A Humble View on Parties

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Today we will be examining the party system and the problems it poses for the allegiances of its members. As we have pointed out previously on this site, party backing and membership sometimes compromises the better judgment of its people, who, rather than pushing issues intended to best assist their constituents, alter those issues that they will back to what they believe the mainstream of their party will support.


We were warned by George Washington about the dangers of political factions. Political factions would include Political Parties, Special Interest Groups (SIG), Political Action Committees (PAC), and the like. Take some time and read what the man had to say in his farewell address, the full text of which is available through a link in our Important Political Media section:

“All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests.”

It’s pretty clear that Washington knew party loyalty had the potential to tear this country apart to achieve the ends sought by the “small but artful and enterprising minority”. While its true parties do achieve their ends a lot of the time, at what cost are we paying for those ends? Freedom? Liberty? Benjamin Franklin once said, “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.” “But Weave,” I hear you cry. “Don’t parties offer security?” I’m inclined to answer yes to that question. Party affiliation by a candidate comes with tremendous perks in the form of staff support, endorsements, and monetary contributions from people wanting to vote for that party specifically. All in all, a very secure position for a candidate that party chooses to back.

“Now wait a minute, Weave. My party has never taken away my liberties.” When a person in this country registers for membership in a political party he or she is immediately barred from any presidential primaries of opposing parties during elections. That means that if one wanted to see a candidate from another party reach the general elections one would have to reregister with that other party. Not only are the majority of primaries a closed affair, but any independent voters are immediately cast out because they chose to not swear allegiance to a particular party. I feel like that is a sacrifice of liberties because if a voter favors a candidate who belongs to the opposing party, that voter isn’t allowed to vote for them until the general election, if that candidate makes it that far. This is one of the reasons I advocate a nonpartisan open primary.

The case for opposing party support for candidates goes beyond potential compromise of liberties in closed primaries to a more substantial matter: campaign financing. There are laws in place, enforced by the Federal Election Commission, that regulate the use of funds in party-organized activities attached to elections at the federal level (though there are no regulations that the FEC enforces at the state or local level). This, however, only deals with the amount of money it takes to carry out party-organized activities. It says not one word about the benefits gained from volunteers working for one party or the other. It says not one word about the value gained from endorsements of prominent party members taking public support for them and turning it into public support for the candidate. Finally, it says not one word about the value gained from people who forever vote along party lines, who would vote Republican even if David Dukes were on the ticket and Democrat even if the party were backing Mao.

Every one of these perks translates to monetary value, and every one of those perks is closed to the independent candidate. This candidate, even if he follows every last one of the campaign finance laws, still usually finds himself out in the cold because the finance laws do not tell the whole story. This often leaves independents feeling like they are wasting their votes by backing a third party. I want to make it clear that this is not the case, that the only wasted vote is the one not cast. The outcome, however, is often the same as if they had been wasted.

Now let me say a word about campaign promises, using an analogy we can all understand. Ladies and gentlemen, cast your minds back to the last time you went out with someone for the first time. Both parties were probably nervous, and, unless my audience is comprised exclusively of saints, probably embellished certain facts about themselves and downplayed others. The end result is that the picture each person gets of the other is an unclear, inaccurate one, however innocent the intent. It is the same with politicians. The politician asks the voter out, picks a dimly lit corner booth, whispers sweet nothings in his or her ear, and tries like hell to give the impression that this is a match made in heaven.

Alas, impressions are all they are. It is as true in politics as it is in dating that the picture painted early in the relationship is the picture of what the relationship could be in an ideal world if all the planets and stars align just so. That is not to say they are all pure lies, just the view as seen through rose-colored glasses. Or beer goggles. Parties, however, act as wingmen (my male readers, at least, will get the analogy), convincing the voters that all the candidate has said is true. The influence of the party’s leaders, when they trumpet the praises of particular candidates, goes a long way toward making the voter think more about who supports a candidate and less about what that candidate himself supports. Again, independent candidates generally fly solo, having to propose more action-oriented and practical platforms than they would were they tied to big-ticket players in the party system. It is the reason that a party-backed candidate can afford to boil his entire platform down to a blurb (“Yes, We Can” and “Country First” come to mind).

Herein lies the problem: when backed by the heavy-hitters in a party, a presidential candidate has a far better chance of making it through a primary election. That candidate will reflect the values embraced by those heavy-hitters and if elected, will be a president in a way hand-picked by a “small but artful and enterprising minority.” As the president is the single most prominent person in the country, the knee-jerk reaction of those same heavy-hitters who supported him in the election will be to continue to support him in office. Other lesser party members will be hesitant to go away from those who are in essence role models and the result is a Congress full of party members ready to vote along with the president simply because the letter after his name is the same as the letter after theirs.

One shocking example of this was the New York 23rd congressional district election which just ended yesterday. Newt Gingrich, a very prominent Republican, had supported Dierdre Scozzafava, a very liberal Republican, over a Doug Hoffman, a candidate who identified himself as Conservative. This support was given in spite of it being known that Scozzafava fell to the left of many Democrats on a number of issues key to many Republican voters’ ideologies. His reasoning? “This idea that we’re suddenly going to establish litmus tests and all across the country we’re going to purge the party of anybody who doesn’t agree with us 100 percent; that guarantees Obama’s reelection, that guarantees Pelosi as Speaker-for-Life.” I hope that supporters of Newt Gingrich know he, one of the most prominent Republicans, is more concerned about his party staying in power than espousing the views important to most Republican voters.

Still, one can’t really blame him. Sure, it was a slimy thing to say and made him seem a bit like a crooked union boss, but it is the culture in which we have lived for some time. Issues are not in season. We are told that they are, that there will be bipartisan collaboration, but when the sleeves get rolled up party allegiance is everything. Why? It is strategically expedient. News flash, Newt: what we the people find most relevant on a personal level is not whether there are Democrats or Republicans in office; it’s whether there are honest men and women actually doing their jobs with integrity and in accordance with the wishes of their employers, the voters. That is representation. That is a republic.