On the Primary Delusion, or, the Primary Election Takes Place on Election Day

A common rhetorical strategy employed by partisans of the Democratic and Republican Parties is to supplement specious arguments against third party and independent activism with calls to mount primary campaigns against undesirable incumbents or the candidates favored by the party establishment. In this, there is little difference between conservative Republican radio talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and progressive Democratic net-roots activists such as Markos Moulitsas. Third party and independent advocacy, they argue, is at best superfluous and at worst counter-productive, since anyone interested in challenging the political status quo can do so from within either of the duopoly parties.

The emphasis on the importance and alleged effectiveness of the primary challenge is nothing more than a means by which ideologues of the duopoly system of government seek to redirect popular impulses against the two-party political status quo into established channels that serve to reinforce the two-party political status quo. It is a mechanism of co-optation. The primary purpose of the primary challenge is to bring the independently-minded – those of us whose better judgment has determined that the machinations of the ruling Democratic-Republican political party apparatus is part of the problem and not its solution, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan – back into the fold of the Democratic-Republican Party. At best it is an argument in favor of infiltration, at worst a cynical attempt to expand membership beyond the dwindling number of duopolist dead-enders. It is not simply fortuitous that in many states one must be a member of a party to vote in its primary. Even in states where there is no registration by party, the primary process clearly aims to put independents into the service of the partisan charade characteristic of the duopoly system. At South Carolina's Post and Courier, Barbara Williams recently reflected on the minutia of that state's Democratic-Republican primary process:

Some already find the primary selection process confusing enough due to the fact that there is no party registration in this state. You can vote in the Democratic primary one year and in the Republican the next. But you can't vote in both on the same day. Rather than voting in either primary, some independents opt to wait until the parties select their nominees for the general election. There will be no primary ballot, for example, that includes all 10 gubernatorial candidates. Neither can primary voters pick both the Republican and Democrat they like best for governor. Some post-debate primary straw polls do allow partisans to weigh in on candidates in both parties, an obvious flaw. A primary ballot has only one party's slate of candidates, not both. There's little doubt that it won't be long before the savvy candidates are concentrating on appearances before groups most likely to vote in their primaries and to convince voters that they are the better choice than the four other candidates with whom they are actually competing.

Following Doug Hoffman's third party insurgent campaign in NY-23rd, Republican ideologues have been hard at work attempting to convince conservatives to accept the adequacy of the primary process. Democrats, of course, receive the secondary benefit of not having to make this case outright, while framing internecine Republican struggles as a "civil war" even as they prepare the ground for their own primary campaigns. None of this, however, changes the fact that the primary process is incapable of addressing the problem that is the two-party political charade and the duopoly system of government. A potential result of this constellation may well be a rise in bitter primary campaigns within the duopoly parties followed by general elections featuring competitive third party and independent challengers. Consider the Republican primary race taking shape in Virginia's 5th Congressional District, currently represented by Democrat Tom Perriello. Brian McNeill reports for Go Dan River:

The national Republican Party has gotten behind the primary candidacy of state Sen. Robert Hurt, R-Chatham, pointing out that he has a proven ability to win elections that cover large portions of the district’s southern half.

Among the 5th District’s conservative rank-and-file, however, Hurt is not necessarily the favored candidate.

Bill Hay, chairman of the Jefferson Area Tea Party, announced Friday that he is endorsing Albemarle County real estate investor Laurence Verga in the GOP primary. Hay, a Greene County resident, said grassroots conservatives in the district dislike certain aspects of Hurt’s record, most notably his 2004 vote in favor of then-Gov. Mark R. Warner’s $1.4 billion package to increase the sales tax and lower certain other taxes. Hay said he is “disturbed” that the national GOP, as opposed to local conservative activists, seems to be trying to choose the 5th District nominee.

One primary hopeful, tea party activist Bradley Rees, has already withdrawn from the race and announced his intention to mount a third party campaign. In his statement, we read:

Right here in Virginia’s 5th District . . . Out of 7 declared candidates so far for the Republican nomination, only one has even drawn a comment from the National Republican Congressional Committee, and they sounded very pleased that this person had entered the race. With the track record they have in other races around the country, my question is this: why should we trust THEIR judgment here, in OUR nominating process? The answer is, quite clearly, we shouldn’t . . . I had hoped the GOP establishment would have learned a lesson in November of 2006. They didn’t . . .

Starting in January, I intend to begin laying the groundwork and getting my support structure in place to run on the Virginia Conservative Party platform. It may amount to only drawing enough votes from the Republican candidate to ensure Tom Perriello a second term. If so, so be it. Maybe then, the party will understand that we are trying to save the GOP from its worst enemy: not the Democrats, but themselves. I do not plan to do this on a whim, only to be a spoiler, but to give the people a chance to make their voices heard.

I am not certain, but Rees is likely referring to the Virginia affiliate of the American Conservative Party. As Lincoln's dictum indicates, the ideologues and partisans of the two-party state and the duopoly system of government cannot fool all of the people all of the time. Despite their Orwellian language games, the primary election remains that which takes place on election day.

The Dialectic of the Subjective and the Objective in the Reproduction of the Two-Party State, Cont'd

Yesterday, considering the dialectic of the subjective and the objective in the reproduction of the two-party state, I wrote that the objective and subjective hurdles to third party and independent politics . . .

stand in a reciprocal relationship with one another that reinforces the prejudice in support of the political status quo: the objective hurdles faced by independent or third party campaigns reinforce the subjective impression that success is all but impossible. The subjective impression itself becomes one more objective hurdle that must be overcome by any successful independent or third party campaign, paradoxically, even despite widespread discontent with the reigning two-party political status quo.

Perhaps we can take this line of thought a few steps further. Since last week's elections, consideration of the potential for future independent and third party insurgencies against the duopoly parties has been a recurring motif in the political media and press. This past weekend, on CBS's Face the Nation, Bob Schiefer discussed the 2009 election results with "Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz from Florida and Republican political consultant Ed Rollins." Schieffer eventually suggested the possibility of third party and independent opposition in future elections:

SCHIEFFER: Do you expect, though, in more of these primaries that you’re going to see maybe sometimes third-party conservatives and conservatives of another stripe challenging the incumbent?
ROLLINS: It may occur. The bottom line is it’s not easy to get on ballots most places. There’s the two-party system. [Emphasis added.] New York has multiple parties and you can -- be a conservative candidate without the whole -- but to get on in a lot of places, it’s very, very difficult. I don’t ever underestimate conservative populists. I basically, as you know, managed Ross Perot’s campaign for a brief period, and I watched a movement, because there was a dissatisfaction with the two parties. I think today, this conservative element is out there.
SCHULTZ: The ballot access is not the issue. I mean, they’re going to have a massive civil war just within their own Republican primaries, I mean, all across this country. And it’s already starting to happen. [Emphasis added.]

On Friday, Andrew Napolitano interviewed Ron and Rand Paul while sitting in for Glenn Beck, and touched on the same topic:

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Congressman Paul, we just witnessed a third party candidate running for Congress in Upstate New York . . . will this spawn more and similar efforts by third party, as your son calls them, constitutionalist Republicans around the country?

Ron Paul: Well, I think there will be a lot more, but I think it really made Rand’s point that the leadership is at fault so often. It was the leadership that handpicked their candidate that finally dropped out of the race and became a Democrat, so that makes it a very strong point. So hopefully, they’ll get their act together and get the strong candidates that believe in limited government and believe what they say ought to be followed through with policy. That’s where the real problem is. I just don’t see in the near future a third party taking over, not because it wouldn’t be advantageous, but mainly because the laws are so biased and the credibility in the media. It just doesn’t happen. So the two major parties, which very often aren’t a whole lot different, make it very difficult to compete. You can’t get into debates. You can’t participate, so I think the battle will be fought in the big two parties. [Emphasis added.]

In both instances, the question was whether we will see a rise in third party activism, and in both instances the response was that this is unlikely because the barriers against third party and independent campaigns are too difficult to overcome, but that there will be significant opposition mounted during the primaries. We see here a perfect example of how the "objective hurdles faced by independent or third party campaigns reinforce the subjective impression that success is all but impossible," and hence how the subjective impression becomes, in turn, an objective hurdle to third party and independent advocacy. Consider, however, the context of these two discussions, namely, the congressional race in NY's 23rd and by extension the gubernatorial contest in New Jersey. In the former, a third party candidate successfully marginalized a duopolist opponent and nearly won the race, while in the latter an independent candidate qualified for matching funds and a place in the debates, won the endorsements of influential media outlets etc. Thus, the subjective impression of impossibility functions as an objective hurdle to third party advocacy even when there is no objective basis for that impression. Indeed, perhaps this is the precise moment of its objectivation. The suspicion is therefore warranted that the objective hurdle, the supposed impossibility of breaking open the two-party system, is nothing more than a subjective prejudice. Despite the difficulty of the undertaking, third party and independent candidates for office consistently obtain ballot access, regularly take part in debates, receive coverage and even support in the mainstream media etc. Moreover, they win elections: the Libertarian Party, for instance, elected or re-elected seventeen candidates for office nationwide last week. It is certainly no coincidence, and no surprise, that the primary purveyors of the impossibility thesis are partisans of the Democratic-Republican Party and the reproduction of the political status quo.

Media Bias and Third Party, Independent Politics

A favorite pastime of liberal and conservative supporters of the two-party political status quo is criticizing the mainstream media and the political press for their conservative or liberal bias, respectively, which means the media's bias toward the positions espoused by representatives of the Democratic or Republican Parties. The synthesis of these two critiques reveals the media bias against third party and independent politics: insofar as media bias supports the positions of Republicans and Democrats it excludes third party and independent perspectives on a given issue. However, this synthesis also reveals the critical potential of the political press: insofar as media bias results in opposition to the positions of Republicans and Democrats it necessitates consideration of perspectives outside of those represented by the two-party political status quo. It is no coincidence that even moderately strong campaigns by third party and independent candidates for office regularly lead the political press to speculate on the possibility of widespread third party and independent opposition to the duopoly system of government. Often, however, such pieces result only in the reproduction and reinforcement of duopoly ideology. And the reason for this is quite simple: when considering the possibilities and potentials for third party and independent activism, the media regularly only consult advocates of the Republican and Democratic Parties. Part of the reason for this is institutional. As David Brooks recently wrote in a column for the NYT:

Liberals and conservatives each have their own intellectual food chains. They have their own think tanks to provide arguments, politicians and pundits to amplify them, and news media outlets to deliver streams of prejudice-affirming stories. Independents, who are the largest group in the electorate, don’t have any of this. They don’t have institutional affiliations. They don’t look to certain activist lobbies for guidance. There aren’t many commentators who come from an independent perspective.

At the same time, however, for the purposes of the everyday political news report or the television news panel discussion, one presumes that there are innumerable advocates of third party and independent politics who would be more than happy to provide a perspective that is not beholden to the Democratic-Republican Party machines or the reproduction of the political status quo. That such perspectives are often not included in political discussions and debate, even those which revolve around the topic of third party and independent politics, is likely the result of nothing more than duopolist bias.

On the Dialectic of the Subjective and the Objective in the Reproduction of the Two-Party State

At The Kansas City Star, Dave Helling reports on the state of the independent movement and the potential for third party activism:

In dozens of polls and surveys, more people than ever before now describe themselves as independents — angry and frustrated with Republicans and Democrats. At the same time, the number of voters pledging allegiance to either major party has plummeted to a near-record low . . . “They want to get past special interest politics,” said Jackie Salit, president of the Committee for a Unified Independent Party, a group formed to make independents a “force” in national politics.

The question for independent and third party activists, as always, is how to turn this discontent with the Democratic and Republican Parties into positive support for alternatives to the duopoly system of government. Though there are a great many objective hurdles to third party and independent politics – from draconian ballot access laws and institutionalized discrimination against independent and third party campaigns for office to the duopolized dialogue and the sheer inertial momentum of the political status quo – it may well be the case that the greatest barriers to third party and independent politics are subjective in nature, the set of political prejudices that constitute duopoly ideology and create the conditions necessary for the reproduction of the two-party state even against the better judgment of a majority of the population. And, of course, the two stand in a reciprocal relationship with one another that reinforces the prejudice in support of the political status quo: the objective hurdles faced by independent or third party campaigns reinforce the subjective impression that success is all but impossible. The subjective impression itself becomes one more objective hurdle that must be overcome by any successful independent or third party campaign, paradoxically, even despite widespread discontent with the reigning two-party political status quo. For this reason it is necessary to counter the prejudices constitutive of duopoly ideology at every possible turn.

Updates: Third Party and Indpendent Candidates for Office 2010 and the Rough Guide to the Third Party Blogopshere

I have updated Poli-Tea's list of third party and independent candidates for office in 2010 as well as the Rough Guide to the Third Party Blogosphere. As of this counting, for the mid-term elections, there are over 150 third party and independent candidates in 41 states who have announced runs for governor, the US Senate or the House of Representatives. In the Rough Guide, I added sections on anarchism as well as the US Pirate Party, and expanded the sections on the Greens, Libertarians, Independents, Modern Whigs, Socialists, anti-duopolists, and third party issue advocacy. As always comments and suggestions are welcome.

Third Party Tea Party

Florida tea party activists have officially declared their independence from the political farce that is the two-party system and had their group certified as a minor political party. At the Daily Commercial, David Donald writes:

Tea party members in Florida now have a party to call their own. Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning certified the Tea Party as an official minor political party, according to a Tea Party statement released Friday.

"Over the past year or more, we have seen a growing disenchantment with the existing two-party system," stated Orlando attorney Frederic O'Neal, Tea Party Chairman, in a press release. "The current system has become mired in the sludge of special interest money that seeks to control the leadership of both parties. It's time for real change . . .

The Tea Party joins 31 other minor political parties certified by the state. Some of those parties include the Reform Party, Green Party, Real Food Party of the United States of America, Prohibition Party, Veterans Party of America, The Christian Party and Florida Socialist Workers Party.

The certification allows the Tea Party to recruit its own candidates to run for state and local office in Florida.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to track down any more reports on this development nor have I found any corresponding announcements on Florida tea party websites. However, group has been listed on the political parties page of the the Florida Department of State and has been entered into site's committee tracking system.

On the Red State Republican Crypto-Communist Electoral Strategy: Against Infiltration

Given that Red State's Eric Erickson was one of the earliest Republican supporters of Doug Hoffman's third party candidacy for the special election in NY-23, Red State diarists have begun penance for their third party heresy. Consider "Third Parties Are Not the Answer," which was posted by nedryun, and may or may not have been authored by Erickson himself. Let's refute this apologia for the two-party state and call to political infiltrationism point by point.

Following the introduction, the author begins from a position favored by historical fatalists, writing: "American politics always has been, and for the foreseeable future, will be, a two party system." This is the myth by which ideologues of the two-party state justify the continued existence of the political status quo, turning a contingent historical-political constellation into a quasi-eternal condition of politics as such. As any reader of these pages is likely well aware, and, as I sometimes tire of reiterating, the United States does not have any "party system" whatsoever, as none is mandated by the Constitution. Rather, what is called the "two-party system" is nothing more than the form by which the people of the United States are systematically disenfranchised and alienated from their supposedly representative government.

The Red State diarist then goes on to unveil the central argument of the piece, namely, that conservatives would be better served by infiltrating the Republican Party than by engaging in third party and independent activism. As we are well aware, the argument in favor of infiltration refutes itself. What is noteworthy in the present context is the authority by which the author legitimates his argument in favor of infiltration. We read:

Some argue that the Republican Party is so dominated by DC insiders and special interests that the only way to break their strangle-hold on the party is to go the third party route. I strongly disagree and think we could learn some lessons from the left on this issue. In February of 1974, in Ramparts magazine, G. William Domhoff, a socialist, wrote “Blueprints for a New Society.” In that article, Domhoff argues that those running under the Communist Party banner should stop doing so and instead run within the Democratic Party . . . Domhoff struck on some very important points with this article, points that limited government conservatives would be wise to use. [Emphasis added.]

Is it necessary to point out the irony of a Red State diarist employing a Cold War crypto-Communist strategy for taking over the Democratic Party in the mid-seventies to justify continued allegiance to the two-party statist model of representative government in 2009? Perhaps here it would make more sense, or at least be more interesting, to reveal the contradiction inherent to Domhoff's position rather than engage his Red State Republican acolyte. Allow me, then, to put forward an argument that both the doctrinaire Marxist and the duopolist ideologue can easily comprehend: an argument by authority. In the Preamble to the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx writes:

Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a power. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the spectre of Communism with a manifesto of the party itself. [Emphasis added.]

In other words, the point of the Communist Manifesto and the strategy it envisions is not to secretly infiltrate the powers that be and somehow effect their transformation from the inside, but rather to stand on principle and in open opposition to those powers in order to change the dynamics of the balance of power. Unlike principled revolutionaries of any stripe, infiltrationists prefer a strategy that, above all else, compromises with the ruling parties and affirms the political forms that maintain the reigning political status quo. The Red State diarist continues:

Some will argue that the major parties are corrupt, controlled by wealthy interests and DC insiders, and that every election is really a choice between the evils of two lessers. I can’t say I disagree. But the reason major parties are controlled by such interests is that many limited government conservatives have failed to realize that the parties are only vehicles to achieve political ends.

Indeed, the Democratic and Republican Parties are the vehicles by which "wealthy interests and DC insiders" achieve their corrupted political ends. It is precisely for this reason that the Democratic and Republican Parties are not an appropriate means to oppose corrupt, entrenched, political elites, or achieve ends opposite to theirs. From this simple insight, the refutation of the author's final point easily follows. He writes:

The third party route will only entrench the interests even more because nothing effective will be done — can be done — against them from outside the party.

On the contrary, it is only from the outside, in open opposition to the Democratic-Republican duopoly system of government, that the scope of political representation can be expanded to include interests other than those of corrupt elites and political insiders. Infiltration of the Democratic and Republican Parties only serves to provide political cover for the theft, or rather, the purchase, of political office.

Two Party Ideology: A Nest of Contradictions, Paradoxes and Tautology

As expected, following Tuesday's elections, the apologists of the two-party state and the partisans of the duopoly system of government have come out in force against third party and independent activism. And we shall see, yet again, that duopoly ideology is nothing but a nest of contradictions, paradoxes and tautology. Rush Limbaugh argues that "conservatism didn't lose in NY-23":

If this doesn't silence all the third-party people out there, it should. People were mistakenly looking at this as a third-party race, and it wasn't a third-party race (as I keep saying) because there was no primary there. Had there been a primary who knows who would have won. Hoffman might have won.

Limbaugh continues to pretend that Hoffman was not a third party candidate, a position he must hold because otherwise his support of Hoffman would contradict his duopolist prejudice in favor of the Republican Party. Thus, he argues that because NY-23 was a special election and there was no primary, it happened that the conservative candidate ended up on a third party ballot line because the party bosses nominated a liberal Republican. Ironically, however, with his "contrasting" example Limbaugh still ends up in self-contradiction. He continues:

See, New Jersey is a great contrast. In New Jersey, they had a primary. There was a guy that was more conservative than Christie, Steve Lonegan. They had a primary and Christie won the primary and the party got behind the winner.

So, Limbaugh argues that NY-23rd was a special case, that the conservative candidate ended up on third party ballot line because there was no primary, however, his example from NJ shows that even with a primary the conservative candidate did not end up on the GOP ballot line, since Republican voters passed over conservative Lonegan in favor of establishmentarian Christie. Limbaugh's primary argument refutes itself.

Obviously, liberal and progressive partisans of the two-party state are equally dismissive of third party and independent strategy. At Daily Kos, Kos mocks conservative activists who would "rather lose general election races than make gains in Congress with (in their eyes) less-than-perfect Republicans." At A Tiny Revolution, Bernard Chazelle reveals this position for what it is. Considering Kos's analysis together with David Corn's, he writes:

Both embed NY23 within a narrative of power and strategy. As good liberal pundits, they only see a story of suicidal conservatives displaying Palinesque levels of stupidity. They'd rather lose a seat than compromise their principles. Hahaha! Now how dumb is that? Surely no liberals would commit such a sin. They'll go with Blue Dogs and Green Hyenas if that's the road to power . . . I happen to detest virtually every single one of these principles . . . But there's still something to be said about a political movement that would rather lose an election than its principles: a concept completely alien to the liberal establishment.

Next, in an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, Mike Huckabee gave his take on the race, demonstrating that he is nothing more than a duopolist stooge:

Huckabee is against third-party candidates. More often than not, he says, they end up throwing the race to the candidate voters like least. He was surprised that Republican Chris Christie defeated incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine (D) in New Jersey, despite the presence of an independent candidate in the race.

“I continually remind people, if you really don’t like what either of the parties are doing – and there are a lot of people who don’t – pick one that you like a little more than you like the other, that you hate the least, get involved in it, and change it,” Huckabee said. [Emphasis added.]

Though Huckabee is apparently incapable of marshaling anything other than the worn out old lesser-of-two-evils argument, at least he is honest in admitting to the completely reactionary character of duopoly politics. Huckabee, however, reveals the contradiction involved in the big tent circus politics of the Democratic-Republican Party:

“The tent could be big, but it shouldn’t have holes in the ceiling and let the rain come through,” he continued. “What we have to be careful of is, we don’t have a party that says, it has to be just like me and nothing but. Can there be people who don’t have my view on the sanctity of life in the Republican Party? Of course. People who have a different view of marriage than I do? Sure they can. “Can they be Republican? Yes. Will they get my support? No.”

In other words, Huckabee effectively states: I support big tent circus politics, but I won't support anyone whose views significantly diverge from mine; I support a Republican Party that tolerates moderates and liberals, but I do not support moderates and liberals in the Republican Party. It is no coincidence that alleged liberal-progressives such as BooMan at the Booman Tribune agree with Huckabee's stance with regard to duopoly politics:

In our two-party system, Huckabee is entirely correct. But, what if Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman had won the special election in Upstate New York? Well...he would have caucused with the Republicans. In fact, he would have run for re-election as a Republican. That's pretty much what would happen to a successful Green Party candidate, too. Maybe they wouldn't run again as a Democrat, but only if, as is done for Bernie Sanders, the Dems agreed not to offer their own candidate . . .

In the long-term, there is merit in campaigning to change our winner-take-all elections. But, until that happens, the only way to actually get different ideas represented in Washington is to elect Democrats and Republicans who espouse those different ideas. [Emphasis added.]

The paradox in the Booman's commentary is readily apparent. He states that: "the only way to actually get different ideas represented in Washington is to elect Democrats and Republicans who espouse those different ideas." The problem, however, is that Democrats and Republicans do not espouse different ideas, they represent the same ideas over and over again; indeed they represent the very same constituencies: corporate donors and the entrenched ruling political class. The two-party system cannot be changed from the inside. If it could, it would no longer exist. To decide to work within the two-party system is to be defeated by it from the outset, it is to decide to become part of the problem.

Finally, at FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver demonstrates how vapid tautologies are commonly substituted for real analysis by the propagandists of the two-party state. He uses as an example interpretations of the independent vote:

Why did Democrats lose in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday? Because independent voters moved against them, say the pundits. This is true, insofar as it goes; Democrats lost independents nearly 2:1 in the gubernatorial race in Virginia, and by a 25-point margin in New Jersey. But it doesn't really tell us very much. It's a lot like saying: the Yankees won the Game 6 last night because they scored more runs than the Phillies. Or: the unemployment rate went up because there were fewer jobs.

In almost every competitive general election, the party that loses the contest has also lost independent voters . . . it's independents who swing the vote, since they represent the overwhelming majority of the votes which are up-for-grabs. This must necessarily be the case . . . But in politics, it's not the proximate cause we're interested in but the ultimate one . . . what caused the independents to move against the Democrats? That's what we're really interested in, since that's what will have implications for future elections.

For those of us who are interested in breaking the two-party electoral duopoly, the question is thus not what caused independents to move against the Democrats, but rather what causes them to continue to vote for Republicans or Democrats? What are the conditions under which Americans will actually liberate themselves from the Democratic and Republican duopoly system of government? In a commentary for Pennsylvania's The Morning Call, columnist Paul Carpenter called on readers to "get angry over electoral monopoly":

At the peak of the Cold War, every American schoolchild was taught that one of the chief horrors of the Soviet Bloc was the way the Communists stacked the deck to get their flunkies voted into positions of power. They staged grandiose elections, which were a farce because it was impossible for anything but the one-party monopoly to have candidates on any ballot.

This may be viewed as a seditious thing to say, but a close look at Tuesday's ballots seems to suggest we are headed in the same direction. On all of the ballots in this region, there was only one major candidate not controlled by the two-party monopoly. The two-party system is better than a one-party system, but not by much. The leaders of both major parties no longer have the slightest interest in serving the needs and wants of average citizens.

The Third Party and Independent Front: On In An Off Year

The 2009 "off-year" elections certainly raised the profile of third party and independent campaigns in the national media, confusing the strategic and tactical calculus of ideologues on both sides of the duopoly divide. For the moment, let's consider three such campaigns and draw some preliminary conclusions: that of Michael Bloomberg in New York City, Chris Daggett in New Jersey and Doug Hoffman in upstate New York.

Though the race was closer than many had predicted, Bloomberg's victory as an independent in New York City's mayoral election proves that with enough money and name recognition independent candidates for office can easily defeat a duopolist opponent. Of course, it also helps to own a media empire. Cynical asides aside, Nancy Hanks relays the import and significance of the independent vote in Bloomberg's success:

The Independence Party vote for Mike Bloomberg yesterday broke numerous records and re-enforced its ongoing mandate for independent governance and non-partisan reform. Unofficial returns released by the Board of Elections put the IP total on Column "C" at 142,817 votes, nearly 26% of Bloomberg's total and 13% of all votes cast. This means that 1 in 4 Bloomberg voters chose to vote on the Independence Party line. The vote for the mayor on the Independence Party line was an increase of 91% over its total four years ago, when it drew nearly 75,000 votes on its crucial Column "C". [Emphasis added.]

The Independence Party is a force to be reckoned with in New York politics. Their organizational strength will be an asset to future candidates running campaigns independent of the Democratic and Republican Parties.

In New Jersey, Chris Daggett's independent candidacy for governor provides us with the opposite scenario. Daggett began his campaign with virtually no name recognition and was outspent by the Democrat 20 to 1 and by the Republican 10 to 1. At the high point of his campaign he polled 20% support among NJ voters. In the end, he received 5.9% of the vote. Yet, this in itself is a victory of sorts. Daggett was the first candidate for governor of New Jersey, who was neither a Republican nor a Democrat, to receive over 5% of the vote since 1913. Furthermore, his campaign led to calls in the mainstream press for ballot reform, ballot access reform and drew attention to the farce that is duopoly politics. For now, however, New Jersey remains co-dependent rather than independent.

In New York's 23rd, Doug Hoffman's campaign has shown that even a no-name third party candidate can succeed in marginalizing duopolist opponents, and that the activist grassroots support networks of the major parties can be effectively mobilized for third party and independent campaigns. The secret of viability is no secret at all. The difference between a non-viable and a viable third party or independent candidate is the difference between supporting the duopolist charade and supporting independent candidates for elected office. Without doubt, duopolist ideologues will come out of the woodwork to lecture us about how Hoffman's candidacy demonstrates that third party candidates for office cannot win. In fact, and in truth, it demonstrates the exact opposite.

Though these three races garnered a significant amount of attention from the national media and third party activists, there is much more to report at the local level on the third party and independent front from the 2009 "off-year" elections. Ballot Access News proves indispensable yet again. Here are a few headlines:

• Three Constitution Party members elected to Utah city office in non-partisan elections.
• Both Green Party members of Portland, Maine's city council were re-elected.
• The Working Families Party won two seats on Bridgeport CT's school board.
• Green Party Watch sums up results for Green Party candidates across the country.

Regular readers might be wondering how Michael O'Connor fared in his contest for town council in Rotterdam, NY. As of this writing, there are no updates at his blog The Rotterdam Windmill. The "unofficial" results reported at the Schenectady County Board of Elections indicate that Michael came in second behind Nicola DiLeva – who was the Democrat in the race, as I gather from this report on a recent debate in the district. As Michael explained at The Windmill and in his two guest posts here at Poli-Tea, political establishmentarians told him that his independent effort was doomed from the beginning, that it was an impossible task, that he wouldn't even get his name on the ballot. Yet, in the end, he successfully petitioned to establish a new, independent, third party ballot line – the No New Tax Party –, and then defeated his Republican opponent in the primary, effectively changing the dynamics of the race and offering voters a new choice on election day. As Michael wrote in early September:

Our effort proved it’s not an impossible task. It will hopefully help open a door for others to follow through – a door they previously thought couldn’t be opened. Belief drives effort. And effort is the one variable that you can control completely.

Secret Treaties and the Supercession of Domestic Law

The platform of the US Pirate Party is becoming more attractive almost by the day. The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports that leaks of the multi-lateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement have surfaced ahead of the next round of negotiations on the proposal. At EFF, Gwen Hinze writes:

The leaks confirm everything that we feared about the secret ACTA negotiations. The Internet provisions have nothing to do with addressing counterfeit products, but are all about imposing a set of copyright industry demands on the global Internet, including obligations on ISPs to adopt Three Strikes Internet disconnection policies, and a global expansion of DMCA-style TPM laws.

At PC World, Paul Miller reports:

ISPs around the world may be forced to snoop on their subscribers and cut them off if they are found to have shared copyright-protected music on the Internet, under an international agreement being promoted by the U.S.

Never heard of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement? I was only vaguely aware of it myself. Much of it has literally been kept secret for reasons of "national security," though its passage would affect virtually everyone with internet access. Kathy Gill writes at The Moderate Voice:

Back in March, Declan McCullagh reported that the Obama Administration cloaked its draft section of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) under “national security” wrappers — for the general public. At the same time, the document had supposedly already made the rounds of “corporate lobbyists in Europe, Japan, and the U.S.”

At Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow sums up a few of the agreement's provisions:

ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material . . . ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability . . . the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright . . . Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose.

Effectively, this would be the equivalent of holding Blackberry and telecommunications corporations responsible for the criminal conspiracies of politicians and lobbyists coordinated by phone, email and instant message. Unlike the Unites States government under the leadership of the Democratic and Republican Parties, the US Pirate Party stands for the freedom of information, communication and speech. On their platform we find calls for:

• the abolition of the DMCA and related subsequent provisions within copyright law;
• the rejection of the notion of online piracy;
• the right to a free press;
• the reform of copyright;
• the right to a transparent government;
• the right to privacy;
• the abolition of digital rights management (DRM).

NY-23: A Timeline and Short Assessment

In the special election in NY's 23rd, Democrat Bill Owens has defeated Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, garnering 49% of the vote to Hoffman's 45%. Though Republican Dede Scozzafava suspended her campaign last week to endorse Owens, she still received roughly 5% of the vote. Though he ultimately lost, Hoffman's campaign proves third party candidates are viable contenders for elected office; that duopolists can be effectively marginalized by a maximum of effort and a minimum of creativity. I've been following this contest here at Poli-Tea since the end of July, and thought I'd assemble a time-line of the race from those posts:

• June: Obama nominates Republican Rep. John McHugh for the position of Secretary of the Army.
• Late July: With Republicans having already nominated Dede Scozzafava, Democrat Darrel Aubertine is expected to run on the Democratic ticket. Surprisingly, Aubertine announces he will not seek the office. The Conservative Party of NY attacks Scozzfava, vows to run their own candidate in the Race. The NRCC continues running television ads against Aubertine, though he is no longer in the race.
• First week of August: The Conservative Party nominates Doug Hoffman.
• Second week of August: Democrats nominate registered independent Bill Owens. McHugh's confirmation is pushed back to September. CPNYS tries to persuade the GOP to drop Scozzafava and endorse their candidate.
• August 25th: Having previously stated that "if Dede Scozzafava is the best New York Republicans can do, we might as well just hand the seat over to the Democrats," Red State's Eric Erickson endorses third party candidate Doug Hoffman.
• First week of September: Hoffman is profiled in the Washington Times and the Weekly Standard. At Daily Kos, Kos himself calls Scozzafava "the most palatable candidate."
• Third week of September: McHugh is confirmed as Secretary of the Army. The Hill begins coverage of polling in the race, stating that Hoffman's numbers are "surprisingly high."
• September 30th: NY's governor calls for the special election on November 3rd. Hoffman obtains endorsements from the Club for Growth, Fred Thompson, the American Conservative Union and the Susan B. Anthony List.
• October 6th: At The Washington Times, Kara Rowland considers the possibility of a "tea party effect" in the special election.
• October 8th: The National Republican Campaign Committee releases ads attacking Hoffman.
• October 16th: The greater portion of the online conservative commentariat comes out in support of Hoffman.
• October 18th: Tom Knapp argues that libertarians "don't seem to have an obvious horse in this race."
• October 23rd: Sarah Palin endorses Hoffman. Numerous GOP officials and politicians begin to jump onto the Hoffman bandwagon.
• October 28th: Limbaugh endorses Hoffman, stating "this isn't a third party race."
• End of October: Scozzafava suspends campaign and endorses the Democrat Owens.

Thus, beginning only with the endorsement of the Conservative Party of NY, Hoffman eventually garnered the support of the national conservative grass-roots and most of the Republican establishment. Democrat Owens, on the other hand, won with little or no support from the liberal-progressive grassroots, and the explicit endorsement of the Democratic establishment, from the president and vice president on down. In an article on the race from October 18th, Jazz Shaw wrote at Pajamas media that Republican Scozzafava "began raising eyebrows immediately, sending conservative blogger Michelle Malkin into apoplectic fits." It is worth noting, however, that though Scozzafava did indeed begin to raise eyebrows among independently-minded conservative activists immediately, Malkin and the conservative Republican blogosphere's "fits" did not commence until roughly the middle of October, over two and a half months after Hoffman received the CP nomination and almost three months after Scozzavafa's nomination. This delay may well have cost Hoffman the election.

As I've noted before, whether Hoffman won or lost, duopolist ideologues would claim victory: in the case of a win, he would have been declared the "true" Republican, while in the case of a loss, his candidacy would be determined to prove the futility of third party and independent activism. Having endorsed Hoffman against his better judgment early on, Eric Erickson now reverts back to good old fashioned duopolist ideologizing: "there has all of a sudden been a huge movement among some activists to go the third party route. We see in NY-23 that this is not possible as third parties are not viable." As stated above, and in fact, the special election in NY's 23rd proves that third party candidates can indeed be viable contenders for public office. All that is required is for people to cease throwing their time, money and votes away in support of the Democratic-Republican two-party political status quo.

The Double Negative: the Two-Party System Cannot Not Fail to Serve the Interests of the People of the United States.

When partisans of the two-party political status quo seek to make an especially emphatic point in a political debate, they often resort to the claim that such-and-such an outcome puts into question the sense of the two-party system or threatens its very existence. Consider two recent examples from the health care "debate". Congressman Dennis Kucinich asks Democrats: "will we stand with the people or the insurance companies?" Via The Thirds:

In each and every step of the health care debate, the insurance companies have won . . . If this is the best we can do, then it is time to ask ourselves whether the two-party system is truly capable of representing the American people or whether the system has been so compromised by special interests that we can’t even protect the health of our own people. This is a moment of truth for the Democratic Party.

One wonders if Senator Orin Hatch had this statement in mind when he argued that the "health care reform bills threaten the survival of the two-party system," as The Hill put it. Hatch:

Hatch asserted that the health bills, which he believes represent a "step-by-step approach to socialized medicine," will lead to Americans' dependence on Democrats for their health and other issues. "And if they get there, of course, you're going to have a very rough time having a two-party system in this country, because almost everybody's going to say, 'All we ever were, all we ever are, all we ever hope to be depends on the Democratic Party,' " Hatch said . . . "That's their goal," Hatch added. "That's what keeps Democrats in power."

Thus, the failure to pass health care reform underscores the failure of the two-party system and the passage of health care reform underscores the failure of the two-party system. In other words, the two-party system cannot not fail to serve the interests of the people of the United States. While health care reform may or may not threaten the two-party system, there is no question that the two-party system is one of the greatest threats to the health of the US body politic.

Third Party Power: Dump the Duopoly

Though partisans of the two-party political status quo on both sides of the duopoly divide have made a strong effort to dissimulate the import of the independent and third party candidacies of Chris Daggett in New Jersey and Doug Hoffman in New York, the long-standing practice in the US political press of reading off-year elections as predictive for the mid-term or presidential elections to follow virtually dictates speculation questioning the continued viability of the two-party system. At American Daughter, tea party activist Nancy Mathis makes the case that the special election in NY's 23rd is not a referendum on the Obama administration, or a fight for the "soul" of the Republican Party, but a demonstration of what she calls "third party power":

The election in NY-23rd is about third party power, and professional politicians are trying to suppress that fact. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats want the public to realize this, for obvious reasons. The media are complicit with establishment insiders . . .

There is nothing sacred about the Republican and Democratic parties. Political party organizations are not provided for in the Constitution of the United States. They are merely incorporated entities that provide for pooling money and manpower to support candidates for public office. They have acquired the veneer of “official” status by being around for a long time, but they are no more “official” than any newly minted party . . .

All the talking heads and political hacks are painting the congressional race in NY-23rd as a rift in the Republican ranks. It is not. It is a third party candidate proving that the Republicans and Democrats can be made irrelevant in the face of tea party power. [Emphasis in original.]

Indeed, calls for third party activism have even found their way into the op-ed pages of the New York Times. Russ Douthat argues that Hoffman and Daggett have provided voters with real choice and brought substance to their respective contests. However, the NYT's token conservative clearly is not conversant in third party politics. He writes:

Gerrymandered districts, the power of incumbency and our tendency to self-segregate along ideological lines all help make American elections uncompetitive. But so does the absence of third-party entrepreneurship . . . It’s at the state and local level where an independent politician or party can actually hope to get things done. (In this regard, the cranks and idealists in your local Green Party have more sense than the pundits who fantasized about a Bloomberg-for-President campaign.) And it’s at the state and local level where we could use a lot more of them.

It is highly ironic that Douthat should disparagingly cite the Green Party while calling for local and state level third party activism. This year 158 Green Party candidates have announced campaigns for office in local and state races, as David Schwab reports at Green party Watch. Today, discredited cranks and utopian idealists are to be found almost entirely within the dwindling ranks of the Democratic and Republican Parties, among those who continue to believe, against all the evidence, that a two-party dictatorship can adequately represent the people of the United States, and among those who argue that the Democratic and Republican Parties can and should be "taken back", as if they contained anything worth salvaging.

Democratic-Republican Solidarity and the Iron Law of Oligarchy: Forging a Viable Opposition to the Dictatorship of the Two-Party State

Following the news that Republican Dede Scozzafava suspended her campaign and then endorsed Democrat Bill Owens in the special election in NY's 23rd, the conservative Republican response was completely predictable: Dede Scozzafava is a Democrat, they cried, echoing the sentiment of the Hoffman campaign itself. At The Other McCain, Stacy McCain, for instance, writes: "in the span of 36 hours, Scozzafava has gone from being a RINO to being an ex-Republican." Though she has not technically withdrawn from the race, Scozzafava's suspension of her campaign reduces the contest to a two-person race between Democrat Bill Owens and Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. Ideologues of the two-party state have been dumbfounded by this election from the very beginning. Here they sense an opening, an opportunity to translate the dynamics of the contest into the well-known dialect of duopoly ideology: if Scozzafava's endorsement of Owens makes her a Democrat, then Hoffman is a Republican, and we can safely presume that the reigning two-party order will be reproduced intact, that NY's 23rd is not and never was a "third party race," even though it seems fairly certain that the third party candidate will win by a large margin.

The duopolist ideologue might well respond: but Hoffman calls himself the "real" Republican in the race, and his campaign has labeled Scozzafava a Democrat. Perhaps here it would do to recall a few apt lines from the Apology of Socrates on the "wisdom" of politicians and poets:

After the politicians, I went to the poets . . . I took them some of the most elaborate passages in their own writings, and asked what was the meaning of them . . . I am almost ashamed to confess the truth, but I must say that there is hardly a person present who would not have talked better about their poetry than they did themselves.

Republican Scozzafava's endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens does not demonstrate that she is a Democrat, but rather that the respective factions of the Democratic-Republican Party and the duopoly system of government function as a unit, that the rhetorical opposition between Democrats and Republicans is little more than a facade veiling their shared opposition to independent and third party threats to their lock on elected office and monopolization of political power. Though Hoffman may turn out to be nothing more than a partisan Republican opportunist who is more interested in maintaining the dictatorship of the two-party state than opposing the ossified structures of the duopoly system of government, this does not change the fact that his campaign demonstrates the ease with which the "iron law" of the two-party oligarchy can be broken by an engaged citizenry.

Third Party and Independent Web Roundup

What's going on in the third party and independent web today?

In the news:
• Ballot Access News reports that, following Dede Scozzafava's withdrawal from the race, the "New York Independence Party chair Frank MacKay now regrets thats the Independence Party nominated Dede Scozzafava for U.S. House, in the 23rd district special election."
• At IPR, Ross Levin collects stories reflecting the ways in which the independent and third party candidates in the NJ gubernatorial election and NY's 23rd have begun to affect the larger political discourse.
• The Thirds reports on the slate of Green Party candidates for state offices in Illinois in 2010, and summarizes the New Jersey Star-Ledger's re-endorsement of independent gubernatorial candidate Chris Daggett.
• At The Hankster, Nancy Hanks draws attention to the "incredible grassroots support for Kasim Reed in the Atlanta Mayoral race."

From the parties:
• The American Centrist Party states that it now has members in all fifty states plus Washington D.C.
• The Constitution Party reports on the state of the race for mayor in Sandy Utah, where the four-term incumbent is facing challenger Dave Perry of the Constitution Party.
• The Green Party provides a helpful list of "Green Party candidates to watch on election day 2009."
• The Libertarian Party blog is incensed at "more bailout madness" and asks: "are you fed up enough to run for Congress?"
• The Modern Whig Party is "gaining momentum" and has undergone "another surge in membership."
• The US Pirate Party takes a strong stand against Senator John McCain's opposition to net neutrality.
• The Socialist Party calls for a "mobilization for health care" and draws attention to "a coordinated number of civil disobedience actions across the US organized by the Mobilization for Health Care for All."

In the blogs:
• At A Green State of Mind, Darrin Robins reflects on "prehension and prefiguration in politics."
• At Bonzai, Mike Farmer discusses the historical relation between liberalism and libertarianism.
• The Jacksonian Party "examines health care in light of the powers of government."
• At Least of All Evils, Dale Sheldon demonstrates the inadequacies of plurality voting and instant runoff voting with a simple example: how to decide where to go for dinner.
• At The Whig, Septimus wishes all a Happy Halloween.
• At The Think 3 Institute, Sam Wilson argues that "all conservatism is local."