> I used to think in those terms until I became thoroughly disgusted with
> the US notion of individual/celebrity based politics. There is no
> other
> politics other than those based in mainstream political institutions -
> utopian idealism notwithstanding. I would love to see this country
> having a parliamentary system and a socialist or a communist party like
> many European nations do - but we do not. Democrats is all we have, so
> any serious progressive political action should take place within that
> institutional framework. Any "third party" idea is nothing but a freak
> show and sheer lunacy.
I agree more or less with this, but I wonder whether any more or less democratic political system could really do without "individual/celebrity based politics" altogether. I can't offhand think of another country with a mass electorate that doesn't feature campaigns by charismatic politicians. I would personally prefer the shorter campaign season featured by parliamentary countries like Britain, but that's because I get very bored by all the hoop-la going on for months and months before anybody really gets serious. Most Americans, of course, really don't pay attention to the whole process until after Labor Day in the year of the election.
I'm trying to think of what a system without "celebrity candidates" would look like, and I picture one in which parties with rigid platforms somehow pick candidates who are faceless women/men in suits, practically indistinguishable from each other, whose campaigns essentially consist of speeches saying, "Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I represent the X Party, and this is the X Party Platform. Thank you for your attention and good night." (Somewhat exaggerated, but ... :-))
I don't think that sort of process would work at all in a democratic system because, at the end of the day, whoever is elected will be an individual person, with her or his own ideas, personal contacts, etc. So what's wrong with having them run as individuals? Yes, it becomes a media circus like everything else in this media-saturated culture, but what could we do about that? (The issue of campaign financing, of course, is a serious one, but that's another big subject.)
That said, I wouldn't dismiss third parties altogether. They have injected a lot of important ideas and principles into the political arena over the course of US history. We have a real need for a strong left third party now, IMHO, but I don't see one coming over the horizon any time soon. Getting left activists sufficiently unified to fit into one party at this point would be like herding cats, as the discussions on this very list show every day.
> PS. A few years ago I changed my party affiliation to Independent
> (the
> Greens were not around at that time in MD) out of disgust with the
> Clinton administration. This was a mistake, as I cannot vote in the
> primaries. I am going to register as a Democrat again.
I have always registered independent since I first came of age. Now and then I flirt with registering Dem, also, but somehow pitching in to select the Dem candidate never seemed important enough to me to overcome my gut feeling that I don't want to soil myself by associating with their party (I know that it's not the same as actually joining the party.) Especially in presidential politics, since the candidate is always selected long before the PA primary comes along.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A gentleman haranguing on the perfection of our law, and that it was equally open to the poor and the rich, was answered by another, 'So is the London Tavern.' -- "Tom Paine's Jests..." (1794); also attr. to John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) by Hazlitt