the bedrock of my politics. Obviously, the Democrats do a better job with these issues, but they've decided to lose over the peripheral issues o gun control, abortion, and gay marriage. Those issues are not worth throwing away these more basic issues for me, so I'd rather work to get something done than constant chase windmills.
Another poster responds:
I think gun control should be a local issue. I can understand why a city like New York might want to have tougher laws than a rural town in Montana, for instance.
I doubt there a many people who think abortion is a great idea. But Democrats understand that it is the only honest position. You can outlaw abortion...but women will still have them. Fact is, Democratic policies, increasing access to healthcare and sex education, reduce abortion. Pro-choice is inclusive....pro-life is exclusive.
I agree that gay marriage is a red herring for Democrats. Civil unions should be the law of the land. Let Religious institutions deal in marriage ceremonies and decide whether their religious foundation can accept or reject gay marriage.
It sounds like you are a moderate Democrat. Your most important issues are the principles of this Party. Your complaint is with the people making the tactical decisions on running the elections.
And yet another:
If you feel comfortable going out and volunteering for Democrats you find acceptable and then going out and volunteering for Republicans you like, then feel free to do so.
And yet another:
It is a shame we have all been programmed to believe there are only two choices. That, in fact, is the deep systemic reason our system sucks. It must be changed. We MUST open up the system to new ideas and new parties.
My dream was that Dean would break off and start a separate party. He still could.
And there are always the Greens and the Libertarians. Both of those parties hold more appeal for me than the Moderate Republicans or the Democrats.
I have been voting for Democrats for 50 years. I may continue to vote for them in down-ticket races where the Dem is the best candidate, but not at the top of the ticket anymore. I am very disillusioned. (And I am a former officer in my local county Dem party and have chaired winning campaigns and worked on a lot more -- no more of that for the Dems). In future I will be working on issues only, not working for candidates.
And finally, yet another person posted:
Don't be either, support the best candidates when it comes time to vote. That is what I do, although I've never voted for a Republican.
This thread struck me for several reasons. First, I thought most people voted on issues and basically for the candidates - and I still think a lot of them do. Most of us are pragmatists who want to get something done, and I think one of the reasons that Democrats have been slipping in the last decade is that the party really hasn't been able to pull itself together and address tough issues. The Gallup poll showing Republican leaning voters have increased to 37% while Democratic-leaning voters have fallen to 32% may sound impressive, but I think that number is highly misleading. IMO it reflects a pragmatic calculation by the voting public that right now their best hopes lie with the Republicans, but it doesn't necessarily indicate much of a shift in underlying voter sentiments or long-term "name" loyalty to the Republican party.
Second, a lot of pollsters adjust their poll results to get the "correct" split of Republicans/Democrats. Party identification is such a vague thing in this country that I wonder whether such an approach is not basically flawed. Plenty of people vote more Democratic locally and tend to the Republican nationally, or vice versa. That's not surprising, because after all most Democrats in the south are more like moderate Republicans in the north. The reason why that is done is to correct for skewed samples, and I wonder if the right way to do that isn't to carefully allocate your calls between urban and rural counties, at least for national races. The rural/urban split seems to me to have been a better predictor of which way a person will vote for the last decade.
It is hard for me to see myself as any brand Republican, but I'm beginning to think more can be accomplished in the sensible, moderate, McCain/Hegel/Guiliani section of the Republican party. This fight for DNC chair shows me that the Democrats want to remain losers for the forseeable future.
In response to questions, the original poster explains:
They aren't the most important issues to me--universal health care is my main issue. Education. Social Security. Medicare. These are the bedrock of my politics. Obviously, the Democrats do a better job with these issues, but they've decided to lose over the peripheral issues o gun control, abortion, and gay marriage. Those issues are not worth throwing away these more basic issues for me, so I'd rather work to get something done than constant chase windmills.
Another poster responds:
I think gun control should be a local issue. I can understand why a city like New York might want to have tougher laws than a rural town in Montana, for instance.
I doubt there a many people who think abortion is a great idea. But Democrats understand that it is the only honest position. You can outlaw abortion...but women will still have them. Fact is, Democratic policies, increasing access to healthcare and sex education, reduce abortion. Pro-choice is inclusive....pro-life is exclusive.
I agree that gay marriage is a red herring for Democrats. Civil unions should be the law of the land. Let Religious institutions deal in marriage ceremonies and decide whether their religious foundation can accept or reject gay marriage.
It sounds like you are a moderate Democrat. Your most important issues are the principles of this Party. Your complaint is with the people making the tactical decisions on running the elections.
And yet another:
If you feel comfortable going out and volunteering for Democrats you find acceptable and then going out and volunteering for Republicans you like, then feel free to do so.
And yet another:
It is a shame we have all been programmed to believe there are only two choices. That, in fact, is the deep systemic reason our system sucks. It must be changed. We MUST open up the system to new ideas and new parties.
My dream was that Dean would break off and start a separate party. He still could.
And there are always the Greens and the Libertarians. Both of those parties hold more appeal for me than the Moderate Republicans or the Democrats.
I have been voting for Democrats for 50 years. I may continue to vote for them in down-ticket races where the Dem is the best candidate, but not at the top of the ticket anymore. I am very disillusioned. (And I am a former officer in my local county Dem party and have chaired winning campaigns and worked on a lot more -- no more of that for the Dems). In future I will be working on issues only, not working for candidates.
And finally, yet another person posted:
Don't be either, support the best candidates when it comes time to vote. That is what I do, although I've never voted for a Republican.
This thread struck me for several reasons. First, I thought most people voted on issues and basically for the candidates - and I still think a lot of them do. Most of us are pragmatists who want to get something done, and I think one of the reasons that Democrats have been slipping in the last decade is that the party really hasn't been able to pull itself together and address tough issues. The Gallup poll showing Republican leaning voters have increased to 37% while Democratic-leaning voters have fallen to 32% may sound impressive, but I think that number is highly misleading. IMO it reflects a pragmatic calculation by the voting public that right now their best hopes lie with the Republicans, but it doesn't necessarily indicate much of a shift in underlying voter sentiments or long-term "name" loyalty to the Republican party.
Second, a lot of pollsters adjust their poll results to get the "correct" split of Republicans/Democrats. Party identification is such a vague thing in this country that I wonder whether such an approach is not basically flawed. Plenty of people vote more Democratic locally and tend to the Republican nationally, or vice versa. That's not surprising, because after all most Democrats in the south are more like moderate Republicans in the north. The reason why that is done is to correct for skewed samples, and I wonder if the right way to do that isn't to carefully allocate your calls between urban and rural counties, at least for national races. The rural/urban split seems to me to have been a better predictor of which way a person will vote for the last decade.
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Sigmund, Carl, and Alfred pointed me to your webpost, so I thought I would pop in and say hello, as well as pointing you to a blog entry I just wrote about the role of political parties at
http://www.orient-lodge.com/index.php?q=node/view/190
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http://www.orient-lodge.com/index.php?q=node/view/190
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