In a Gallup poll approximately one week ago, Lydia Saad and Joseph Carroll determined that 58% of Americans think the two parties are doing such a poor job that we need a third one. Only 33% think the two parties are just fine.
Our Doug Bailey did some research and found that five years ago, Gallup found just the opposite: 56% were satisfied with the performance of the two parties and only 40% felt a third party was needed.
So, what happened?"
The following commentary was written as an answer to that question by Mr. Bailey:
It’s not just Iraq. It’s how the Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington are so certain that they are right that they refuse to seek common ground – or so bent on winning an election that losing lives seems secondary.
It may be hard to know who the enemy is in Baghdad, but in Washington the enemy is anyone in the opposite party.
The Bush White House will not yield – not even to accept a genuinely bipartisan Iraq Study Group report, from a panel that included two former GOP Secretaries of State and their own new Secretary of Defense.
The Democrats in Congress are just as adamant. They reject anything without a timetable for withdrawal. They refuse to support or even talk about anything that Republican moderates, seeking the middle, propose. They filibuster all night, but won’t spend any time at all to seek quiet agreement behind closed doors.
Both sides are wrong – and the people know it. We need to forget how we got there and whose fault it is. We must figure out how to preserve our security and give millions of innocent people in Iraq a chance to avoid a bloodbath. It’s complex, but complex issues are why we have leaders.
Iraq is hardly the only issue without the kind of bipartisan agreement that has accompanied every sustainable domestic or foreign policy initiative for the last 50 years. We are facing many crucial issues right now, including energy dependence, education in inner city schools, a broken health care system, global climate change, immigration, the deficit, and the coming entitlement mess. These issues are all huge, all tough, and all complex.
I urge Congress to sit down and talk to each other. End the gotcha game. The stakes are too high! If you can’t lead, then Unity08 will find someone who can.
What are your thoughts?
Tags: Unity08, election, president, government, bipartisan, politics, news and politics, gallup, doug bailey
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Unfortunately, since the states cast all their electroal votyes for one team, the average voter is forced to choose between who he thinks will win the state and who he thinks can beat that person. Only by either forcing states to vote in the Electoral College in a way representative of the voting in their state or abolishing the EC altogether will the races for other political offices in the country become more about the country and less about the two major parties. More and more people are realizing that the way we choose our leaders is not effective, and the options we get presented are rarely palatable. In spite of all the call for a third party, most people still feel that their vote is wasted if they vote for a third party. With the current election process, the people do not actuially get one vote per person. You only get a vote if you vote for the winner and to make your vote count you must vote within the major parties. If people were given an actual choice then we might see a real congress that knows they have to appeal to everyone within their district rather than toe the party line regardless of the effect that line has on their community.
jmf
I would hardly think that our system would improve with the abolishment of the electoral college. If that did happen, the entire electoral process would involve dumping money into the largest metro areas, starting with NY and LA, and ignoring the rest of the country.
"But most of the people live there," one would be inclined to say. True, but those people do eat, do they not? And do the residents of NY, LA, and other cities grow the food in the city? Surely the people that grow what we eat merit representation too. This sort of scenario is exactly why the EC exists.
The purpose of the EC is to hedge against campaign cherry picking. It's not perfect, but it does provide more fair representation and "forces" candidates to win votes outside of the cities and large states. Without it, presidential campaigns would be little more than a marketing blitz to the top 10 cities at the expense of the rest of the nation.
I would, however, advocate changing the EC such that it's votes are split proportionately based on the popular vote; if Candidate A got 60% of a state's votes, then he or she would get 60% of that state's electotal votes. I think that would be better than abolishment outright. It would preserve the hedge I am talking about and temper the process with the popular vote.
-GP
Let's do as The Beatles' said: "Come together, right now. Unity." Something like that... ;)
GP, I like your approach. A proportional award to a candidate based on the % that he/she received in the popular vote of that particular state. I also agree with you that doing away with the EC, would be self defeating. The large cities would win. Good comments GP
Abolishing the electoral college is easier said than done. Since the electoral college system is a part of our constitution, it can only be eliminated by amending the constitution to specifically do away with it. That takes a very cumbersome and lengthy process with no guarantee of success at best. Some say eliminating the electoral college would disenfranchise smaller states with rural populations because presidential candidates would tend to campaign in the large population areas where the most votes are situated. I doubt that this would be entirely true; the truth is that in places like Montana, Idaho, the Dakotas, et al, that carry fewer electoral votes are not places where you see much campaigning now.
The best reason I can think of to scrap the EC system is it would help level the playing field. A voters choice in Idaho would count just as much as a vote cast in California. Purely a popular vote majority would determine the winner of the presidency.
One state, Maryland, my home state, has already passed a bill in the legislature that would award Maryland's electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote nationwide. Other states may follow suit, and if enough states did enact such legislation it would almost certainly be an impetus for all states to adopt it, thereby eliminating the onerous EC. There is nothing in the constitution that would preclude doing this, and the sooner the better.
Just think, if this had been the case 6 1/2 years ago, we wouldn't be where we are now with the renegade administration we have in Washington.
Maybe the electoral college worked when the Constution was written but that was over 200 years ago and not only have times changed but there are a great many more people of many diverse nationalities and when I consider the last election I can think of no better reason to abolish the electoral college.
I am 81 years old and was active in political campaigns from 1948 when I first voted until Ronald Reagan became president and I watched the Democrats sit on their fannies too scared to stand up to the plastic president. Right now I am watching the Democrats do the same thing and it boggles my mind because unlike Ronald Reagan who was very popular George W.Bush is way down on the polls and the polls on the Congress is even worse. The Democrats got control of both Houses and have done almost nothing to stop George Bush.
What annoys me most is that a small group of Democrats and Republicans have already picked out the candidates and good men like Senator Joe Biden doesn't stand a chance of getting attention.
dccase4851global.net
Why oh why would we want to get rid of the electoral collage, besides the fact that it will never happen, it just highlights the silly notions we the people these days waste are time debating. I would like to see this unity party idea become a serious outlet for discussing and trying to solve the many social and economic problems facing America. -Example: public school decline a complete disgrace, in my state NY we spend $5-trillion dollars a school year on our schools, and we don't even have enough books to go around. Why, who is at fault, who do we blame, what does a unity party candidate purpose to fix the problem. high taxation, crime, family break down. I just hope this unity party idea is willing to name names and apply blame to whom ever is standing in the way of ridding ourselves of the status-quot politician who only ans. is always more MONEY. How about Joe Lieberman- Sam Brownback ticket or visa- versa??
I agree completely. So much of what is discussed on the shoutbox is outside the responsibilities of a president or relevant to the 2024 election.
Why is that do you figure?
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The republocrats are all alike, self interest ruled, party controlled people who have been made into elites by the folks in the party who pick the candidates. Many of these folks would not be elites if they were not elected, so they owe all of what they have to the party-powerful who picked them. Is it any wonder that what the American people want is ignored in favor of what the party supporters want?
Its simply human nature at work - no mystery, no conspiracy. The problem is how the system works to choose candidates.
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i'm thinking..........
Specific issues bear fruit for individuals.
Coalitions bear fruit for groups of like minded individuals...(e.g... K-street etc...)
Party platforms compromise all issues & put us in a place where none of us wanted to go.....
That is why we need Candidate Platforms to drive the Unity 08 process.
Bill"for what we are together"
bill713.unity08@sbcglobal.net
The problem with Maryland's law is that it forces the state to vote how the citizens in New York, California, Texas, Florida, Ohio, and every other state vote regardless of how Maryland feels. The laws that need to be passed on a state by state basis are not so much to vote according to the national popular vote, but to cast electoral votes based on the votes within that state. The entire reason our political system has become a 2 party system is because you either vote for one of the big 2 or your vote is wasted. The EC either by design or default, works against third parties. Governor Thurmond in 1948 and Governor Wallace in 1968 both won blocs of electoral votes in the South, but the overall outcome was (arguably) not affected by this. In 1992 Ross Perot got 19% of the popular vote nationwide BUT 0 ELECTORAL VOTES! This system protects the establishment even when it isd the people who need protection from the establishment. Until third parties consistently and continuously take EC votes in the presidential election no third party will be able to take the presidency without a major unifying force. Look at Lincoln in the 1860 election. He was a third party candidate who rode the anti-slavery wave into office. I don't think we have an issue facing us today that can galvanize us in that direction.
By states choosing to split their EC votes third parties will get notice on the national stage, people will see that their vote isn't wasted if you choose to vote with your conscience rather than conventional wisdom. Imagine how different the world would have been had Perot taken 20% of the EC votes in 1992. He wouldn't have won, and he probably wouldn't even have been a spoiler in the race either, but the Reform party would have seen that there was a massive grass roots feeling that just needed to be brought to bear. I fear the same foate for the Unity08 movement. Without recognition of every party's influence in the presidential election via EC vote tally the majority of Americans will continue to believe that voting for a third party is wasting your vote.
As for using a split system or abolishing it completely causing candidates to campaign in only the big population areas, they do that already. They go to the so-called battleground states (like Ohio and Florida) where a small number of people decide the outcome for the rest of us. I live in Texas. The democrats have essentially ceded Texas to the Republicans and no longer campaign here. Sure, you see a few here and there but the majority of politicval money spent in Texas by the 2 major parties is for local races where Dems still have a chance. We are one of the top three states in EC voting power but we have been forgotten.
Now I like not having to see all those awful campaign ads, but in another state I lived through one of the most virulaent senate campaigns I've ever heard of or seen. It was bad enough it got attention on the national news. At the time the only commercials on the air seemed like car commercials and political ads. I bought a VCR so I could record any of the shows I wanted to watch without having to listen to these commercials (pre-dvr days). I don't necessarily want all those political ads running on my TV and radio, but as a citizen of the US I feel it our responsibility to all shoulder this burden, not just the folks in the battleground states.
Watch "Man of the Year" with Robin Williams to see how the EC can be used to campaign in very few states and still win the office.
jmf