[Dean's World] Dean: Third Party Surge?

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Posted by Dean:
Third Party Surge?
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1149283124.shtml


   There is [1]much talk around the blogosphere, as well as among certain
   mainstream media pundits, that there's growing sentiment for a third
   party to challenge the dominant two political parties.

   Such thinking shows up every 10-20 years in American politics. But
   those saying this miss the fact that because of the nature of the
   American political systems, it only supports two stable parties. The
   only way for a third party to become a significant long-term force is
   by tearing apart and effectively destroying one of the two existing
   ones.

   You can create all the "net roots" and other grassroots sympathy you
   want. As soon as you actually form your party and construct a
   coherent, well-defined platform and philosophy, you'll have nothing.
   You'll only be able to define yourselves by what you oppose, rather
   than what you're for.

   It's much easier to define what you're opposed. You can be against
   Bush, or Gore, or whoever, and you may have all sorts of people who
   agree with you. But once you put together a statement of what you
   actually are for, what you will actually do, your third party will
   disintegrate, or become a marginal player like the Green Party or the
   Libertarian Party or the Constitution Party here in America.

   Let's say, for example, you form your "party" because you want to
   bring the troops back home from Iraq. You must think, wow, a majority
   of Americans now saw "Iraq was a mistake!" when you ask them in the
   polls. Heck that's half of America right there!

   Now, let's leave aside whether they all have the same depths of
   feeling on that issue, or agree on how we should move forward. Let's
   just say you've got 55% of America on board with your "Out Of Iraq
   Now" party. Unfortunately, once you step forward from there and define
   your position on abortion, immigration, guns, taxes, education, and
   other contentious issues, you're going to suddenly find that your
   "anti-Iraq war" party is going to be a much smaller number of people
   than you thought.

   The Howard Dean campaign based itself in 2004 almost entirely on
   tapping rage at the Bush administration and a vaguely defined lefty
   progressivism other than that.... and crashed hard on election day
   because a bunch of net kidz led by Joe Trippi (Howard Dean's version
   of Karl Rove) were of the mistaken belief that if you were very
   passionate about what you believed, and spent a lot of money, and
   spent a lot of time agreeing with each other over the internet, you
   would win an election. Yet they won not a single primary, which should
   demonstrate that neither money nor passion are what it takes to win
   elections.

   Indeed, I hereby dub this Esmay's Law of American Politics: no matter
   how much evidence is amassed that money doesn't win elections, most
   people will continue to believe money wins elections anyway.

   Joe Trippi made himself very wealthy in 2004 using the "Net Roots" to
   tap anti-Bush ire for exceptionally great fundraising. He didn't
   produce even one election victory, but boy he was good at bringing in
   the money and making the troops feel like they were on a glorious
   mission.

   Now he's a political consultant and pundit talking about a third
   political party using the Net Roots? My suggestion: he'll make even
   more money for himself, and produce nothing of value.

   Think I'm wrong? Okay, let's see what happens.

References

   1. http://instapundit.com/archives/030704.php