Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Gunslinger on August 03, 2004, 06:34:23 PM
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5591533/
I was really impressed with this OPed today on MSNBC.com. I think this guy is onto somthing.....maybe 2008 or 2012 but the partys (BOTH OF THEM) have got to change in order to stay in touch with peoples needs.
The parties march toward extinction
Whether they win or lose in 2004, the mainstream political parties must change or die
COMMENTARY
By Joe Trippi
Updated: 12:44 p.m. ET Aug. 3, 2004
WITTMAN, Md. - Are political conventions obsolete? Last week’s Democratic Party’s National Convention in Boston was quite a show. But with limited network coverage and little news to report, commentator after commentator wondered out loud if these partisan gatherings have outlived their usefulness. A few even suggested that the Fleet Center fiesta just concluded, and the GOP bash planned for Manhattan later this month, might be remembered as the last conventions ever gaveled to order.
We may well be witnessing the last major party conventions – but not for the reasons most pundits are talking about. For if neither of the two major parties wake up to the fact that people are sick of politics as usual, it will be the parties and not just the conventions that will be headed for the ash heap of history.
The signs of growing unrest have been there for years.
* In 1992, Ross Perot challenged both parties from the outside and receives unprecedented support for a modern independent candidate.
* In 2000, John McCain mounts a spirited attempt to challenge the Republican establishment, requiring an under-handed and Herculean effort by George W. Bush’s campaign in South Carolina to stop McCain’s insurgency.
* In 2004, Howard Dean emerges from nowhere to challenge the Democratic Party from within. It takes another Herculean effort by the party’s establishment to stop his candidacy in its tracks – but not before he arguably got the closest any true outside insurgent has come to winning his party’s nomination.
The parties look at these three failed insurgencies as failures at the risk of their future existence. Message to both -- the next wave may be your last.
Unwiring democracy
The Internet is making the two parties, as they now stand, obsolete. The parties exist because they can provide organization in every region and locale in the nation. But the Internet is quickly giving individuals the power to build their own organizations around the candidate of their choice. It will only be a matter of time before this power outstrips that of the two parties if they fail to understand what is happening.
The parties exist as a means and a mechanism to raise needed millions to fund campaigns. But the Internet has proven that you no longer need a party structure of wealthy donors to compete – the Net empowers average citizens to participate and fund the candidate of their choice. And the Internet has proven that a candidate can achieve, or exceed, the funding prowess of the party’s big money donors.
It is only a matter of time until the right candidate attracts millions of Americans using the Internet to his or her cause and outdoes both parties in fundraising.
Staving off extinction
It does not have to be this way. A party can reform itself, but it has to recognize that reform is necessary. As they say, the first step in solving a problem is recognizing you have one. Human nature being what it is, the party that wins this November will feel redeemed and see little need to reform. The strobe lights of victory have a way of blinding people.
The rest of 2004 will mask this coming sea change in our politics. Ralph Nader will not be much of a factor because he has failed to convince enough Americans to believe he has a chance to win, and Dean’s strong bid to remake the Democratic Party from within has all but doomed Nader's crusade.
No. The rest of 2004 will be about John Kerry and George Bush going toe-to-toe in what will be the biggest spending spree in American political history. The American people will rightly focus on which of these two men should lead our country for the next four years. But once that choice is made the two parties will have a limited time to understand and come to terms with the new age of empowerment we live in – and to embrace that age, or wither and die.
Beware of blog
The two parties are not unlike the mavens of the recording industry who were caught unawares by Napster. The Internet, with its communities, political discussion groups and blogs, is on the rise in politics. Like the recently humbled executives of the recording industry, our two top-down political parties are not immune to the same surprise — the same kind of bottom-up change.
The election of 2008 will be a completely different kind of affair. The real question isn’t will we have major party conventions, the real question is will the two parties change enough to still matter?
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I would be so happy to see an end to the two-party system. In many ways it would be as big a change as the end of the Soviet Union's one-party system.
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Wishful thinking.
You have one party that wants small government and abide by the Constitution. The other party that wants Big Brother government and toss the Constitution.
What's the third option?
The small parties that struggle each election are just shadows of the two big parties. Some are watered down versions of the same old thing and some so radical that nobody can back them.
What would a party need to be like to be a threat to the big two?
I don't think it can be done.
The glass is either half full or half empty and you have to choose which one you like best. There is no third option.
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There were 12 some odd (and I mean odd) parties in the last Canadian election.
It always, always comes down to the same two or three.
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I think the guy makes a good point about the internet. millions and millions of people still log on for the first time every year. The fact that somone just has to have an idea or a clever website to rouse poeples intrest and get a movement going.
I am a republican but the republican party does not allways have my best intrests in mind....nore do I agree with them on everything. just kinda makes you think about what could be.
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Originally posted by Blooz
Wishful thinking.
You have one party that wants small government and abide by the Constitution. The other party that wants Big Brother government and toss the Constitution.
For the life of me, I can't figure out which party is which using these descriptions.
When it comes to the presidency, IMO, it is the Electoral College that makes the parties strong. The states can fix it, but I doubt that they ever will.
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Originally posted by Sandman
For the life of me, I can't figure out which party is which using these descriptions.
lol - neither could I.
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Me either Sandy!
At this point I do not think either party really cares about the constitution other then giving it lip service to fool the people.
NEITHER party is for smaller government at this point.
Both parties pander to special interests like potato on main at midnight. Both pander to big business.
Both are out of touch with their real base.
The right is pandering to much to the extreme Christians, and the left to much to nanny state socialists.
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These problems aren't unique to the US either.
My main worry is the rise of lobby groups, particlulary large corporations (or groups of large corporations). Campaigning has become very expensive and those large contributors have a very dangerous leverage over the parties and the candidates. I think policy is increasingly shaped by what the funders want rather than what the voters want.
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I think you are right Pei.
No mater what they say to the "people", the people they work for all have big money, or lots of corperate power.
Kerry or Bush are the same in this regard.
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Gosh, I wonder what will happen when/if the majority of the people all simultaneously come to the conclusion that they've been disenfranchised and no one in power cares what they think?
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A long long way from that, I think. In fact, it seems like the opposite. I'm no senior, but I've never seen a time when people were so fervent for one or the other party, ever.
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Nash we are a long way away, but if politics keep going the way they do, it will take place.
To bad by then we will be disarmed and at the governments mercy.
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Originally posted by Nash
but I've never seen a time when people were so fervent for one or the other party, ever.
Yeah, last time we had a split of this magnitude, I wasn't around either. T'was about the Spring of eighteen and sixty-one, I think.
;)
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"Gosh, I wonder what will happen when/if the majority of the people all simultaneously come to the conclusion that they've been disenfranchised and no one in power cares what they think?"
My sentiments also!
This country has gotten far too large (population) and the two political parties so powerful that I think any change to the status quo will be costly. And violent.
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We can't get more than two major parties until we change our Election laws:
Duverger's Law:[/i]
Duverger's Law is a principle which asserts that a first-past-the-post election system naturally leads to a two-party system.
This was originally asserted by Maurice Duverger, a French sociologist who observed this effect in several papers published in the 1950s and 1960s. It eventually became referred to as a "law" in works by other political scientists, who applied further research to the proposition, and devised alternative voting systems which do not appear to be subject to the same characteristics as first-past-the-post.
A frequent consequence of Duverger's law is the spoiler effect, where a third-party candidate takes votes away from one of the two leading candiates.
The skinny on "First Past the Post" systems can be found here:
http://www.fact-index.com/f/fi/first_past_the_post_electoral_system.html
I'll leave it up to Levi to come in and explain why coalition governments lead to sub-optimal outcomes. He's pretty good with that crap.
-Sik
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Interesting info Sikboy, thanks!
"We can't get more than two major parties until ..."
They'll never "voluntarily" change the election system now. Neither party would IMO. Too much power and too many "careers" at stake.
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I just noticed that the definition I posted from the fact-index gives the "what" but not the "how" on Durverge's law. Here's the basics on how it works.
Lets say that today, we start a brand new government on the Bigweek Board. We're going to elect a board of governerns who will dictate what threads can be started, and who can post blah blah blah. During this first election cycle, people with like minds will begin to get together. The "Cut-N-Paste" party will attract the Conservatives, with the "Death to Amerrikkka" party gaining strenght with our Overseas friends. There's a "Strong Military, low tax" party and the "Smoke Pot and Collect Welfare" will have a few members, while the "Air America" party will keep the Liberals happy.
In the first election, it's a close contest, but the Cut-N-Paste party wins. So, the next time we hold elections the following conversation occurs:
Air America leader: You should join us, we're way better than the cut-n-paste lunatics!
Death To Amerrikkka leader: **** that, you suck... death to amerikkka! Oh wait... you're right, I can't deal with another 4 years of Ripsnort in charge. Ok fine, we'll join you.
In the 2nd election, The "Air Amerrikkka" ticket beats the incumbant Cut-N-Paste administration. Which, leads to the following conversation:
C-N-P leader: We need to join together if we are to stand a chance against the Air Amerrikka ticket!
Strong and Low: No ****, I can feel my taxes getting higher, and the military getting weaker, this is ****ed up.
So, as the elections go by, the parties join one another until you end up with approx 1/2 of the population on one left sided party, and 1/2 on a right sided party. Then most of the time, each party fights it out over the moderates who could go either way.
-Sik