Party politics is a dying craft. Fewer and fewer Bay Staters identify as Democrat or Republican. Younger generations are far more likely to register as unenrolled than mine, just as my generation is more independent than that of my father’s. No wonder. As a friend reminded me recently, partisanship has become synonymous with gridlock.
But parties are a fact of political life, whether we like them or not. The great American historian Gary Wills put it well in an essay in the New York Review of Books, when he chastised a liberal friend for abandoning support for the President :
“Obama was never a prince. None of them are.” he wrote. “The mistake behind all this is a misguided high-mindedness that boasts, ‘I vote for the man, not the party.’ This momentarily lifts the hot-air balloon of self esteem by divorcing the speaker from political taintedness and compromise. But the man being voted for, no matter what he says, dances with the party that brought him, dependent on its support, resources and clientele. That is why one should always vote on the party, instead of the candidate. The party has some continuity of commitment, no matter how compromised. What you are really voting for is the party’s constituency.”
This, I believe, is the hard truth behind all democratic elections. It’s a tough one for those of us who value our independence to swallow.
Parties are vehicles for putting ideas into action. And ideas that drive public policy matter a great deal to millions of people at the margins of society-the poor, the sick, the unemployed. They matter to our soldiers and our veterans, to women, to our seniors and our schoolchildren.
And I believe that for every one of these groups, Democratic ideas are better than Republican ones. By contrast, when I read the GOP platform, I don’t see myself, my community or my values reflected there.
So might the election of a Charlie Baker or Richard Tisei temper the current Republican extremism and move the GOP to the center ? Sure.
But I’m not taking that chance. And that’s why I’m voting for Martha Coakley, Seth Moulton and the straight Democratic ticket.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
I love this quote from Wills:
“hot-air balloon of self-esteem” — nice.
I do think there are differences between candidates, and I perhaps in the minority think Barack Obama is well above average, but I agree with Wills on the whole. In the end, it’s about party.
Too many people think we are jaded because we are ignorant or unwilling to learn anything about politics. But, I would argue we are incredibly wonky about the subject and know far too well how the system works. Our disappointment is with the man and with the party for failing to take a unique moment of full Democratic control and run with it. He got stabbed by the likes of self serving jackals like Baucus, Ben Nelson, Jim Cooper and others on ACA. No doubt about that. But there was a progressive moment and it feels like it’s passing away.
I know every single friend of mine voted for Coakley in the special, all of us are voting for her again, and we proudly voted for Liz. But, this is a state with pervasive inequality, it’s very hard for people my age to afford to live here and hack it, the high cost of education has really narrowed the careers I can pursue, the debt, etc. And I really wish we had more politicians like Warren speaking to our concerns instead of the tired 30 year old laundry list of programs and promises that tinker at the edges. Many of us want radical restructuring of the economy to prevent rather than just alleviate, recessions of the magnitude we suffered under.
So I am wise enough to know Coakley is a flawed step forward and Baker a steak backward, but I am no longer under any illusions that these folks are the change agents I can believe in. This is the least inspiring election of my lifetime, and I don’t like my yearning for inspiration to be mocked or looked down upon. Everyone says they want young people involved and then they tell us to wait our turn or endlessly compromise. And sometimes it’s tiring to play the same song and dance with the same partner every year. I’ll still do it this year-but she’s gotta offer up a lot more to win this, and if she loses, we gotta make sure we move to the left and not nominate someone even more milquetoast next cycle.
…voters need to as well. There was a time when both parties were broad enough coalitions that you had liberal Republicans to the left of conservative Democrats. The former is now nearly non-existent and there aren’t as many of the latter as there once were either. Partisanship is good as long as it means fighting hard for your values. It’s only when it becomes obstructionism that it becomes bad. As smart as the Founders as this country were their idea that parties would not and should not develop has always struck me as incredibly naive. Even Washington favored the Federalists even if he didn’t admit it.
..gridlock.
And the battles are fought at the state level so that states can redistrict to favor one party.
Considering that Baker’s primary rationale is a check on the democratic supermajority and Tisei would vote to continue gridlock against the President? Or is gridlock and obstructionism one of the many things that are ok when the Republicans do it?
where the battle goes on at the state level whereas parties position themselves for majorities in the census years, then redistrict to favor the controlling party in that state. That sets the stage for national battles during the next ten years, with circumstances periodically producing an advantage (2006 is an example).
…is why I prefer one-party governance and I have chosen a side. The minority party still plays a critical role in keeping the majority honest, but they should be trying to win the next election by the force of their ideas rather than disrespect the results of the last election.
But the man being voted for, no matter what he says, dances with the party that brought him, dependent on its support, resources and clientele. That is why one should always vote on the party, instead of the candidate. The party has some continuity of commitment, no matter how compromised. What you are really voting for is the party’s constituency.
My child molester is a better choice than your saint, in other words.
The man being voted for, no matter what he says, is as compromised as the party that brought him. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren may say many of the same things, but I have to take the latter with more grains of salt.
Does that mean you vote for your party’s candidate even if you know the candidate is corrupt???
In other posts I mocked the voters of the IL 2nd for voting to re-elect Jesse Jackson Jr after he got linked to Blago in 2009 and indicted in 2012. Unfortunately his 2010 opponent was a gadfly black minister who ran as an ‘economic libertarian and social conservative’ on the GOP side.
Needless to say he wouldn’t have been my choice, but his 23% was a strong showing in this district in spite of how out there he was. In 2012 I might’ve held my nose in the primary for Debbie Halvorsan, a strongly pro-gun Dem running against Jackson-but most primary voters did not. And his Keystone loving GOP opponent didn’t go far.
So, replacing a corrupt official makes sense, but it would still be a step backward to replace them with someone you disagree with on most issues.
They don’t organize and set the agenda based on party the way legislative bodies do, another point in the Council’s favor I would say.