Ah yes, election season is being thrust upon us. Tomorrow is the date for the Iowa Republican straw poll, and for some reason, I started thinking about our party system and how we all identify ourselves, politically.
For a long while, I had thought of the party system as one of the problems with our political climate. It is simply to easy to lump everything into Republican vs Democrat against which we base our decisions. There are too many people out there that would never vote for a Republican just because they were a Republican, and vica versa with those that are Democrat.
This is a problem.
Take myself, for example. I strongly support state rights, gun rights, lower taxes, less federal government, the repeal of Row v. Wade, and getting the US out of the UN. Some people might think this makes me a Republican outright.
They would be wrong.
I’m also in strong support of repealing the drug laws, revoking capital punishment, and a foreign policy that stops the meddling in the affairs of other countries.
My point is that I’m a hodge-podge, if you will, of various political points of view that could be construed as Republican in one light, and Democrat in another. What if I decided one day to run for office? Into which category should I go? History has shown that other parties will not succeed, and I would want to succeed, thus, I would have to choose one of the two main parties.
On those days that I’m waxing philosophical, and pipe dreams are allowed, I envision the day where there is no straight ticket voting option, no party affiliation next to the candidate, and the voter is actually an educated voter and fully knowledgeable about the individual on whom they are about to vote.
But, I wake up, reality sets in, and I’m stuck with the realization that the party’s over.
Dan-o, to get elected you’d have to do a lot more than pick one of the parties or another. You’d actually have to “fall in line” with the party’s platform and compromise yourself on some of your core issues.
To me that – the fact that to participate in the party system candidates must pass through the money-men’s hazing and homogenization process – is the real problem with the our system.
Certainly, that is one of the core problems, but I would disagree that it is the real problem. The real problem lies with those individuals who continue to vote for their particular part regardless of who the candidate is.
If Hitler were running as a Democrat in a presidential election, there would still be a suprisingly large amount of people that would vote for him.
No, Marc, the real problem is with us, the electorate. By in larger, we don’t educate ourselves about the “beliefs” of those on whom we are voting. We don’t demand that they actually profess and support their own beliefs. We simply accept what they tell us, especially if it supports an issue about which we strongly support.
In essence, we’ve grown lazy. It’s easier just to flip a switch for a Republican or Democrat than it is to study the different positions.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this. Why should I familiarize myself with candidates who have already been pre-vetted to ensure that they will vote the party line 90+% of the time?
It’s too late by that point.
Now, if you want to argue that the electorate should cease to be that and become participants instead, then we’d have something to discuss.