US Elections

Making way for the radical centre

By George Wood in Sydney, Australia

22 August 2011

---

In a 2006 New York Times article, columnist Thomas Friedman outlined his hope that the American two party system would soon be swept away by an insurgent third party movement, and went as far as to outline a vague platform for this party, which he called the "Geo-Green" Party, to run on. He published a similar column last month, providing details of a new organisation, Americans Elect, which seeks to provide voters with a web-based presidential nominating process that would lead to the selection of a non-partisan ticket.

At a recent guest lecture at the University of Sydney, Friedman sounded a similar note, declaring that the democratisation of information wrought by the Internet would soon lead to the unravelling of the Democratic-Republican duopoly.

His enthusiasm for third party movements is commendable, if misplaced. The rise of the Tea Party movement has reiterated that any insurgent group in American politics must gain a foothold in one of the major parties in order to wield power effectively. We don’t remember the Progressive movement, for example, for Theodore Roosevelt’s 1912 presidential run on the Progressive ticket; rather, we remember the influence Progressives held as factions in both major parties during the same era. Whether it’s because of Duverger’s Law or the ability of the primary system to draw third party movements into either of the two major parties, no third party has got to the stage of electing a president since the GOP’s rise between 1854 and 1860.

The Americans Elect group Friedman describes isn’t the first attempt at subverting the two-party system with the Internet. Unity08 tried it in 2008 with a modus operandi that sounds eerily similar to that of Americans Elect — including web-based polling to reveal voters’ top concerns and a requirement that the ticket consist of one Democrat and one Republican. Despite a high-powered group of backers, including two senior officials from the Carter White House, the group never made it to the 2008 primary season, due to a lack of support and the departure of some of its key backers to a movement to draft New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It is for these reasons that Friedman’s most recent article on a third party challenging for the presidency gave me a sense of déjà vu.

In addition, his statement that Americans Elect is financed by “serious hedge-fund money” makes a mockery of his characterisation of it as some sort of grass-roots movement. In his final paragraph, Friedman compares the potential impact of Americans Elect to the effect of Amazon.com and iTunes on the publishing and music industries. I would extend the analogy a little bit: Just as people still buy books and CDs despite the existence of Amazon and iTunes, we can confidently predict that Americans will still buy the Democratic and Republican parties at the polls in 2012.

Tags: Americans Elect, Duvergers Law, Guest Post, Political Parties, Third Parties, Tom Friedman, Unity08

Print This Post