Doug:
> I spend a lot of time doing just that, and I gotta say you're
> overstating things here. Yes there's support for some things
> - a higher minimum wage most notably - but on other matters,
> like public health insurance and unions, the numbers are a
> lot more mixed, very dependent on wording and context.
I fully agree. I would also like to add that questions like "minimum wage" are popular items, most people support them in one form or another, so they are hardly indicative of differences in political positions.
But more importantly, opinion polls tell you at best, what people think at the moment. It is a delusion to believe that ideas translate to behavior, let alone to consistency in that behavior or establishing social and political institutions. Even if opinion polls adequately reflect what people think on a subject, that thinking is highly context dependent and changes if the context or frame of reference changes. Claiming that there is core or latent support for a political position on that basis fails to take into account that politics is almost never about "core" issues but about framing them. Even Reagan said "we are all Keynesians now" - the devils is in the details, namely what kind of Keynesian was he. Same for the core issues - everyone supports the idea of living wage or adequate health care - what makes a difference how those issues are framed and put in the institutional context.
Therefore, politics is not about what people may or may not think - but about the institutional ability to mobilize resources to sway their thinking in this or that direction and make things happen despite opposition. That institutional ability requires command of institutional resources - money, media, think tanks, research outfits the ability to make certain things happen (like reward or punish entire groups of people, like cities, counties, or states, for their political choices). In this country, only the corporate America and the two parties have such institutional resources at their disposal - so there is no alternative, unless a third party manages to amass similar institutional resources, which is unlikely.
In his book written in the 1960s, Schattschneider (_The semi-sovereign people_) argues that the dynamics of the US electoral system is such that the two players have an incentive to put up with a long series of electoral defeats and being relegated to a junior partner role in politics, because the chances are that sooner or later the tables will turn around and they will be the top dog for a while. This predictability of turns, the promise of the "revolving door" is what keeps the two parties embracing the system even after suffering a series of crushing defeats. By the same token, they have an incentive for keeping all other players out, because that may upset the "revolving door" system and make the political outcome much more unpredictable than the bi-partisan system.
If this is correct, anyone who thinks that the bipartisan system can be broken just because some people answered a survey or two in a certain way is clearly deluding himself. There is no chance for the third or any other party in this country. It there were, such a party would have already existed. The Democrats are the only progressive hope, for whatever they are worth. The only way to change that is to scrap the entire electoral system, the two parties, and the corporate interests that support them. While this is theoretically not out of the realm of possibilities, I would not hold my breath. Thus my counsel for the progressives is to either cry "uncle" to Democrats and gratefully accept the scraps that they are throwing, or otherwise go home, close the door, get a bottle of good wine, turn on soothing classical music," and bid her farewell, the America you are losing." http://users.hol.gr/~barbanis/cavafy/antony.html
Wojtek