U Not Gonna Like This

Here's an interesting aticle that I found at the American Form Party web site asking what seems to be a very important issue that America maybe in need of a new political party (link):



Why America Needs A New Political Party



By Stephen E. Ambrose & Richard D. Lamm



America needs a new political party. The most pressing issues facing the nation are beyond the ability of the two parties to solve, because neither party can act alone to solve these problems, and any bipartisan compromise can not equal the magnitude of the problems we face. These are not issues problems we are talking about here; they are structural problems. Structural problems that we are not even seriously debating, let alone solving! Structural problems that can only be solved by a new political coalition.



It is now time for another political realignment. We are not arguing for a change in the two-party system into a three-party system; we are arguing that America needs a new political party that would eclipse one of the existing major parties and itself become one of the major parties.



Now is again such a time. We fear that neither political party can do politically what we need to do economically to remain a great country, and that a third party built around a personality cannot force change—something just proven by Ross Perot. Bringing America's expectations in balance with our revenue will be a terribly painful and monumental task. We shall have to substantially downsize some of our most popular programs. We have ourselves in a Catch 22—where the best politics is the worst long-term public policy. Neither party can afford to take the steps in campaign reform and entitlement reform required to solve these politically volatile problems. Short-term political considerations eclipse long-term public interest considerations. We judge it to be substantially beyond the ability of either political party in the present political climate to deal successfully with these structural problems.



If a new party is to emerge, it would of necessity have to begin as a third political party and then grow. It is relatively easy to start a third political party; it is immensely difficult to grow them. The third parties that have grown into major parties are those that went after structural change. They solved not political problems (which the existing system could eventually solve), but instead deep structural flaws the existing political process could not solve. The Free Soilers/Republicans of the 1850s, and the Progressives of the first two decades of the 20th Century, are the models. They insisted on confronting issues the two major parties were incapable of addressing — slavery in the first instance, and the need for state and federal regulation of meat packing, drugs, the stock market, civil service, etc. in the second. Major problems had gone unaddressed by the existing parties until a new party filled the need. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum.



The answer of the Progressives to the ills of democracy was something the existing system could not or would not give the nation - more democracy. Recall. Referendum. Direct election of senators. Primaries. Above all, primaries. Progressives said that if you take the nomination process out of the hands of the pros in their smoke-filled rooms and give that power to the people, all of a sudden you will have clean politics. In many ways, this worked. But in the age of TV and special interests primaries have extended the political "season" to a nearly continuous process costing huge sums of money.



There has (correctly, we think) always been a heavy skepticism about the future of third political parties. In the last 140 years, not one third party became institutionalized, not even the Progressives. So, why a new party and why now?




Because we have a structural problem that cannot be solved with "politics as usual." As political scientists Levergood and Breyfogle point out:



We must realize that our current crisis of self-interested bickering and anarchy derive neither from our own selfishness, nor from the dishonesty and incompetence of politicians, but rather from political institutions that are no longer able to restrain the worst within us.



That's just a small sample of what's in the article. The rest can be read by going here.