Centerfield

You know, Rick, if you keep this up, you just might actually convince me that a vote for Kerry isn't necessarily a bad thing!

he's so upset about the gay marriage thing that he's willing to entertain the crazy idea of voting for kerry.

Sorry, but the guy's work has become too unreadable nowadays

Pro-Bush = readable, critical of Bush = unreadable? OK, got it!

I agree with Sully on the right wing-Nixonian comment. I have never claimed that W is ideally what I want in a President, I just don't see how John Kerry would be better, if not much worse, especially on defense.

The words "weak on defense" are political rhetoric, and if I remember correctly the last Bush commercial said that John Kerry was "wrong on defense", not weak. I am not saying that the administration has not taken part in it's share of the rhetoric mud slinging game, but I think it is very telling that the only thing John Kerry has been consistent on in the last nineteen years, is his voting record on defense spending.

If this election where based on social issues, I would be voting for Kerry. From the death penalty to the drug war to gay marriage, I think he is more right than Bush is. But there is much more at stake here, and as Jeremy has pointed out, there is probably a lot about John Kerry I do not know. If I where going to even consider vote for the man, a couple of things would need to happen:

1. I would need to be convinced that he would be more fiscally conservative than Bush, and bring back the third wave approach to the Budget.

2. I would need to be convinced that his answer to entitlements is simply not more spending and government expansion.

3. He would need to pick a running mate that was remotely in the center: Evan Bayh, Bob Graham, Harold Ford, Sam Nunn, Blanche Lincoln, Bob Kerry, Bill Bradley, etc. John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Dick Gephardt, are not going to do it for me, where if he had the guts to pick McCain I would almost instantly reconsider my position.

4. I would need to be convinced that he is going to be progressive in fighting the war on terror, and not return the Clinton policy of wait and see.

5. I would need to know that his vote on NAFTA was truly representative of his position on free-trade, and he will not resort to pandering to union special-interests like he did to wrap up the Democratic nomination.

I like McCain because he has the guts to stand up for what is right, unlike most of the Republican Party which has fallen into line behind the President without question. I also like him though because he has endorsed the President and campaigned on his behalf. McCain knows deep down in his heart, that although Bush is not ideal, his direction for the country is much safer than John Kerry's, or at least that is the message I have gotten. But if I am truly a centrist than I should be open to changing my mind if Kerry makes the right argument.

It might be wishful thinking about Kerry. He does has a strong tendency to duck the hard choices.

He also faces the risk that is firm on the War on Terror, some Dean and Kucinich voters may argue that there's no difference between Kerry and Bush. That may seem hard to imagine, but there are some people for whom "peace" is the only issue, and the clear distinctions between Bush and Kerry on domestic policy are not of interest.

I'm considering voting for both men, frankly. But my preliminary take on each is that they're not strong presidents.

Can I have another option, please? (besides Ralph Nader, that is)

Basically, I'm with William on this... All along I've been wishing for a valid third choice. I've even been toying with the idea of writing up a "platform" for what my ideal candidate would stand on.

Ironically, one of the biggest problems that I have with Kerry is on the issue of "proactive" defense, which would seem to speak to those who have doubts about his willingness to remain tough on terror. Kerry touts the philosophy of "progressive internationalism," which sometimes looks a bit too much like the neocon agenda for my comfort level. The "New Dems" and their Progressive Policy Institute have articulated a strategy that emphasizes cooperation, but emphasizes the need to retain the option of unilateral and preemptive military action. It is this last point which I have fundamental ideological problems with, but which should speak to those who define cooperation as appeasement.

So for someone who leans left like myself, the differences between Kerry and Bush are not large enough. For example, you can search all you want, but you'll never find Kerry denying the need for military action in Iraq, but merely criticizing Bush's handling of it, insisting more time should have been taken to build international cooperation and plan for the aftermath. I have no doubt that Kerry will be "strong" against terrorism... I only fear that he won't be able to resist the new preemptive strike precedent and the de facto increase in executive powers that came with the invasion of Iraq.

I think we need to face (and embrace) the fact that the stereotypical images of the two parties is breaking down. When a Republican Senator defends a Democratic presidential candidate as strong on defense and a Republican controlled president and Congress oversees the biggest expansion in the size of the federal government in fifty years, you have to question why anyone would continue to vote party line. No wonder they want us to focus on gay marriage instead.

Talk of a third party is great, but unrealistic. Who, what, where, when, and how are all questions that need to be answered. I just don't see it happening now or in the near future. I suppose my contsant defense of Bush is my hope that the Republican Party will one day come closer to my point of view, but maybe I am fighting a cause that as just as much lost as those of you hoping for a third party.

Y'know, Matthew, it's kind of ironic that both of us end up on a "centrist" site, one of us compelled to defend Bush and one of us compelled to defend the Dems, both hoping that our parties will change but both unwilling to entertain the possibility of a third party. Personally, I believe there is room for a third party in the center, but to succeed it would have to come from a large number of Senators and Representatives deciding en masse to defect to the center rather than pander to the more extreme elements in their own party. Of course, that would require turning their backs on the party machinery that put them where they are, a hopelessly non-pragmatic move in a profession where pragmatism is all-important.

-Sigh-

If there were a "no confidence" option, we wouldn't even need a 3rd party.

I would LOVE it if someone were to run as an independent candidate on a pure "no confidence" platform. Vote for this candidate in order to ensure that neither major party candidate receives an electoral majority.

If you really needed to have an issues platform, it could be constructed by identifying every specific lobbying group and then telling that group the one thing they didn't want to hear.

Basically agree with Rick.

Election choices are the lesser of the evils resulting for your choice.

Also, agree The Third View for Influence needed. Just need to develop the grouping that know is out there. Many of feel powerless and removed with no outlet for even discussing issues. Ways to direct them to site for discussion would help the process.

Janus

I was all set to invest in a Bush bumper sticker until our president began campaigning for a constitutional amendment to codify bigotry and outlaw same-sex marriage. So now I'm on the fence.

I'm appalled at Bush's reckless running up of the federal deficit. But I don't trust Kerry and the Dems to do much better.

The number one issue of concern for me is the war on terrorism. Bush is treating it like a war and has acted accordingly. Kerry has never even called this conflict a war, opting instead to concentrate only on beefing up port security and the like.

On the other hand, Bush hasn't said what the next step will be. He's done a good job in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he shouldn't be allowed four more years based solely on past performance. How will we handle Syria, Iran, and North Korea?

Unfortunately, neither candidate is offering much of a bold vision to fight the terrorists in the future. Whoever does that will get my vote.

Good point staunch moderate. I too am much less concerned with rehashing the recent past and quarreling over characterizations of it than I am interested in a serious discussion of where do we go from here.

And it really boils down to what the appropriate carrot/stick ratio is. It's tiresome that Kerry can't give Bush any credit for the merits of his usage of the stick. And it' equally tiresome that Bush can't admit that at this point there's some merit to Kerr's preference of focusing on the carrot approach.

Jeremy,

Good points..

Staunch Moderate,

I know what you mean. It wasn't enough for me to switch my vote for Kerry, but the constitutional amendment thing was utterly depressing. It was a thoughtless, pointless, useless political ploy. I was embarassed to have voted for Bush that day.

We don't necessarily need a third party to have a viable third, independent candidate. Ted Halstead, author of The Radical Center, was a guest on a local radio talk show yesterday afternoon. He put forward the idea of an "instant runoff." I recorded that part of the conversation (thankfully) and am quoting from the quick transcript I made of his suggestion:

Here’s a big idea on how to broaden electoral choices: The big problem now is that with a two-party system, any vote for a third party candidate is not only a wasted vote, but in effect a vote for the candidate you least like. Here in SF, I believe you passed an instant runoff rule on the ballot. The country should adopt that type of policy. You have that type of system a vote for a third party candidate would be far more useful and we’d get far more serious candidates running on third party tickets. If we had that system nationwide, in 1992, George Bush Sr. would probably have won, because Perot cost him the election. But if we had that in the last election, George Bush, Jr. would probably have lost, because Nader cost [Gore] the election. What you would be doing is setting a high, but not insurmountable bar for third party candidates and the basic way this works is instead of voting for just one candidate, you say here is my first, second and third choice and it would solve what I think is one of the biggest problems alienating Americans from politics, which is, that come election day so often we don’t have any candidate that we feel strongly about.

The problem I see is how to make something like this viable on the national level and how it would impact the Electoral College, but I think he has a valid point and an interesting idea. Comments?

Yeah, IRV is already used for voting procedures in some local elections. And, unfortunately, that's where it is going to have to stay for awhile.

The real problem with IRV at the national level is that neither party wants it, since it actually makes third parties more viable. Why would either party want to vote for something that threatened the two-party system status quo?

I think the only way to get IRV into the mainstream is to expand its use at the local level until a critical mass of public recognition of its value is reached and the public starts to demand it at higher levels.

I think you're right, Heather, that instant runoff voting would be a major boost to third party candidacies. It would help everyone outside the two party structures, from the Naders of the world to any serious, centrist candidate we could recruit.

I think the simplest, most practical option for a good third party candidate is simply to find someone serious and experienced who is willing to run. Everyone willing to do that so far has been somewhat flaky. And while I see the disadvantages and difficulties of the independent road, I'm not sure it's so daunting that you could never convince someone to do it.

I kind of imagine it this way. If you found someone with real executive experience, and also balance and judgment in the way they evaluate the issues, said person would almost automatically become a valid third option in the course of the campaign, in spite of organizational and financial disadvantages. The press would have to cover him (or her) to some degree -- and he/she would sound so much more reasonable than the average politician that some support would begin to flow that way.

The key is finding a really good candidate and convincing that person. Everything else is doable. Find someone who really should be president. The key to the whole picture of a third party option.

In some sense, too, this could be our own version of a game the right and left regularly play. Namely, they put people in the primaries who are well outside the mainstream -- the likes of Al Sharpton, Dennis Kucinich, Pat Robertson, Alan Keyes -- they run those folks every time because it puts pressure on the other candidates to shift in their direction ideologically, or risk alienating the party base that admires those people.

If we found some way of running a serious candidate in the middle with some regularity, whether that candidate wins or not, he/she puts pressure on the others to sound more solid and reasonable on the issues. Alienating said candidate -- distancing yourself from him/her -- risks alienating voters in the middle in the process.

Who would that candidate be that would have the name identification enough to run a valid campaign?

I see moderates running for the white house: Evan Bayh, Mitt Romney, Christie Whitman, John McCain, Joe Lieberaman... oh, but wait a second, they are already declared members of one of the two parties and will have a pretty tought time winning the nomination.

IRV is a good idea, but it does not benefit the major parties that control Congress and all of the state legislatures... Not likely accept in those states where there is the option of voter initiative or referendum, and even in those... still not likely.

I am being pessimistic on purpose, not to be annoying. I have went through these ideas in my head over and over, and I still always come back to it is best to make the GOP more in my vision than support a third party, but I am waiting to be convinced otherwise.

Mathew, I think you are being TOO pessimistic and, at this point, I'm not sure it does any good to work within the party. You should have heard what the radio host and Ted Halstead were saying about the general uselessness of conventions as they are currently being run!

William, IF we could find such a person, how difficult would it be to pull a Dean and run an online grassroots campaign?

I think you're right to be pessimistic. There are a lot of potential pitfalls with this approach, including some pretty serious ones. For one, you have to consider the overall electoral impact -- there's a significant chance that whoever you choose will draw more support from one side of the aisle than the other, and you may end up not so much offering an alternative as shaping the outcome between the conventional candidates, in the way that Ross Perot and Ralph Nader did.

That said, I wouldn't suggest considering name recognition as a factor in finding that candidate. Find someone with the real qualifications and talents to be a good president. Most likely, said person will not be famous, but he/she will have an opportunity to be heard, and in the long run, it's better to have someone who makes a good case and projects a real presidential demeanor than someone everybody knew from the outset. Focusing on quality, to the exclusion of fame, takes you out of that "quirky" arena that has plagued third party efforts.

You're right to wonder just who might fit that bill. I can think of a couple names, at the outset -- Angus King, former governor of Maine, and Anthony Zinni, retired Marine corps general. I'm sure there are other possibilities.

You might consider those guys to be questionable in their presidential qualifications. But I think those two names highlight the opposite problem. Angus King has a long and remarkably successful career in government. Zinni has a combination of command and diplomatic experience that's rare, plus a balanced and straightforward communication style that I would call presidential.

Neither of these guys are going to jump into a quixotic independent campaign for the presidency. Zinni could expect to have a successful political career, if he wanted -- perhaps running for the Senate or the House. It's hard to say if he would declare as a Republican or Democrat, but he could probably do either.

That's the basic conundrum. Candidates who would be serious contenders aren't likely to go independent without perhaps a push of some kind or a sense that there are organized forces behind them.

It seems to me what you want, therefore, is to build some kind of a network of folks -- business leaders, community leaders -- who are interested in a serious third option. The network could be loosly organized, perhaps including people from a variety of organizations and in a variety of different walks of life. And it would presumably decide, in any given presidential year, whether it makes sense to offer a third option (e.g., whether the parties have given us a reasonable option), and go about recruiting a real candidate.

To some extent, this approach could manage the circumstances of someone like you, Mathew. You place the admirable goal in front of you of reforming your party, working within it to offer better choices. An ad hoc committee of community leaders would reach out to guys like you -- moderate Republicans and Democrats -- include voices from both parties, as well as independents. And all would be involved in the process of deciding whether an independent option is needed and how to go about recruiting.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the subject -- offered ad nauseum, obviously.