The Commonwealth Party?

As a general rule, successful revolutions combine a vision of the future with an appeal to historic values.  In other words, they find the future in the past.

This was true when Martin Luther challenged the Catholic Church by going back to the text  of the Bible. 

It was true when American colonists declared their independence in words borrowed from John Locke, the intellectual champion of England's  Glorious Revolution of 1688.

It was true when Lincoln developed his justification of emancipation from the words of Jefferson's Declaration of Independence.

And when Martin Luther's namesake - Dr. King - made his case to white America using the selfsame words.

If America is to have a successful third party, it would do well to tie itself - in part, at least - to the great ideas and movements of our national past.  And if it wishes to make the starkest possible contrast with the dysfunctional politics of the present, it might well choose to call itself the Commonwealth Party.

The ideal of the "commonwealth" arose during the Tudor dynasty, and was a powerful part of the ideology of the Parliamentary side in the English Civil War.  Commonwealth thinking reached its greatest influence in the writings of John Locke, especially the Two Treatises of Government - originally written to justify the Exclusion Bill, but published after the Glorious Revolution of 1688.  Locke's Second Treatise was regarded as the definitive statement of English Whig philosophy.

The Commonwealth ideal enjoyed a powerful revival during the twelve years leading up to the American Revolution.  Locke's ideas and language form the core of Jefferson's Declaration of Independence.  The term "commonwealth" became part of the official names of three of the original thirteen states (Massachusetts, Virginia and Pennsylvania) and one later addition (Kentucky).

In simple terms, the ideal of the commonwealth seeks a balance between individualism and commitment to the greater good.  The logic is that of the social contract, by which individuals voluntarily band together in order to protect the right of each - and all - to pursue individual ideas of "happiness". 

Implicit in this ideal is the notion of equal opportunity, since few would choose to enter into a social contract which gave unfair advantage to others. 

In modern politics, a party founded upon commonwealth principles would offer a distinct alternative to the two major parties:  the Republicans, with their unabashed devotion to the interests of the rich and privileged; and the Democrats, a coalition of demographic and other interest groups primarily concerned with seeking advantage for their own members.

In offering an ideal of equal opportunity, equal justice, and equal sacrifice for common goals - balanced by a defense of individual freedom to pursue personal goals - a Commonwealth Party could appeal to both the libertarian and patriotic instincts of the American people, while offering a profound critique of the politics of special interests. 

While such a broad statement would hardly suffice to define an effective political party, it would offer a solid starting point.  The commonwealth ideal is part of the history of the nation - intimately connected with its founding.  In a single word, it says much about our individual pursuit of happiness, as we individually define it - and our mutual commitment to creating and preserving a great nation, and perhaps a world, in which that happiness can be pursued.

America needs to return to the ideal of the commonwealth.

Why not the Commonwealth Party?

Design for a Third Party

The following piece appeared recently, in edited form, on the Back Page of Style Weekly.  It is the third, and final, part of my opening salvo making the case for a third party.  Hereafter, I will try to continue to campaign by presenting new material.

Recently, Americans Elect - the much-bruited, internet-based "third party" - has announced its failure to attract a viable presidential candidate, thus ending another effort to challenge the major-party duopoly by organizing a "party of the center".

Its demise was sad, but inevitable.  If a third party ever achieves success, it won't be by occupying some vague, bipartisan middle-ground. 

A self-defined party of the center automatically cedes the initiative to the major parties.  As the existing parties define where the center is, a "centrist" party must constantly tack with the prevailing winds.  What's needed is a third party which sets its own course - a bold course, independent of the existing duopoly.

Americans should study the history of the two third parties which seriously challenged the major-party establishment in the past - the Lincoln Republicans and the early 20th century Progressives.

For example, the Republicans - so far the only third party to become a major party - offer these instructive lessons:

First, define success - not as winning the next election - but as changing the terms of the national debate.

Lincoln's Republican Party - and its forerunners , the Liberty and Free-Soil parties - initially focused less on winning elections than on compelling Americans to confront the issue of slavery.   In the decades leading up to the Civil War, slavery was the great issue.  But this issue presented both an insoluble dilemma and, in Senator William Seward's phrase, "an irrepressible conflict".

In the interests of national and party unity, leaders of the Democratic and Whig parties did their best to distract public attention from this issue.  The insurgent Republicans insisted that it be faced.

In today's  America, a successful third party might, in similar fashion, challenge the major parties' refusal to confront a cluster of thorny issues concerning our responsibility to future generations.

This issue cluster takes involves a whole nexus of issues, including:  global climate change; the decline of public education; the rising costs of health and elder care; our dependence on foreign, and exhaustible, energy sources;  and burgeoning Federal debt.  

While these issues are often addressed separately, viewed together, they represent the stark failure of America's "mature" generations to provide for those who will follow - thus raising a question of moral responsibility comparable with that of pre-Civil War America.

Second, logically connect the new party's moral imperative with a forward-looking vision of how future generations of Americans will earn their livings.

Lincoln's Republicans insisted on the centrality of slavery, but their analysis connected that issue with a bold vision for the economic and geographical future of the nation.  Slavery was seen, not only as a moral wrong, but as a system of labor and land-ownership in direct competition with the agrarian vision of a nation of small, family farms spreading to the Pacific. 

Today, the cluster of generational failures which might be termed "neglecting our future" can likewise be addressed in terms of a new vision for America.  Our current problems are the direct result of a failure of self-discipline, prudence and thrift - consequences of an economic system based upon consumerism.

The consumption-driven economy of the 20th century - sensible when Americans made the goods they consumed - has become a self-destructive addiction.  Insatiable consumerism has given rise to a political psychology based on individual and group entitlements - rather than the common good.  A narcissistic insistence on undeferred gratification has put the health of the planetary ecosystem at risk, and brought our country to the brink of economic and fiscal collapse.

A new, third party might offer an alternative vision for the future, including such elements as:

• aggressive environmental policies carried out through volunteer citizen policing and thoughtful modifications of markets - in preference to new regulatory machinery;
• nurturing small enterprise, rather than slavishly serving the interests of large corporations; and
• creating viable markets for locally-grown, healthy foods; locally-generated, sustainable-source  energy; and products made from recycled materials.

Third, embrace policies designed to reform, fundamentally, a broken political system.

Implicit in the Lincoln Republicans' demand that westward expansion result in the creation of only "free states" was a seismic shift in the Congressional balance of power.  The creation of new free states, no longer balanced by the creation of slave states, would end the ability of the under-populated South to play an equal role in setting national policy. 

Today, the political reforms available for adoption by a third party also concern themselves with the undue influence of a minority - in this case, the very wealthy.

A modern third party should, at the heart of its program, embrace political reforms such as:

• Ending the ability of any entity, other than an individual American citizen, to contribute                                                to political campaigns;
• Requiring that the House of Representatives, and state and local legislative bodies, be chosen on the basis of non-partisan redistricting and/or proportional representation; and
• Restoring the fundamental  right of citizens to organize to petition for redress of grievances by granting to significant third parties the same ballot access enjoyed by the existing major parties.

These essentials - defining success in terms of changing the debate; embracing a new moral and economic vision based on sustainability and entrepreneurialism; and challenging the rules which uphold the two-party duopoly - could well be the keys to a successful third party.

But the thing is that any new party define its own vision for America, not borrow its ideas from the often-meaningless debate of the two existing parties.

No one needs a party of the center.  What's needed is a party of the future.

A Cleveland Strategy for Obama?

This piece originally appeared as my weekly column in the June 6 edition of the Village News.  I promise, friends, I will start posting original material after one more re-pub!

When President Obama came out in favor of same-sex marriage, my immediate reaction was that he’d done a courageous thing.  

A few nano-seconds later, I remembered the old political rule:  In an election year, smart politicians don’t do the courageous thing.  They do the smart thing.

So I began asking myself:  Why would President Obama take such a controversial position at the beginning of an election year?

I mean, there’s no question whatsoever that the man is smart.  I’ve never bought the standard liberal assumption that he’s incredibly brilliant.  Brilliant people usually have vision, and I haven’t seen much evidence of vision over the past four years.

On the other hand, you can’t deny Mr. Obama’s political genius.  America’s first black president – a generation or two before most folks would have thought that possible.

The man’s no dummy.

But here’s the President endorsing same-sex marriage, outraging a considerable fraction of the African-American clergy – a key element of his 2008 coalition.

What was he thinking?

There’s a hypothesis that the President had studied his polling and discovered that he’d win more votes than he’d lose by supporting same-sex marriage.  Or at least, that he’d win more votes in the six or seven battleground states – including Virginia – which will determine the outcome in the Electoral College.

Perhaps there’s something to that.  Opposition to same-sex marriage is dwindling rapidly, with more Americans now in favor than opposed.  (An in-depth survey by the Pew Center, published in April, has the gap at 47 percent - 43 percent.)

Moreover, Mr. Obama’s stand seems likely to stimulate enthusiasm among younger voters, whose energetic support in 2008 proved a key to his victory.  Those under-30 voters are overwhelmingly in favor of marriage equality.  

It might even be that the sort of deep polling done by campaigns has indicated that America’s present wave of religious enthusiasm is beginning to wind down.  Since Colonial times, America has experienced a “great awakening” every so often, generally between fifty and eighty years apart.  

These waves have inevitably been followed by periods of interest in more worldly matters.

Our present, politicized “great awakening” has been going on since the early 1970’s, providing a great deal of energetic support to conservative candidates.  

Perhaps there’s evidence that this wave is finally heading back out to sea.

And yet.  And yet...

In politics, you have to think long-term.  Even if  Mr. Obama wins in November, he will have a hard time enacting the sort of progressive agenda he certainly wants as his historic legacy.  The economy is still misfiring like an old jalopy.  That will hamper him.  Even if the Republicans lose the House, which seems likely, they’ll have enough votes in the Senate to block anything the President wants to pass.

But what if Mr. Obama runs on a boldly progressive platform and loses?

Is that the end of the story?

Follow me here:  If Mr. Obama loses in November, the bad economy will become President Romney’s problem.  And the simple fact is, unless Mr. Romney undergoes yet another transformation, he will have absolutely nothing in his toolbox with which to fix it.

Certainly, the Republicans in Congress won’t.

Those guys actually believe, against the evidence of history and a century of sound economic theory, that they can bring about a recovery by cutting government spending, cutting taxes and waiting.

Herbert Hoover tried that, and sent us deeply into the Great Depression.  

Lately, Germany’s Angela Merkel has been trying the same thing on Europe’s periphery, nearly causing the European Union to melt down.

The truth is, John Maynard Keynes had it right nearly a century ago.  In a severe recession or depression, the best way out is for government to spend money in order to stimulate economic activity.  

That’s not a matter of opinion.  That’s what works.

But the Republicans refuse to believe that.  If they win power in November, and follow the policies they’ve been preaching for the past four years, this recession will drag on and on.

And if that happens, both houses of Congress will go heavily Democratic in the off-year Congressional elections of 2014.

And the White House will, very likely, go to a Democrat in 2016.

And perhaps that Democrat  will be a still-youthful Barack Obama, now older and more experienced.  Now empowered by four more years of that demographic shift.  Now with progressive Congressional majorities that will allow him to enact the sort of sweeping policy initiatives he couldn’t enact in his first term.

Call it the Cleveland Strategy – for Grover Cleveland, our 22nd and 24th President.  A Democrat who served two non-consecutive terms in the late 19th century.

What worked for Number 22 might work for Number 44.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m sure Mr. Obama wants to win in November.  But I’m starting to wonder if he hasn’t figured out a bold strategy which makes him a winner either way.

A "Civilizing" Case for a Third Party

The following is a revised and extended version of a piece published on Style Weekly's Back Page.  It is republished here as background for arguments to be developed on this blog.

The situation is depressingly familiar.

It's mid-June, and the nominees of the two major parties are locked in.  Along with at least half of your fellow citizens, you're far from enthusiastic about your options.  Like more than 90% of them, you nonetheless know, to a reasonable certainly, the candidate for whom you will vote

Like nearly all Americans, you dread the next five months.  Vast amounts of money have been raised - by the campaigns and supposedly independent "super-PACs".   Attack ads already pollute radio and television.  Landline telephones will soon ring with robo-calls and "push polls".

Your favorite websites will, with the errant movement of a cursor, deliver spam carefully tailored to your presumed fears and preferences.  This year, even your cell phone will likely be co-opted.

The content of the campaign now beginning will be - almost entirely - negative.

It's going to be a long, hot summer, followed by a thoroughly nasty fall.

Many factors interact to produce the ugly political campaigns to which we have become accustomed.  Two predominate:  The fact that we have only two political parties, and the legal necessity, come November 6, of electing somebody. 

Given the rules of the game - a binary, forced choice - the behavior of the two presidential campaigns, and hundreds of campaigns for lower office, will be both rational and predictable.  

In any election, a candidate who conducts a serious, positive campaign, offering plausible solutions to real problems, runs a grave risk.  Real solutions inevitably have costs, and voters are generally reluctant to embrace sacrifice.

But - despite the fact that most Americans loathe negative campaigns - going negative works.

Why?  Because, when voters are presented with a binary choice, everything that dissuades them from voting for Candidate A necessarily moves them closer to voting for Candidate B. 

This reality reveals one of the strongest arguments for a serious third party.  When three or more parties contend for votes, the game changes. 

When there is a plausible Candidate C, Candidate A's attacks may still drive voters away from Candidate B.  But running a negative campaign will also drive voters away from Candidate A - to the ultimate benefit of Candidate C.

Thus, a strategy of staying positive suddenly becomes viable. 

 It doesn't always happen that way, of course.  But it can, and dramatically.

In 2004, I spent some time knocking on doors in New Hampshire for Vermont Governor Howard Dean.  While my young friends and I tromped the cold streets of Manchester, higher-ups in the Dean campaign  - then focused on Iowa - decided to go negative against Dick Gephardt.  Gephardt replied in kind.

Had there been only two candidates, Dean's strategy might have worked.  But John Kerry and John Edwards were also in the race, and they carefully avoided joining the fray.  The result:  Within weeks, Dean's prohibitive lead had melted away.

In the Iowa caucuses, Kerry and Edwards finished 1 - 2.  Dean made an impassioned speech - ending in an unfortunate attempt at a Rebel yell - and that was that.  Dean's New Hampshire lead evaporated, and the one candidate with a realistic chance of unseating George W. Bush wound up in the essentially futile post of Democratic Party Chairman.

Kerry and Edwards - the guys who stayed out of the Dean-Gephardt brawl - went on to form the Democratic ticket.  And lost in November.

Countless other examples, including many from other democracies, could be cited for the proposition that multiple parties work to penalize negative campaigning.

To be sure, Mr. Dooley had it right:  "Politics ain't beanbag."  In the real world, with so much at stake and so many resources available, negative campaigning will always be with us.

But when the rules of the game change, winning strategies also change.  When more than two viable options appear on the ballot, it's riskier to run a negative campaign – and somewhat more rewarding  to run a campaign of ideas.

Reason enough to welcome a third party.

Of course, creating that party won't be easy.  Creating a successful third party will take courage, determination, and years of effort against long odds.

But lately, the odds have been growing shorter. 

For one thing, in-depth polling shows that at somewhere between 34% and 40% of Americans don't identify with either "major party".  The unaffiliated now constitute a plurality - larger than the number who self- identify as either Democrats or Republicans.

Recent grassroots movements - the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement - have demonstrated that millions of Americans believe our political system is broken.  

Even serious scholars and political observers have begun defying the conventional wisdom that third parties cannot succeed in America .  Last fall, Columbia economist Jeffrey Sachs proposed a series of reforms in his book The Price of Civilization.   The key reform: a third party.

In February, journalist Linda Killian addressed UVA’s Miller Center Forum on the subject of her new book, The Swing Vote, which likewise prescribes a third party as one way of restoring America’s political system.

Even President Clinton’s former Secretary of Labor, Cal-Berkeley professor Robert Reich, has hinted his approval.  In a recent interview with Jon Stewart, Reich warned that the continued failure of the major parties will inevitably result in the rise of a third party.

Can it be done?

It can.  But to become viable, a third party must avoid several historic traps:

It must not become the plaything of some charismatic figure with an out-sized ego - only to be abandoned at his whim. 

It must not define itself merely as a party of the center, for both major parties are adept at maneuvering toward the center - for just long enough to win an election.

Most of all, it must not accept the standard definition of “success” imposed by journalists and political scientists - i.e., the ability to win the next election. 

A new third party must be disciplined and patient.  It must embrace serious reforms and commit itself to strong principles. 

But it must also be smart enough, and agile enough, to take advantage of growing public discontent with the existing major parties - building slowly while it concentrates on changing the rules of a game that no  longer makes sense.

Mr. Lincoln's Third Party

Last fall, I spent a few days working as Hal Holbrook's stand-in on the set of Steven Spielberg's Lincoln biopic.  In the dull, quiet time between set-ups, I had time to consider the state of our Union.

And it occurred to me that modern Americans should consider the fact that our sixteenth President was the only chief executive to lead a third party to power.

To be sure, some students of history might quibble with calling the Republicans of 1860 a "third party".  By the time voters went to the polls in 1860, the Republicans were almost certainly the most powerful political organization in the nation.

That said, the GOP had only been in existence for six years.  Beginning with widespread Northern revulsion at the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which erased the historic line excluding slavery from the territories, the Republican Party sprang rapidly into being.  In state after state, anti-slavery Democrats and Whigs abandoned lifelong rivalries to form "fusion" or "anti-Nebraska" parties.  Within two years, these local efforts had coalesced as a national new party.

But for several years, the Republicans were clearly a third party.  As the Whig Party imploded, its position as America's second party was filled by the American Party - the so-called "Know-Nothings" - whose anti-immigrant stance appealed to citizens looking for a distraction from endless political warfare over slavery.

But the Know-Nothings could not last.  Like today's "Tea Party" movement, their weakness lay in a refusal to address the most important issue confronting the nation.  Voters could be temporarily distracted by a negative agenda, but the real problem facing the country - slavery - would not go away.  The Know-Nothings vanished as quickly as they had appeared, leaving the field clear for a new party to challenge the Democrats.

Enter the Republicans.

But here's the point:  If the Republicans of 1860 were no longer a third party, they most assuredly were a third party in 1854 and 1855, when men like Lincoln were abandoning old loyalties - and cautiously embracing former adversaries - to start something new.

 

In today's America, the case for a new third party is as strong as it was in 1854.  In Washington, inter-party bickering has paralyzed government's ability to respond to a dire economic crisis - much  less to address huge, long-term challenges such as energy independence, global climate change, and the aging of the population.

And the American people have taken note.  Both the Tea Partiers and the new Occupy movement express discontents which neither major party is prepared to address.  The  two-party system is broken, as evidenced by the Pew Center's recent finding that, for the first time,  38% of Americans consider themselves "independents" - more than identify with either major party.

Distrust of government is widespread, demand for change, nearly universal.  In a century, conditions have never been better for the rise of a third party to challenge the existing duopoly.  Yet many with only a superficial understanding of American history repeat the old saw that third parties have never succeeded in American politics.

To that conventional wisdom, Mr. Lincoln's party is the exception which tests the rule.  

Americans fed up with the choices offered by the two-party system might well ask:  What was different about the Republicans of the 1850's?

Three things.

First, the Lincoln Republicans did not define their goals entirely in terms of winning the next election.  True, they were practical politicians, with a lust for office.  But their pragmatism yielded to a greater moral imperative - ending the expansion of slavery into the territories.

Impelled by this overarching cause, career politicians - who had defined their ambitions in terms of rising within an existing party - cast their fates to the wind by joining a new organization with an uncertain future.   Unusual acts of individual self-sacrifice, such as Lincoln's support of ex-Democrat Lyman Trumbull for a Senate seat Lincoln himself coveted, were surprisingly common.

Simply put, their cause was greater than short-term considerations of personal or partisan advantage, and that fact gave the Republicans a moral force impossible in an established party.

Second, the Republicans represented a new vision of American economic life.  As the party of America's emerging industrial movement - supported by a transportation revolution and fed by millions of small, family farms - the Republicans offered a free-market alternative to a system which depended upon human slavery.

Finally, the Republicans offered a vision of the future which no established party could embrace.  While their official platform eschewed outright abolition, their forthright opposition to slavery held the promise of revolutionary change.  In simple terms, the Republicans offered the prospect of something bolder than a mere continuation of the cautious politics of the Washington establishment.

Americans disenchanted with today's two-party system should carefully study the lessons of the Mr. Lincoln's third party.  A successful third party is possible, if it is incorporates three ideas:

• definition of success which does not include immediate electoral success;
• the combination of a moral imperative with a new vision for America's economic future; and
• a strong stand for changes which, while popular, cannot be embraced by either existing party.

Washington is in gridlock.  Over a third of Americans reject both major parties.  Left and right, Americans are beginning to take to the streets.

This opportunity might never come again.