Well Ain't This A Kick? My Subtle Decades-Long Influence On the Political Discourse

So here I am, reading up on books on the various political ideologies - the Isms as I call 'em - so I can write a book on American Isms to pass along to my nephews and niece to ensure they don't get suckered in by the worst of dogma out there (slightly worried I may be too late as they've mostly finished college, and my twin brother had a copy of Atlas Shrugged in his house, dammit man how could you?!?!).

I've gotten a few books on liberalism already - Liberalism and Its Discontents by Francis Fukuyama is incredibly concise and easy to read, by the by - and a book on conservatism which was kinda meh, and today through the Interlibrary Loan system a copy of Moderates: the Vital Center of American Politics from the Founding to Today by David S. Brown, which I sat down to read after dinner when I got home from work today.

So I get to the Introduction of the book, and there's a quote about "Moderate" as a definition on the Urban Dictionary website. UD is an informal, oft-times sarcastic, blunt, and vulgar open source dictionary, been around since the heady early days of the Internet. There can be honest and insightful entries on Urban Dictionary, and the "Moderate" definition could well be considered one.

When I saw that quote, I muttered to myself "That looks damned familiar..."

So I hopped onto Urban Dictionary, something I hadn't done since 2006 I think, and looked up that quote, and goddammit I was the one who wrote it.

This was almost 20 years ago!!!

It's the top ranked definition on the site, which may explain Brown's willingness to quote it. Still, it's getting quoted by professors in their political science/history books. I'm getting the "Mark Twain Pithy Snark" Treatment over here, and damn my ego won't stop jumping up and down.

Now all I need to know is if my edits to the Wikipedia articles on "The Gunfight at the OK Corral" are still up. (checks) Nope, nope they all got edited out years ago. /deep sigh

I am ever so thrilled that my world-view on moderates as a political ideology has had some influence however meager on the discourse. I am a little miffed Brown didn't quote me by name: Dude, it's right there in the byline! Best I can figure, if Brown tried reaching to me through my UD account, it was on an old Selfin.org email I had when I lived in South Florida, and I lost that login ages ago (SEFLIN Freenet shut down by the time I left from there in 2003). By the time this book got published in 2016, he probably had no way to know where I was on the Intertubes. 

Alas, as time flows from then to now...

(long contemplative thought)

OKAY NOW BACK TO READING THAT BOOK! THIS RESEARCH AIN'T GONNA READ ITSELF! FOR THE HORDE!!! LET'S SEE IF BROWN QUOTES FROM RUDE PUNDIT NEXT!!!

A Statement On Core Principles

So, when it comes down to it, what are the issues I care about the most? On what hills will I stand and fight to ensure those beliefs remain core components of the United States I believe in?

My core principles on key political issues:

1. The rich, and large corporate entities, should be taxed at a higher rate than middle-income and low-income Americans to ensure fairness in the tax burden. This includes rigorous enforcement of upper incomes and large corporations to stop tax evasion.
2. Businesses must be regulated to ensure workplace safety, clean environments, fair access to products and services, high pay and benefits equal to the work performed, and consumer / community protection from any form of fraud.
3. All Americans 18 and older have the right to vote and shall not be blocked, suppressed, or denied their right to vote. Registration must be free and universal to all citizens. If imprisoned, Americans shall immediately regain their right to vote once their sentences are served or are on parole.
4. All Americans provided affordable healthcare across the board as a human right.
5. All Americans provided free public education for children, and affordable public education for all those of college age, as a human right
6. All Americans given personal control of their bodies and health with regards to reproductive rights, meaning affordable and unhindered access to birth control, women’s healthcare services, and abortion as a medical right.
7. All Americans have the right to know that the federal, state, and local governments that represent them are not committing crimes and human rights abuses, and that any agent, official or elected representative committing such crimes be punished (meaning no statute of limitations on those persons).
8. Americans have the right to be protected from active, violent, and spiteful racism / sexism, where haters do NOT have the right to attack someone because of their skin color, their ethnic origin, their gender, their gender preference, or their religion. As much as this means everyone SHOULD be protected, in practice this means protecting the rights and safety of Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Muslims, Jews, Hindi, Sikhs, Women, Gays, Trans, and other minorities from the hate groups that are predominately White Protestant (mostly Male) Assholes.
9. No radio personality or disk jockey shall speak over the opening, middle, or ending of a song. The next SOB who talks just as Pat Benatar starts whistling towards the end of “Love Is a Battlefield” will be executed with extreme prejudice. I don’t care if there’s just 30 seconds of the song left, I WANNA HEAR THE SONG NOT YOU.
10. No more lying in politics. All elected officials, candidates for office, and personnel hired to work for them or our government agencies shall be held to an ethical standard that will punish them for false, hypocritical, and misleading public statements. If you can’t speak truthfully and factually on a matter you can always say “No comment.”

This is what I want to see. This is what I hope for.

Does this make me liberal? Perhaps. But I look at Europe where liberalism and conservatism both agree roughly on public welfare matters like healthcare and education, so I don't think that is what's at issue here. I've seen some self-declared conservatives speak in favor of public schools and affordable healthcare, as well as speak for protecting the rights of minorities. It's not the issues themselves requiring extremism to defend or oppose.

What does matter is HOW such plans are enacted. To what degree can we support the public welfare? What's most sensible about regulating businesses for safe practices? THIS is where the ideological fights SHOULD be, where being a Big Letter Liberal and Big Letter Conservative and Big Letter Moderate would matter. This is where being the Liberal would seek massive support and broad freedoms, where the Conservative would be the skeptic honestly concerned about the costs, where the Moderate would find a pragmatic middle ground that would make the thing work as well and as long as possible. This is where I find myself as a Moderate: I want solutions that work and work well for the long term.

But this is where I split hard against Republicans. Where the Democrats - actively engaged among their own ranks between Centrist and Progressive stances - are amenable and solutions-oriented about the issues that matter to me (and hopefully most of you), the Republicans have gone Full Metal Dogmatic. 

The modern GOP -  reflecting not Conservative values but Reactionary values - does not want debate on ANY of those issues. The modern GOP is absolutely opposed to reasonable tax hikes on upper incomes, they want to slash-and-burn. They WANT to cut the social safety net to nothing. In practice at the state level I've seen Republicans gut funding for schools and teachers, and blocked improved funding for healthcare out of sheer spite. The Far Right wants to eliminate abortion (AND women's healthcare) as a safe practice, and oppose sensible affordable access to birth control not because they're pro-Life (they're not even that) but because they're pro-Judgment (they want to demean/control/depower women).

And dear GOD: The way the Republican Party acts towards Blacks and Latinos (and Muslims) should make any honest citizen sick to their stomachs.

The modern Republican Party wants to deny the rights - the right to vote, the right to learn, the right to LIVE - of every person who's NOT White, or Rich, or Male, or over the age of 50. That's all I see of that party anymore.

That's why I keep screaming FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT VOTE REPUBLICAN.

Because I have principles. And the Republican Party does not.

Let This Moderate Tell You, Republicans: There Are NO Moderates Left In Your Party

Driftglass is one of those bloggers who enjoys himself - as much as schadenfreude allows - bashing some of the more ill-informed and ill-guided media "uber-experts" who have a knack for deluding themselves as much as their targeted audiences.

And he's had a serious deep case of bashing David Brooks for some time now.

Brooks' latest attempt at convincing himself - and unlikely anybody else - of a miracle Rescue-By-Savior at the upcoming Republican convention is that the "hidden moderates" will rise up before Trump or Cruz can demolish the GOP by driving said party over the cliff. As Driftglass gloats:

Today, Mr. Brooks imagineers out of thin air an entire army of public-spirited Reasonable Republicans who will infiltrate the Republican convention in July cleverly disguised as party hacks but then -- surprise! -- cast off their fake George Wallace noses and Pat Buchanan wigs just in time to rise as one! A veritable League of Extraordinary Whig Gentlemen!

Okay, for starters, Brooks' article assumes there are that many Reasonable - which I would infer as Moderate - Republicans capable of getting tabbed to serve as delegates in the first place, and that they are able to enter the convention halls of Cleveland this summer undetected, and make their own coordinated effort to place on the general election ballot a "sane" alternative to the two fiascoes awaiting the GOP.

Never mind the open warfare that will erupt in the streets of Cleveland if Trump goes in with a confirmed delegate majority, or if Cruz gets his state-level agents - already getting placed as we speak - to rally to him on the second ballot of a contested delegate vote. The idea that a Savior candidate - who just happens to fill the need of the Establishment faction of the GOP - can just glide in despite the overwhelming primary voter anger against the Establishment is pure fantasy.

Brooks' article seems to operate on the belief that these "Lincoln" voters have all been lying in wait, biding their time to bring their own candidate to the podium... as though the last three months of these so-called voters failing to show up to vote when it mattered is all just shade getting cast to lull the Far Right conservatives into a false sense of security.

I mean, where were these voters when the Establishment's Chosen Offerings - Scott Walker, Chris Christie, Jeb! Bush, Marco Rubio - were sitting there on the primary ballots just waiting to rally these "Lincoln" voters of rational sanity and moderation to each of their banners? Unless Brooks is willing to admit that NONE of these candidates were all that "pure" for these voters to accept in the first place. But then that would imply that Brooks and his fellow media pundits pushing such candidates were horribly wrong about them anyway, which doesn't generate any confidence in Brooks' ability to predict matters here.

Here's how Brooks sees it:

The first thing the Lincoln Caucus would do is plant a flag for a different style of Republicanism. Members of the caucus would remind the country that there still are Republicans who believe in prudent globalism, reform conservative ideas to lift up the working class. There are still Republicans who believe in certain standards of polite behavior in public and pragmatic compromise...

You'll notice how Brooks doesn't really give any details what "prudent globalism" or "reform conservative ideas" are. For all we know, it's just code-talk for "Cheney-esque Foreign Policy debacles" and "Keep Cutting Taxes and Hope for the Magic Beans to Sprout Positive Growth with No Deficits".

And where the hell have these Republicans been who believe in "polite behavior" and "pragmatic compromise" in the last eight years of "You Lie!" and "let's make Obama a failed One-Termer at all costs"?

Brooks seems to think these Republicans still exist, that they are still in sufficient numbers and in places of power at the state and national level to exert enough influence to save the GOP from its' Far Right madness.

Sorry, Mr. Brooks. Let this former Moderate Republican - disgusted by the party's failures since 1992 and driven out by the madness that consumed it by 2003 - be the one to break your heart here:

THERE ARE NO MODERATE REPUBLICANS LEFT.

Blame it all on Pat Buchanan, and Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly and Grover Norquist and Dick Armey and Roger Ailes and Glenn Beck and Andrew "My Legacy of Stupid Hate Endures" Breitbart and a Far Right Noise Machine orbiting around Fox Not-News and the Drudge Report and Newsmax. Blame it on 20 years of RINO hunting, where once-proud advocates of the practices of Eisenhower and Teddy Roosevelt and Nelson Rockefeller were exiled into the wastelands by the heirs of Goldwater and Reagan.

Blame it on an open Southern Strategy of bringing into the fold all the social conservatism of the Deep South, riven from the Democrats during the Civil Rights era. Blame it on the merging of the major conservative beliefs - religious, racial, financial - into one Republican Party that eagerly turned conservative belief into rigid Party-wide dogma.

What Brooks may think of as "moderate" or sane factions within the modern Republican Party are merely levels of the same Conservative bent. Peeking into the souls of the more centrist elements of the GOP is merely finding the few members of the party - the pro-Business "deregulate all and cut taxes on the uber-rich" - willing to at least remain non-committal to the extremist stuff. They'll still stand there and applaud the madness because they'll still have something to gain for their hard-core conservative ideology of "F-ck You Pay Me."

The Republican Party has no Moderates left because the voter base's obsession with turning against RINOs makes it impossible for any sitting politician to "man up" and fight for moderate principles. Every campaign race is now an attempt to convince those voters their commitment to the ever-shifting-Right core values. Even suggesting the mere possibility of a hint that our current tax rates are fine as is can become cause for a more extremist primary challenger to rise up against you. And win that primary, because poor voter turnout guarantees only the hard-core extremist voters show up anymore.

So NO, Mr. Brooks, there is no Lincoln Caucus waiting for you in Cleveland to save your precious Republican Party from itself. The Republican Party as you want it to be is dead. Has been for years. You needed to start composing the eulogy back in 2006, and it's ten years gone.

The Angry Moderate Blues

I know it's a fault of myself when I sit here and look at the world and think "what the hell is everyone else thinking when they can't see what I'm seeing?"  I know people will have their own life experiences informing them of what choices to take.  I know people will have their own opinions.

Still.  WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING, VOTERS?!

So here I am, fuming at an electorate that damages itself by voting for partisan Far Right hacks, suffering yet another bout of Angry Moderate Blues.

Yeah, Moderates can get angry... We certainly feel the blues.

--

I get the occasional troll on this blog - rare, considering the few comments I ever get - and I got a couple of them during my post of the Sample Ballot for the Florida midterms:

Wow - you are exactly what is wrong with America today. An ideologue that appears to have no clue about what made America great - diversity. Clearly you hate the Republicans more than you love America. Too bad. As an independent thinker, I prefer to vote based on substance not on ideology. Unfortunately neither party has many options when it comes to people of integrity, which is what many of us really want.

Getting called an ideologue is a new insult, but getting accused of not knowing about diversity is a twist. Considering I've posted my support for gay marriage, the free and open practice of all religions, my horror at seeing Blacks and Hispanics and Women getting treated like shit by the authorities and the overlords... Best I can say is that the guy posting that never read the whole of my blog, and thus didn't realize I am all about the diversity. Also, that I *do* love America: he must have missed the posts I add of the 4th of July, the celebration of Gettysburg and Woodstock, the occasional cultural milestone of Americana.  He's the one without a clue (psst, bro: next time READ THE BLOG BEFORE YOU INSULT THE BLOGGER)...

The next one was pretty straightforward:

I'm voting Republican straight ticket you useless liberal.

That's been the standard insult I get from the trolls.  You don't see most of them posting because I do have an administrative setting to filter all Comments.  Not for pure censorship, mind: It's because for a few years I was getting hit with Chinese Spam.  I'm not kidding.  The Chinese were spamming me, and I was like dudes I can't read Mandarin I can't tell what it is you want me to buy, stop it.  Anyway, I have the filter so I see a couple of Comments once in awhile in my Inbox and check them out.  Most of them are Anonymous, which tells me all I need to know about how cowardly they are, and they're pretty much calling me a libtard/librul/marxist/socialist of some kind.  I don't post those because 1) they don't contribute to the debate and 2) Anonymous posters are cowards.  I posted those two above because at least they put a name to the insult.

It's not that I'm bothered by the insults: Hell, I survived Tarpon Springs Middle School.  I've heard worse.  What bothers me is how wrong they get it by insulting me by something I'm not: Liberal.

For one thing, it's not an insult.  It's no more insulting than calling someone Conservative (if you try to insult me as a Conservative I'm going to look at you funny and give you the same retort).  The second thing, I've always considered myself a Moderate:

...Moderates support competency. We support things THAT WORK. If it doesn't work (example: THE WHOLE BUSH ADMINISTRATION) we don't support it. So there... Moderates recognize not so much the NEED for bipartisanship (or compromise) for the SAKE of bipartisanship. Bipartisanship and compromise between opposing factions are welcome when the end result will be something THAT WORKS...

If I look and act like I'm a Liberal, I'm really not. I'm looking and acting like someone who hates the Republican Party, by extension the whole of Conservative, Far Right ideology that has consumed that entire party.

And I hate the Republican Party because I used to be a member:

Actually I'm former Republican and I prefer to consider myself a moderate. I'm one of those dreaded RINOs you and yours drove out of the party. My hatred for the GOP is more despair at how broken and dogmatic it has become.

Calling me a liberal just shows how out of tune and extremist you've become, 'cause everything in opposition to you can only be a "socialist" or a "marxist" or a "liberal". All complexity of issues boiled down to just the hate.

Well, now you know why my ranting here on the blog is so one-sided against Republicans: because I came from there, it's all you had to teach me and I learned it from you. The only difference is I hope my hate for you will protect the rest of the nation and the world from your ruin.

When I first registered to vote I was a Republican.  I came from a Republican household - I've mentioned that more than once, especially about how old-school my dad is about Nixon - and so grew up in an environs of respecting such conservative principles as skepticism, desire for limited government, acceptance of liberal capitalism, and an overall avoidance to any aggressive radical change.

But by 1992 I noticed the party getting meaner and darker.  Not just a response to the rise of Bill Clinton as a political entity but just to nearly every issue.  Social conservatism went from being about compassion and charity and more about ostracism and pushing Christianity as a political force rather than a social foundation.  Economic conservatism went from respect for regulatory protections of the Eisenhower era to mass deregulation and unbridled laissez-faire.  Political conservatism went from diversity of opinions to adherence to dogma.  All of it wrapped into one big package of Fear-Mongering against the Other.

The key moment was Pat Buchanan's speech to the 1992 Convention.  Railing about a "culture war" and that "Clinton and Clinton" - fueling the Far Right fear that Hillary was going to be a Co-President of feminist intent - were going to destroy "God's America," Buchanan created a political identity of Republicans being hard-Right ideologues.

That moment - and the end of Bush the Elder's one-term tenure - began the purity purge against RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) as the extremists began targeting Moderate Republicans to push out and replace with more extreme, more Far Right candidates.

There were efforts to try and stave off the Club for Greed types that backed the purge, such as Main Street Republicans, but by today those moderate groups within the GOP are minorities - 46 Representatives out of 220-plus House Republicans, just 3 Senators out of 52 - within the ranks.  The purity purge by now has pretty much claimed full control of the Republican Party.

I did what I could to stay Moderate within the ranks meself.  I wasn't happy with the party's growing enthusiasms for the death penalty, massive deregulation in spite of historical evidence that deregulation was reckless, a pursuit not for small government but NO government, voter suppression efforts (yes even in the mid-1990s they were pulling that shit), and an eagerness by the leadership to pursue fiscal corruption that would make the Gilded Age look reformist by comparison.  While the Democrats weren't angels either, I loathed what the Republicans were revealing themselves to be.  I wasn't thrilled either by how the Republicans were crafting some fantasy-world dogma revolving around idol worship of Reagan and demonization of non-believers.

By about 2000, when Bush the Lesser became the candidate of choice (and despite his "compassionate conservative" platform he was the candidate of the purist ideologues) I pretty much gave up.  The disaster of the 2000 election results - and watching Republicans riot and get away with it in the Dade County elections office - sealed the deal.  I switched my party affiliation to No Party (I briefly flirted with being a Modern Whig back in 2009, maybe 2010, but that went nowhere).

The thing about becoming NPA (No Party Affiliate).  I still can't bring myself to make a full switch to becoming a Democrat.  It's not that I don't fully support Democrats - I have to, because they're the only actual alternative to the Republicans - it's that having been burned by one party I'm not keen on getting suckered into another.

What you see here on the blog when I rail about Republicans - when I cry all "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN" - this is an act of an Apostate.  Word for the day, kids: Apostasy is the renunciation or denial of a religious (and nowadays political) group that the denier once joined.  It's at the point where anything the Republicans are for - a horrifying Far Right conservatism that is more radical and destructive than actual anarchy - is something I would strongly argue against because I dread the party's true intent (usually having to do with ripping off taxpayers and blaming others for the impending disasters).

I'm at heart still a Moderate.  I don't want Small Government (or the No Government of the Tea Partier mindset), nor do I want Big Government: I want Effective government, one responsive enough to ensure people's rights and safety, yet streamlined without bureaucratic knots.  I want fair taxation (if that means bumping up the rates on the billionaires 2-3 percent and the economic models prove its effectiveness, so be it) based on the burden, not the rate.  I want deficit reduction but not at the expense of massive spending cuts that would harm families and children.  I want government to stimulate the private sector into genuine job growth and wage increases while ensuring that the market doesn't overreact to the costs of such moves.  I believe in Jesus but I don't want to shove Christ into our public schools, nor do I want Creationism - a foolish attempt to make the Bible literal fact rather than spiritual truth - overwhelming our sciences.  I don't buy the War on Christmas because there's still 300 million people in America who are not being forced at swordpoint to celebrate Saturnalia.  I know we need a strong military but I hate the wasteful spending (we bought a fleet of airplanes for billions and pretty much turned those planes into cheap scrap metal!).  I respect our need to forge strong alliances with foreign nations, but we don't need to bomb everybody into submission.

If that stuff makes me "liberal" then you've got a problem with your dictionary, 'cause I'm still Moderate.

I'm just an Angry Moderate.  Which isn't a contradiction in terms.

Note: Rude Pundit pretty much explains why the 2014 midterms went the way it did.  Part of it tribal BS, part of it ignorance.  All of it self-destructive.

We are as a nation voting not for the right reasons.

March 11th. GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT, PINELLAS COUNTY (w/ UPDATES)

It's the day of the special election to fill FL-13 for the US Congress.

It's the day to get out and vote for Alex Sink, so we can scare the crap out of the GOP wingnuts controlling the US House.

Go fight win, Democrats.  And to all my fellow moderate, ex-Republican Eisenhower/Roosevelt types, YOU GOTTA GET THE VOTE OUT TOO, JUST DON'T SIT THERE WITH YOUR NO-PARTY-AFFILIATE LABEL, VOTE DAMMIT.

I'll be updating this post as the day progresses, most likely after the polls close and the counting begins.

In the meantime, follow this link over to Vagabond Scholar where Batocchio has a list of CPAC responses.  Just a reminder, that THIS is what you're voting AGAINST.

More specifically, that CPAC still uses Sarah Palin as a major speaker, and the tone-deaf efforts she makes to stir up the Far Right base... as the Unitarians say, "Activate Facepalm Mode".  This is your modern Republican Party, folks... AVOID AVOID AVOID

GET THE VOTE OUT FOR SINK, PINELLAS COUNTY.  PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD...  Find your precinct and VOTE DAMMIT.

Update: as of 7:25 pm EDT, the Tampa Bay Times is reporting a slim Sink lead at 47.6 percent with Jolly at 47.2 percent and Libertarian Overby at 4.9.

The Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections estimated voter turnout at 39 percent through 6 p.m.

Dammit, Pinellas County.  39 PERCENT TURNOUT?!  I'm gonna disown the lot of you for failing to show up to vote!  /headdesk

Update (9:00 pm): I really think that poor turnout is what hurt Sink's chances, because the election's been called for Republican Jolly.  He's at 48 percent with Sink at 46 and Overby holding around 4 percent.

Well, f-ck.  This is pretty interesting because the GOP had been laying out an early narrative that Jolly had been mismanaging his campaign, but now they'll be crowing it as PROOF DEFINITIVE PROOF THAT AMERICANS HATE OBAMACARE AND OBAMA AND THE EVUL LIBRUL AGENDA.

The Dems ARE gonna be forced to go on the defensive about Obamacare now, and won't be able to stick to their narratives about hiking the minimum wage or protecting social aid programs like Food Stamps.

Dammit, Pinellas voters.

Here's your wake-up call, Democrats.  GET THE GODDAMN VOTE OUT THIS YEAR.

What Third Parties Are Doing Wrong

Last night on MSNBC, Lawrence O'Donnell came out in defense of Third Parties in the United States, highlighting a barely-noticed debate between the lower-tier Presidential candidates that NOBODY in mainstream media ever mentioned until he did.

But then he suggested something I feel is the wrong thing to say in a closely-held election we're having this 2012, when every vote counts for Obama facing a "why is Romney even getting this many voters considering how UNPOPULAR Mitt is" situation.  O'Donnell encouraged the voters in the non-battleground states - especially California - to go ahead and vote for a Third Party Presidential nominee.  O'Donnell may be thinking that "oh, enough party-line voters in places like California will STILL vote for Obama," but making any kind of protest vote even in supposedly solid states can bring up the woes and follies of the 2000 Election all over again.  Where enough votes get siphoned away from a major party candidate that DID NOT deserve to lose those votes (Gore) against the other major party candidate who'll turn out to be an unmitigated disaster (Bush the Lesser).

I get a little bit why Lawrence O'Donnell is saying this: he's as frustrated as a lot of us are about how the Two-Party system is strangling our government, our voting choices, our chances of branching off into different yet potentially incredible actions for our nation.  But O'Donnell is looking at this the wrong way.  Mr. O'Donnell sir, this is NOT how you encourage Third Parties to thrive in the United States.

This is the problem with Third Parties: they are more focused on the top office for election - The Presidency - and almost not at all for the more important offices lower on the ticket - such as Senate, House, Governorships, State Legislatures, etc.

The Third Parties all operate under the assumption that winning the Big One - the White House - will spring up enough voters to maintain a solid party base for years if not decades.  They seem to think that all it will take is the right face, the right celebrity, the right charismatic leader and enough people will rally to that person and viola!  They get a regular seat at the political table.  This is why you more often than not see a ton of names in the Presidential ballot - here in Florida, I'm counting TWELVE party candidates for Presidnet/VP, not including the Write-In option - but barely ANY in the other open elections for Congress, Senate, State Representative, etc.

But this is all wrong.  At least in this day and age.

Maybe back in the beginning, when Parties formed during the first years of our Constitutional system, it helped that the parties had natural leaders around which they formed - Federalists to Hamilton, Republican-Democrats to Jefferson - if only because everyone was starting off on the same footing.  And the way the voting system was set up - Winner Take All per district or state - it was simplest to have two parties fighting over parking spaces in DC (well, for the horse-drawn carriages).  It's interesting to note how when one party died off - Federalists, by the 1820s - the system so abhorred a vacuum that a replacement party - Whigs - formed to fill that vacuum.

But the Whigs quickly demonstrated why a party formed around one person - or one issue - doesn't last very long or do very well.  For the Whigs were formed in specific response against one person: Andrew Jackson.  When it came time to actually do anything regarding issues, the Whigs found themselves disorganized and leaderless.  Hating Jackson - which is natural, considering how much of a bastard he was - could only go so far.  It especially hurt because thanks to fate the first President Whig - William Harrison - died in 30 days, leaving his VP John Tyler the keys to the White House... and Tyler was only a Whig specifically because he hated Jackson.  Tyler quickly turned out to be a Democrat at heart and vetoed nearly every Whig legislation that crossed his desk.  This killed party unity before the party had a chance to solidify.

The successor to the Whigs - The Republicans - succeeded a bit better because they worked not only at putting up Presidential candidates - first in 1856 - but also lined up party members for the House and Senate.  They put a full platform, unlike the other potential Whig cast-offs like the Free-Soil Party: and THIS is how you're supposed to get a successful Third Party going.

The party is not as much its leadership as it is the voting base, the people who actually VOTE for those leaders in the first place.  For all we rail against the wingnut factions of the major parties, they serve a purpose of basic party foundation (the trick is to find the saner members of those factions to offer up for elections).  You need to coalesce a large enough group of like-minded citizens, get enough of them to volunteer for the less glamorous but still-vital offices at the state and congressional levels, and work hard at getting enough of those candidates elected to make a difference in office.

Better still, the ones you elect to the lower offices become viable candidates for higher office.  State Senator can campaign for Governor.  State Representative makes a try for Congress.  From the U.S. House to the U.S. Senate.  And from any of those higher offices, a genuine shot at the Presidency.

The thing the Third Parties need to do in this day and age is build from the ground up.  Don't even run a candidate for President until you've got enough party members elected to other offices who can then prove themselves in those duties that one of them can perform the duties of the President.

The other thing about getting a successful Third Party going is to KEEP GOING AS A THIRD PARTY.  We've had other attempts - The Populists in the 1880s-90s, for example - where that third party was gaining ground... only for that party to get absorbed by either the Democrats or the Republicans, whichever was closest in ideology to them.  Other times - the Bull Moose progressives under Teddy Roosevelt, the Reform Party of Ross Perot - the third parties were the vanity project of a particular headstrong candidate who focused only on the Presidency and did little to establish a solid ground game for their vanity parties to survive.  Once Roosevelt and Perot were out of the picture for each one, both parties crashed and burned.  It didn't help for the Reform Party that they got hijacked by Pat Buchanan in 2000 who turned that party into a mirror of himself - twisted and evil - before driving it into bankruptcy and then heading back to his home party of the Republicans with nary a scratch.

The successful Third Party is going to have to defend their way.  There will be attempts by both established parties - Democrats and Republicans - to kill off a third option for voters (because two parties make it predictable).  The Third Party is going to have to insist on retaining its own existence even when/if it has to caucus in Congress with one of the two major parties (especially making sure their party leaders do get key chairmanships to prove party value, and also not switch brands).

Dear Mr. O'Donnell: if you want a Third Party to come along and talk about the issues that NEED talking, that NEED solutions, then by all means promote the concept.  But do us all a favor: push those Third Parties to do the hard work of getting a groundswell of support by spreading out and getting more candidates into more offices down-ballot.  Meanwhile, right now, GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT FOR OBAMA AND MAKE SURE ROMNEY NEVER GETS NEAR THE OVAL OFFICE.  ahem.  Needed to be CAPS LOCKed, sir...

AND FOR YOU LOT READING THIS!  YEAH ALL SEVEN OF YOUSE: GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT!  GO!  GO!  GO!  Stay Sane and VOTE OBAMA!

Now, off to lunch.  When I get back here, I wanna hear back from the most moderate party out there (hope that's the Modern Whigs) about getting on the ticket for Governor in 2014.

Catching Up and Falling Behind

As we round the calendar year into the final month (December 2009), there are a few points of contention and observations to discuss:

• It's been pretty much one year... and it's been pretty much SIXTY YEARS of the Democrats trying for something even close to universal health care to pass through Congress, and here we STILL ARE DEBATING THE DAMN THING. In a more sane political system - no filibusters, no Holds, no bullsh-tting Senators with egos the size of Jupiter - this would have passed MONTHS AGO.
• It's been one full year of unemployment for me this month. Job hunting has been full of fits and starts, I'm finishing up my A+ Cert studies at PHCC this week, I've got the CompTIA exam in two weeks, and my brain still can't warp itself around TCP/IP stuff. Grrr Argh.
• Sarah Palin's 'biography' is so full of lies, half-truths, and non-researched crap that someone (not me, as I haven't wasted money on it) ought to sue the publisher for fraud. As a librarian, I don't trust any supposed non-fiction book that does NOT have a bibliography (sign of research) or an index (sign of subject checking: lack of an index also shows the book was rushed to print). I'm surprised as hell that NO ONE mentioned in her book in an unfavorable way - which is basically anyone outside her family circle - hasn't started rounding up lawyers for a libel or slander case.
• Obama's recent announcements to quickly send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan in a Surge-esque attempt to push back the Taliban / Al Qaeda forces to justify a 2011 staged withdrawal is, once you take a longer look at it, the least worst choice out of a set of really bad choices. After all, what else could he do?
  Obvious choice: full and complete withdrawal from Afghanistan. Begin a six-month phased exit of troops from the ground, finishing up around key cities and transit points to try and ensure the nation doesn't fall into complete chaos. The problem there isn't so much the far right wingnuts screaming for impeachment (they'd do that anyways), but the reasonable fact that the current regime - corrupt and unable to handle infrastructural needs - would be immediately overrun with the Taliban claiming victory (they'd do that anyways), reclaiming the nation and returning it to a massive hellhole.
  Other obvious choice: keep up the current situation, try to force the Afghani government to fix itself, and just hope to outlast the Taliban's insurgency efforts. The problem there is, without a deadline of sorts, there's little incentive for the Afghani government to steady itself: it'll just keep relying on us and our allies to keep them propped up. We'll also be unable to establish any kind of excuse or reason to force an exit strategy ourselves, meaning we'll be tied down for as long as the Taliban remains a threat. And the Taliban and Al Qaeda jerks want that to be forever (to justify their argument that we're empire building, a Western Christian nation yet again beating up on poor faithful Muslims). Oh, the far right wingnuts will continue to claim that Obama's not doing enough for the troops, he doesn't want victory, yadda yadda.
  That left this choice: commit more troops to "flood the zone" and push the Taliban out of key locations. Commit to a deadline to show other Muslim nations we're not in it for the empire building. That deadline also pressures the military to create results (hopefully not sloppy bloody results, but tangible ones that don't involve hundreds of dead civilians). And while critics complain that deadline gives the Taliban an objective to keep messing with us to where we'd have to break said deadline, that overlooks the fact the Taliban would have kept messing with us anyway. The argument that the Taliban can just lay low until the deadline and we leave to strike back is also faulty: if the Taliban lays low, it gives Karzai's government a chance to stabilize well enough to stand on their own.
  This is, of course, all academic. We can only know for sure after 2011 if this all works out right. It REALLY depends on if everyone involved - The U.S., our allies, Karzai's government, et al - makes good faith efforts to fix things well enough that we can bring the troops home...
  
• The big news for the Republicans - other than Palin being a bane to her own fans - has been the recent tragic shooting of four police officers in Washington State... in that the cop killer was a violent parolee from Arkansas who had his long sentence commuted to a shorter time. That shorter time allowed for an early parole, which the guy violated, but his second stint was quickly annulled because of a screw-up with the prosecutors' office not pursuing the matter properly. The governor who commuted the sentence? Mike Huckabee. That noise you just heard was the air let out of his 2012 Primary balloon.
  See, here's the problem: it's not that Huckabee could have forseen the guy was going to become a cop killer. It's not even Huckabee's fault that the prosecutors' didn't handle the guy's parole violation. But this is the second time that a Huckabee parolee had gone violent after release: there are questions now about how many other prisoners that were granted leniency through his office returned to lives of violence (for what I know, there's a third one that's lesser known. So far).
  This incident brings to question Huckabee's decision making. Which has been proven elsewhere, but highlighted by this case, to be a faith-based system. The stories are getting around now of how Huckabee listened to ministers and preachers - instead of prosecutors and victims - regarding whom to show mercy. Stories about how prisoners in Arkansas quickly expressed conversions to faith as a means to lessen their jail times. And while it's great for a man, any person, to have a solid faith system in their personal lives, this is just one more proof that religion and secular matters - the law, politics, people's lives - should not mix.
  If Dukakis got derailed by Willie Horton, having a cop killer like Clemmons as your personal albatross should guarantee you won't even start a Presidential campaign... so who does that leave for the Republicans in 2012? Palin. Romney. Pawlenty from Minnesota has to be drooling right about now.
  
• I need 25,000 - 50,000 more words for a decent book to come out of the NaNoWriMo effort. Hence the need to keep writing elsewhere than this blog. Sorry. I'll probably post a Io Saturnalia request before the Pagan Eggnog and Gift-Sharing and Tree-Decorating Day, but that's about it. Unless Congress does something really stupid before then. Sigh.

Moderates Have Principles

I am not a fan of Rush Limbaugh.

Which seems to be mutual. He's not a fan of Moderates.

Rush seems to think that moderates "cannot be governed by principle. They can't be. Moderates don't have principles. If they had principles, they'd be one thing or the other..."

Dear Rush: Here's a list of moderates' principles.

1) Moderates support competency. We support things THAT WORK. If it doesn't work (example: THE WHOLE BUSH ADMINISTRATION) we don't support it. So there.

2) Moderates recognize not so much the NEED for bipartisanship (or compromise) for the SAKE of bipartisanship. Bipartisanship and compromise between opposing factions are welcome when the end result will be something THAT WORKS.

3) Moderate Republicans are actually pro-life. We just don't support SHOOTING PEOPLE and BLOWING UP BUILDINGS to enforce our own personal values. We also recognize that there are medical reasons for abortion (to save the life of the mother) and legal reasons (rape and incest). If that makes us too open-minded on the issue, TOO BAD.

4) Moderates support FAIR taxation, not necessarily CONSTANT tax-cutting. When the tax rates were clearly too high (above 50 percent!), we agreed on getting the tax rates down. But now that the governments (federal and state) are struggling with massive deficits, MORE tax cuts are clearly not an answer (there's a reason why current polling of the voters show that a plurality - 46 percent - think the tax rates are 'just right'). And we Moderates aren't too thrilled that these tax cuts never come with serious attempts to cut back on the massive spending as well, to make government justify every expense with correlating revenue.

5) Moderates love America. We also love all Americans with few exceptions (rapists, murderers and embezzlers, pretty much anyone deserving of life in jail). What we don't do is go out of our way to divide this nation into the US vs. THEM crap that you and your wingnuts seem to do every second of every day.

6) One thing Moderates don't do is watch FOX. We also don't watch CNN or MSNBC or any of the other major news outlets, pretty much because they're all wastes of oxygen any more (all of them filled with ego-driven know-nothings who pontificate on crap they don't understand). We're pretty much getting our news from the Daily Show and Colbert Report any more... and we're STILL better informed.

6a) and ESPN. Moderates love college football.

7) Moderates are perfectly capable of being as rude and vulgar as you wingnuts.
So I finish with the immortals words of Harry Truman: Fuck you, Rush.

Hope that clarifies things for you.

Florida Politics: Crist and the GOP Paradox

I know, I haven't written about amendment ideas for a good while - it's because the ideas already thrown out there like "No More Lying," "Death to Greedheads" and "President Is NOT Above the Law" are kinda it, any other amendment idea comes along as response to a momentary crisis, but I digress - but at least the political scene keeps me motivated in publishing from time to time.

The choice news du jour is local: Florida Governator Charlie Crist will officially thrown his hat into the ring for the open U.S. Senate seat for 2010.

While the polling numbers for the competitive race (both primary and general) are still early they also look pretty good for him. Crist remains popular across the board in Florida, even among Democrats (!!!) at a time any Republican Governor would feel lucky to be polling above 5o percent. Despite the budgetary woes Crist has been able to keep himself away from that mire, leaving it to an increasingly unpopular (thanks for all the corruption, guys!) state Lege.

But as for being a popular - or even a Moderate - Republican, well, a closer look is warranted... and if he truly is a Moderate Republican, closer concerns need to be addressed...

Crist's popularity among moderates (and Democrats) is derived mostly from three things: 1) Sincere attempts to court state Blacks and Hispanics, mostly by improving voter access for minorities and stopping dubious voter roll purges; 2) Presenting himself as eco-friendly regarding carbon emissions and Everglades protection; 3) He's not Jeb Bush, even though their gubernatorial achievements are mostly similar outside of points 1) and 2). Where Jeb had it better over Crist was unshakable support from the Republican ranks... but even there Crist is still popular with rank-and-file GOP voters. It's the local (and federal) Republican leadership that is at odds - rather openly - with Crist.

But in truth Crist is a rather solid conservative: openly pro-life and pro-Jebus for one thing; heavy on the gov't spending cuts and avoidance of tax hikes wherever possible for another (what else to call Amendment One for Super-homesteading he promoted, which evaded the real problem the state has in raising revenue via property taxes?).

The thing that really gets the GOP leadership all hot and bothered is that Crist DOESN'T stick to the script. When he needs to, which has been often, Crist jumps the Republican Reservation fence and goes rogue. The most obvious example is the one the Club for Greed, primary challenger Marco Rubio (a local up-and-comer who DOES toe the party line), Rush Limbaugh, GOP Guvnners like Palin and Jindal and Sanford, and nearly every GOP Congressperson and Senator NOT named Specter, Snowe or Collins will point to:

Crist openly supported Obama's stimulus package.

It's only a really big deal simply because the Republican Party had decided, back in January and February when every economist not on the Club for Greed and CATO Institute payroll were screaming for federal relief from a massive Recession, to simply deny and obstruct the stim package in toto. And that the whole party had to reject the Stim. Simply on principle. Because after 8 years of reckless GOP spending and relaxing of financial and business regulations that helped CAUSE the economic crisis in the first place, the Republicans finally decided they were the Responsible Fiscal Geniuses all along and they all wanted Obama to FAIL and so the Stimulus package had to be opposed even in the face of economic armageddon.

Except for Crist. Crist hosted a rally in Florida, posed with Obama, praised the Stimulus money coming to his states and all the other states. Even as the rest of the Republican Party voted No even with Obama's attempt at bipartisanship and compromise, became the Party of No much to the chagrin of the whole country... and even as the Republican Party kept losing voters across the board (SEE Tedisco's Failure to Win New York District 20 Even Though Its A Solid GOP District) and even as Crist's popularity never wavered (why else is Nate Silver projecting an EASY primary AND general win?).

Because this is really the one thing in Crist's favor: He's not stupid. He may be crazy - as all Floridians tend to be, hi guys! - but he's not stupid.

Because Crist, sitting in the governor's seat, was seeing a looming state budget threatened by a massive financial shortfall. Florida's meager tax system was generated by property sales and millage rates that went into the red as the housing/mortgage bubble went POP; sales taxes from all those tourists we USED to get before 9/11, the gas crisis of 2007-08, AND the unemployment crisis of 2007-Current kept them from enjoying our beaches and crappy Disney rides; and by avoiding any direct taxation on companies to move their corporate HQs here as a means of generating better state-level wealth so that residents wouldn't rely on public resources, only to have said companies ship all their jobs overseas to India and China anyway.

Without that Stimulus funding, Crist was facing something few states want to face: utter bankruptcy. A lot of states, even Republican ones, were facing massive deficits and possible bankruptcies. The typical GOP Governor response was "Not gonna take the Stim money." Palin said it, Sanford said it, Perry said it... until their own State Leges - some of them Republican-led and none of them thinking of running for the White House in 2012 - basically knee-capped them and said "WE NEED THE FRAKKING MONEY!" Except Crist. Like I said, not stupid: Crist saw the mood of the populus, he did the REAL basic math all politicians ought to do, and he full-heartedly applauded Obama and gave the President the bipartisan cover he needed to sell the Stimulus nation-wide. And that Stimulus money - for the most part - saved the state budget (what's gonna save it next year, though...).

So this is the deal: The Republicans as led by Rush, Newt, BillO and Grover are reeling right now, mostly from self-inflicted wounds they won't even admit to, and currently in a serious anger mode not only focused on Obama but anyone who even dares to associate with him. Which means Crist, currently the most prominent Republican caught on film hugging Obama, is also on their "Hate Him" List. Other Rubio allies are gonna have to include Mike Huckabee, who has to be thinking if Crist wins the Senate in 2010 he'll be in a better position to run for President 2012; and Jeb Bush, who has a personal animus against Crist (mostly because Crist has done almost the same things Jeb did but got more praise for it, and when Crist did things Jeb opposed it made Crist even MORE popular). Meaning these prominent Republicans are gonna seriously go out of their way to hurt one of their own. Almost like when the Kos crowd went out of their way to hurt Lieberman in 2006, the only difference being that if the GOP hardliners hurt Crist it's actually going to make things worse for the whole Republican Party.

'Cause here's the Paradox: Crist is running as an extremely popular Republican at a time nearly no other Republican is polling such high numbers, statewide or nationwide. Yet you're going to see a large part of the Republican's political machine turn against him, even though Crist represents the best possible chance the Republicans will have to A) keep a Senate seat (R), and B) prove that the Republicans are not a dying party. 'Cause this is the thing Kos and his krewe want: they WANT Rush and Co. beating up on Crist during the primary, because it'll be just like when the Republican hardliners beat up on Chafee and Gilchrist and ended up losing those incumbants' seats to solid Democrats. Democrats are terrified of Crist: if he survives the primary, even wounded, he'll still be a more attractive candidate than the likely Democratic challenger (Kendrick Meek). And even though Obama won this state in November (and McCain won it in the 2008 primary, even over more 'acceptable' conservative choices like Romney (bleh)), Florida is a solid GOP state: Crist survives the primary and the Democrat might as well concede right then.

So this is the challenge to the GOP. Should the party wake up, accept Crist as a solid candidate, and make it a smooth ride to November 2010 and ensure the Republicans don't lose more footing in the Senate? Or should the party continue its descent into irrational (and it IS irrational) Obama Hate and Tax-Cut Obsessiveness, push hard for a Rubio candidancy, make it more likely the next Senator from Florida is Meek, and make it absolutely certain the Republicans have NO power at the Federal level for the next 2-6 years (or even longer)?