An Immodest Proposal
Half the country believes in salvation through force. The other half believes in cowering under the bedsheets. Or so the pundits say.
Actually, it’s more complicated. There are definitely a left and a right wing in this country, but there’s also a center that was pretty dissatisfied with both candidates. Now I’m definitely on the left, but I think the center deserves its due. And frankly, voters looking for Anyone But Bush would have welcomed a centrist. Some of those voters held their noses and voted for Kerry, but others did the same and voted for Bush. How could they have broken this logjam?
We need three parties in this country. It’s as simple as that. Not the Nader party or the Greens, but a center party that can attract enough votes to hold the center against the extremes and become the second choice of enough people to win office a large part of the time.
Step One: Abolish the electoral college and institute direct popular vote with an instant runoff.
Step Two: Have the Democratic Party break up and split its organization and financial resources between two new parties: one centrist and one left of center.
No, it won’t result in Republican supremacy. The centrist party will get off to a running start and draw centrist voters and dollars from the Republicans. Left Democrats will be able to sharpen their ideological message without having to coddle the centrists — just as the Republicans did after ousting the Rockefeller wing in 1964.
The centrists will almost certainly win elections if instant runoff prevails, because they’ll be everyone’s second choice. That won’t spell defeat for the left — what spells defeat is the present system that forces the left to shut up every four years while the Democratic standard bearer utters platitudes about issues that cry out for more.
The right wing will win elections in Mississippi and Idaho, and the left wing will win elections in New York and California, providing enough of a base to goad the center with ideas that might eventually break through to a majority. With three parties in Congress, the process of building coalitions will become more transparent and involve the voters a hell of a lot more than is the case now.
Well?
Steven
November 12, 2004 @ 9:25 am
I agree completely! This seems the only logical thing to do.
Confessions of a raving, unconfined lawyer » Repeal the Twelfth!
April 27, 2007 @ 10:28 pm
[…] A system of this kind would get every voter, in every state, passionately interested in the election. And it would get people thinking about not just who their first choice for President would be. They would have to think: of the remaining candidates, who my favorite considers to be bozos, which one would I want leading the opposition and potentially becoming President? That would add a great deal of civility and wisdom to the electoral debate without a great deal of effort. It might help centrist candidates win office. And all it takes is a constitutional amendment. […]