November 12, 2008
by Joe Tauke
What do you do if your party didn't win one seat in Congress, your Presidential nominee didn't come close to winning a single state, and most of the country either has no idea who you are or thinks that you actually nominated the guy with the blimp?
You declare "Mission Accomplished," of course:
He couldn’t be more right.
Sorry, I'm not buying it. The libertarian movement (notice the small "L") received the biggest shot in the arm in its history during primary season, when Ron Paul stirred up previously-unheard-of enthusiasm (and money) for liberty-based principles. You sure as hell can't tell me that it was Paul's on-camera charisma, youthful vigor, or stunning good looks that rallied people to his cause. Yet the official Libertarian Presidential campaign didn't come close to matching Paul's donations or excitement. Why?
Well, you could fall back on the tired old line about Republican and Democratic campaigns having infinitely more money with which to buy advertising - which is true. You could give the usual spin about uphill battles for ballot access, for debate invitations, and for equal corporate campaign perks - again, true. You could say that Obama swept the nation into such a hopeful, feel-good American story that outsiders didn't have much of a market - and I'd concede the point. You could even make the more specific excuse that Bob Barr was an unpopular choice among the Libertarian base - entirely accurate.
But none of those things can adequately explain why a man advocating small government, reduced spending, gun rights, and personal freedoms fared so very poorly in the last year of a Republican administration that had clearly abandoned any pretense of fiscal conservatism, had invaded the privacy of homes, had expanded the powers of the federal government in every area from education to e-mails, had happily introduced the largest deficits in American history, and had nominated John McCain, a man who openly touted his record of giving the GOP a giant middle finger. Numerous polls show that roughly 1/3 of the country describes itself as "conservative," and despite the much-maligned apathy of American citizens, a sizable chunk of that third does, in fact, know what conservative principles actually are. Yet almost all of them voted for a man who would be very hard-pressed to find a single way in which he was the more conservative candidate than Barr. What drove the conservative masses away from the more conservative choice? What drove many of those aforementioned Ron Paul supporters away from the party that actually did nominate Paul in 1988?
The explanation goes beyond any of the traditional woes of third-party and independent nominees, who have eternally complained about the various advantages enjoyed by the two dominant parties. Their complaints are not incorrect - they simply miss the forest for the trees. The true obstacle to the success of those who shun the two-party structure isn't money. It isn't ballot access. It isn't the lack of a political machine. It isn't even their terrible choice of party colors. (Really, Libertarians, yellow and purple?)
Don't believe me? I can already hear the dissident voices shouting out the name of the most recent success of a true outsider - Ross Perot. He proves that it really is about the money, right? Give a third party a few billion dollars to spend, and all of a sudden, the entire landscape of American politics will change. It's just the corrupting influence of those damn Democrats and Republicans that prevents third parties from generating real big-money sponsorship.
Well, not exactly. Let's look more closely at The Oompa-Loompa Candidate That Could. Perot used his vast personal wealth to establish national support for his candidacy in a way that most third parties simply can't afford to do. In fact, Perot garnered so much support that he was leading both George Bush and Bill Clinton in multiple polls before abruptly announcing his withdrawal from the race several months before the election. He later reversed his reversal, re-declaring his intention to run in the early fall. Some analysts believe that Perot could have won in '92 had he not pulled out, but even with the schizophrenic nature of his campaign, he still netted 19% of the national popular vote.
Proof positive, they say. Money = more successful parties. Yet Perot and his fortune only managed to win 8% of the vote in 1996. Moreover, the party that arose from his original campaign, the Reform Party, held numerous advantages over most third parties in its instant association with a national figure in Perot, its financial support from Perot and significant grassroots movements, and its name recognition in light of Perot's Presidential bids. But no Reform Party member ever won a single Congressional seat. The only Reform candidate to win any significant election was Jesse Ventura, who served one term as Governor of Minnesota. Just ten years after Perot's original campaign, a monumental success for an independent, the Reform Party was in total disarray. The party is now not even one of the "major" third parties, and its most recognizable figure, Jesse Ventura, spends most of his time working for the 9/11 Truth movement while sporting a painfully awkward bald mullet.
Some would argue that the Reform Party failed because Ross Perot largely disassociated himself from it, leaving the Reformers in the same cash-strapped situation that other third parties find themselves in. The cause of the party's demise can be debated, but rather than doing so, I'd like to travel down a much different path - I'm going to pretend that it was actually a monumental success. If we imagine that the Reform Party took off after Perot's 1992 campaign and started to win Congressional seats, playing a larger and larger role in national politics, something very inevitable would have happened - either the Democrats or the Republicans would have been replaced. The brief periods in American history which featured three contending political factions have always, without fail, resulted in the quick elimination of one of those factions and a return to a two-party equilibrium. This is not because of the parties themselves. It is because of the way the American electoral system is designed.
Did you know that other democracies in the world choose their legislatures and executives in many, many different ways? If you've heard of other countries having six, or nine, or eleven parties in their Parliaments, but never bothered to figure out why, the answer lies in how they assign their seats. In America, each seat in the House is linked to a single district. To win any given seat, a party's candidate must win the most votes in its respective district. Senate seats are the same, at a statewide level. So, if 51% of the country was made up of loyal Republicans, and 49% of the country was made up of loyal Democrats, and the population was spread out perfectly evenly, the result would be that the Republicans would win every single seat in Congress, and the Democrats would win no seats. In each district, the Republican candidate would get 51% of the vote, thereby winning the seat. Same with Senate races.
In many other countries, a system called "proportional representation" is used. As you might guess from the name, this means that the seats in the legislature are assigned, well, proportionally. (Captain Obvious sends his regards.) Let's go back to that previous scenario. Using proportional representation, a nationwide vote for Congress would be held, rather than dividing the country into districts. If the Republicans received 51% of the vote and the Democrats received 49%, the Republicans would receive 51% of the seats, and the Democrats would receive 49% of the seats. Seems more fair, don't you think?
So what does this have to do with third parties? Well, let's look at the district system (also called "first-past-the-post") again with another party involved. Say the split is 49% Democrat, 46% Republican, and 5% Libertarian, again spread out evenly. If the voting were to go along party lines, now the Democrats would win every seat, because they would get the most votes in every district. The Republicans and the Libertarians would win exactly the same number of seats - zero. So even though 51% of the country actually preferred conservative economics, that's not what they would get. The Libertarians would know this ahead of time. They would get together in their secret underground Libertarian Lair and discuss their voting options. If they cared more about conservative economics than liberal social policies, they would realize that they only had one choice. The Libertarian Party couldn't win any seats. So they'd have to grit their teeth, vote Republican, and at least console themselves in getting bits and pieces of what they wanted. Now the country would be conservative economically, matching the majority's desires in that area (assuming the Republicans returned to their fiscal roots). But it would also be socially conservative, despite 54% of the population actually wanting a more socially liberal approach.
Want four parties? Sure. The Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Greens are all in the mix. But the Libertarians and Greens both know that they can't win any seats. So they grumble and choose whichever one of the two dominant parties sucks less, because they really don't want to see the party that sucks more win. Many aspects of the government may not actually be what the people want, but at least it's not as bad as it could be, right?
Now, under proportional representation, the Libertarians could feel free to vote for the party they really want, because they'd know that every percentage point would gain them more seats. Their votes would truly count. And the resulting government would be a more accurate result of the peoples' wishes, because it would be economically conservative, as a majority of the country wanted, and also socially liberal, as a majority of the country wanted.
Moreover, that 5% of Congress would give the Libertarians a base from which to grow. It would give them elected officials at a national level, officials who could gain name recognition the way Democratic and Republican Representatives do. They could sway legislation. They could explain their views and decisions on TV. They could have fancy offices staffed by hot interns. The most successful would rise, eventually challenging for seats in the Senate. They could build the party from just a small chunk of the population, rather than facing the Herculean task of displacing 50% of the voters in any given race.
Let's cycle back to Bob Barr, Ron Paul, and the mystery of the conservative vote. Hardly any self-described conservatives voted for Barr. What if he had Ross Perot money? Would the results have been any different? If Barr had managed to get his message to every conservative voter out there, would he have won a single state?
You'd be smart to bet the house on "no," and it's because of our system. Those conservative voters would have faced a choice between McCain and Barr. And in their heads, they would have gone through the same thought process that happened in our hypothetical Libertarian Lair. They might actually agree with Barr more, but they would know that a vote for him would make it more likely that their least favorite choice, Obama, would win. Oh, sure, Barr would have gotten better overall numbers - hell, he might have gotten Perot numbers. But Perot didn't win a single state, either.
And if he pulled off the miracle? If he got all the way up to what Perot looked like he might achieve before he jumped in and out of the race? If he even pulled a bunch of Libertarians along with him on his coat-tails, and Congress was suddenly divided into thirds? Well, remember what's happened every other time three parties fought for dominance. One quickly disappeared, because our system is a zero-sum game. It will always return to a battle between just two parties because of the "lesser of two evils" problem. Look at how quickly the Reform Party collapsed after it seemed poised to become a legitimate contender in national politics - the 39% who supported Ross Perot's positions in the summer of 1992 didn't suddenly realize that they actually hated those positions. But after Perot failed to capitalize on his unique opportunity, he and his party became the third choice that would only detract from the chances of the lesser of two evils in a Democrat or a Republican. Poof. End of Reform contention.
But what if the Libertarians survived and the Republicans vanished? The perfect scenario for Libertarian diehards, isn't it? Don't be too sure. All of a sudden, the Libertarian Party might not feel the need to be quite so libertarian. It could count on most of its votes, because, hey, at least it's not the Democratic Party. And so the problems with the Democrats and the Republicans would quickly return. Not only that, but all other third parties would find themselves right back where they started - facing an incredibly steep uphill battle against two parties whose voters are afraid to go elsewhere, because that would just be helping the party they absolutely don't want to be in power.
This is the end result of our system. This is the true reason why every third party fails. If every Democrat and Republican were to be ironically killed by a stampede of donkeys and elephants tomorrow, the workings of the government would change in name only. Two new parties - say, the Giant Douches and the Turd Sandwiches - would rise above the fray, and American voters would quickly divide into two camps. "Look, I like the Constitutionalists," many would explain, "but if I vote for them, it would only help the Turd Sandwiches win. I have to vote Giant Douche." The other side would make the same argument, and we'd wind up in the exact same situation we find ourselves in today, too often stuck between voting for a Turd Sandwich or a Giant Douche.
If those who passionately stand up for third parties and campaign for them against insurmountable odds ever want to see a true chance for their beliefs, if they ever want the vast majority of Americans to consider voting Libertarian or Green or Independent to be more than simply "throwing their vote away," if they ever want a real chance at celebrating something other than the supposed "moral victory" of breaking the million-vote mark, they must realize that the only solution is to redirect their efforts. A small, but very committed, group of supporters works tirelessly to give their respective third parties the slightest boost every two or four years - to get them onto one more ballot, to add one more name to the mailing list, to inch closer to the Promised Land of federal matching funds. These groups - the hardcore Libertarians, Greens, Constitutionalists, America First-ers, and others - must realize that there is only one way to achieve what they truly want. They must convince Americans to support a change in the system.
This may seem to be nothing more than thin veil over the fight for specific third parties, but there is one crucial difference - a change in our system will force the Republicans to act more Republican and the Democrats to act more Democratic. This is the crux of the argument, the trump card with which to connect with the masses who have never cared and never will care about third parties. If you were to go back in time and bring a Republican from 1980 to the present day, he wouldn't recognize his own party. For Democrats, a far shorter trip is needed - many are upset with the way their party acted after taking control in 2006. Voters on both sides know this. They feel it. Republican loyalists could not possibly care less about the pains of Constitutionalist candidates, but they are very upset about their party ignoring many of its own principles. This is where change in the system can come from within the system itself - Democratic voters currently have little ability to hold their party accountable. While there may be wars over swing voters in every cycle, loyal Democrats will never vote Republican. But what if there was another legitimate party on the left? What if there were two? What if the Democrats had to worry about voters abandoning ship for similar values in the Green Party, or the Progressive Party, or the Liberal Party? What if Republicans feared deficit spending because jaded economic conservatives with little interest in morality would vote for the Libertarian Party, or the Constitutional Party, or the Conservative Party?
It is this ability to truly hold parties accountable to their own bases that unlocks all other doors. No amount of debating, pleading, or complaining will convince even a quarter of all Americans to care about changing our electoral system for the benefit of the Reform Party or the Green Party. But voters get upset when the leaders they voted for change once in office. And voters get even more upset when the principles they voted for are openly ignored. If Republicans can be shown that changing the system will help fix Republicans, if Democrats can be shown that it will help fix Democrats, calls for change will come from within the two dominant parties. No, not the politicians themselves - many will resist out of natural fear for their own job. But when enough popular support is generated, the history of America shows time and time again that those in charge open the desired doors. They are, in fact, the only ones that can open them - the system will never be changed until it is Democrats and Republicans who want to change it.
Will it be easy? Of course not. But it's the only option with a chance of succeeding. No matter what party you identify with, even if you staunchly support one of the Big Two, changing the American electoral system is in your best interests. That is why this approach can work where all other third party efforts fail. Virtually every argument made by third parties is against the Republicans and Democrats in its nature. This argument refines Republicans and Democrats.
If you support a third party, if you're one of the fervent few, you have a choice. You can continue to do what third parties have done since the Brits were getting their overly pale asses handed to them. You can scratch, you can struggle, you can grasp. You can set your sights on achieving a higher percentage of the vote in 2012, and a higher one in 2016, and blissfully hope that the bottom won't fall out at any point like it has for so many candidates in the past, from Strom Thurmond to Ralph Nader. You can convince yourself that your party is different, that it will not only achieve what so many third parties could not, but what any current third party already has not. You can hope that one day, tens of millions of Americans will see the light that they haven't seen in election after election after election, and abandon their main party of choice for your message.
There's always the chance you'll get lucky. Maybe, just maybe, some combination of fate, charisma, money, platform, and timing will fall into your lap, and you truly will be one of the few parties in American history to unseat one of the dominant factions. But once that happens, what's to stop your party from turning into what either the Republicans or the Democrats are now? Surely, you have a reason for not simply supporting one of them. If your party replaces either, it will become part of the same exact balance that exists today. Lesser of two evils. Just make sure the other one sucks more. And one day, you'll realize that you no longer recognize the organization that you helped to conquer the unconquerable.
The other choice is to cease doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. The other choice is to shift your efforts, to expand your focus from a single party to the system that surrounds it. The other choice is to finally see the forest beyond your favorite tree, and to show others what you see. The other choice is to band together with others who want the same basic thing that you want, to realize that the Greens and the Libertarians and the Reformers are all fighting the same fight, to understand that Ben Franklin's wisdom about hanging together can apply to more than just colonies.
Change the system. You'll accomplish more than Bob Barr could have ever imagined.
