If what Hacker and Pierson say in their book is true, then the problem with political parties is not that they are weak, as I had concluded: it is that the Democratic Party is weak. The Republicans are well organized, well disciplined, and have been able to accomplish their goals quite well even when the President is a Democrat. For them politics is a form of war. For the Democrats politics is a process of compromise and gaining consensus. This only allows the Republicans to manipulate the Democrats into doing their bidding. The Democrats have become, because of the demand for money to conduct campaigns, in effect Republican wannabees, trying to please the wealthy. Dick Armey is quoted as saying that his guiding principle in politics is to never offend your base. Unfortunately this is just what the Democrats have done, offend their base of middle class voters. Democrats need to get well enough organized, and make strong connections with their base, middle class voters, to stand on their own without needing to appeal to the enemy, the wealthy.
In the meantime, the structural change needed in the government is to eliminate the obstructive power of the Senate by reinstituting the parliamentary rule that allows members of the Senate to call for the question, thus stopping debate, and forcing a vote on the matter under discussion.
OK, I'll bite.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't campaign finance reform (plus fixing the incredibly partisan and idiotic Supreme Court decision on business "free speech") go a long way toward fixing the problem with the Democratic party, by reducing the power of business?
Should our strategy therefore not be to fix campaign finance at the cost of all other issues?
BTW, I claim this is the _real_ problem with the Democrats: they can't do first things first. They have to get sidetracked dealing with "socially meaningful" stuff rather than realizing they can't do that stuff without doing less "meaningful" stuff first. Maybe it's long-term vs short-term, or tactics vs strategy, but they are getting their butts kicked by playing the Republican short-term game instead of a long-term game of their own.
Phil