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Revelations over the past two days have permanently removed any lingering doubts I may have harbored (which, admittedly, were none) over the extent to which political elites blatantly and quite purposely prevent ANY challenges whatsoever to UniParty rule.
The first came Wednesday evening, when a highly trusted source informed me that administrators of primary ballot access in several states with so-called “closed” primaries require candidates to swear a pledge to support the eventual nominee of the party under whose banner they run.
So for example, if I, a lifelong Independent, decided to register as a D… De… well, you know (can’t bring myself even to type it) and run against Obama in the party primary in, say, Texas – I’d have to make a loyalty oath to the Democratic Party leadership. Were I even to suggest, out on the campaign trail, that I’d break with the party – for example, that I might throw my support to a third-party or Indie candidate instead of the certain-to-be-”nominated” president – I would be removed from the ballot. Party leadership in other states require similar oaths.
That’s right. Here. In America. Where public funds pay for the administration of “the parties’” primaries.
But wait! (as they say on the Ginsu Knife commercials) – THERE’S MORE.
Thursday morning, Jill Stein’s campaign for the Green Party presidential nomination sent out an “emergency” email.
Quoting:
Ohio’s political establishment cut a deal last week. They changed the deadline for submitting signatures to get on the presidential primary ballot from March of next year to December 30th. This means that Ohio Greens have only eight days to get Jill Stein’s [name] on the presidential primary ballot. [Emphasis theirs.]
That was Thursday, so OH Greens are now down to six days, and over the holidays to boot – when just days before, they had 90 days to get the job done.
So how about you? Do you hold any lingering belief that the UniParty has any interest whatsoever in real democracy?
27 Comments
I’d say that the Ohio stunt is so blatant, so egregious, that the courts would turn it over, but with too few exceptions,the courts have a history of going along with these shenanigans.
Is the pledge a legal requirement or a party demand? If it’s the latter, it may be a smaller problem. A candidate can run in the primary, then have a change of mind, no?
I found this nugget while doing some research on Supreme Court decisions on third party ballot access:
In Pennsylvania, the Uniparty is determined not only to keep third parties off the ballot, but to destroy them for trying. First, Democratic state legislative staffers were illegally employed to review Nader’s petitions in 2004. Nader was charged $81,000 to cover expenses of the law firm that disputed his petitions. Then there’s the court system: Nader’s appeal to the PA Supreme Court was denied. “[F]ive of the seven justices had ties to the [law] firm.”
Source and details: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10116/1053401-152.stm — it’s a brief article.
No write-ins allowed in Virginia primaries!
Just in today’s news:
“…Virginia Code Section 24.2-644(C) rules out write-ins in its first sentence, saying: “At all elections except primary elections it shall be lawful for any voter to vote for any person other than the listed candidates for the office by writing or hand printing the person’s name on the official ballot.”"
http://news.yahoo.com/gingrich-virginia-primary-election-154129618.html
In 1999 Nader convinced me that we have a one party system. Everything that has happened since has proved him right. The Party must be destroyed. All we have to do is ignore it. But alas, that would require a grain of intelligence.
I too was convinced by their treatment of Ralph Nader. However, if we all ignore the Uniparty, it will stay in power because it needs only a majority of votes cast, not support by a majority of the citizens. We need to replace it – not an easy task, but a necessary one.
Before you can replace the Uniparty you must abandon it. Those still playing red state/blue state are tools of the 1%. Remember the first rule of holes.
Merry Christmas 2 cents. You too Mr. Noel.
Excellent diary Anthony.
This needs to be front-paged. Not just promoted on myFDL, but front-paged on FDL.
This is actually a good developement in that it removes any veneer of credability from the corrupt electorial system. I hope this is used as an educational tool to kill the delusion that voting will solve any of our problems.
The answer, if there is one, is in the streets. We need to Occupy, Mic-check and disrupt every political gathering in the coming months.
All Power To The People.
A party requirement, and absolutely, they can change their mind – but it’d be much better if they could say they might on the stump – i.e., before votes are cast – without fear of being removed from the ballot.
Yes, we must abandon the UniParty, but we need to take as many of those who haven’t yet come to that conclusion with us as possible. As long as our taxes pay for the administration of “party” primaries, candidates should be free to say whatever the hell they want on the stump, and the fact that the TX (and other state) Dem Party machines won’t sit still for that tells us all we need to know about why it (and the GOP) are guilty of co-opting true democracy.
I won’t hold my breath :)
But thanks, AltID. That the Greens went from 96 days to 6 to get on the OH ballot is complete, utter, 1 percent bullshit and needs to be widely publicized.
Yes, it might actually be a good thing if a primary challenger GOT thrown off a ballot or two to publicize this abjectly undemocratic “rule.”
Reality is a harsh mistress but she is helping to radicalise those who had hopes of redeeming the system. I know this is a difficult and depressing realization but it must happen if we are going to be able to change anything.
“Might” be a good thing? No, it would definitely be a good thing, for it’s educational value.
Although the mafia-like behavior of the parties is depressing, I still think voters should be forming voting blocs, and not be afraid to muck with the D’s and R’s during their primaries. The easiest demonstration of political muscle that I can think of, that is still significant (by forcing a reaction by the D’s and R’s), is to flood a primary, and vote against an incumbent.
So, for the 1/3 districts that are most democratic, voters would register Democratic. Similarly for the 1/3 districts that are most Republicans. For the middle third, the vote bloc members could take their pick.
Note that this would in no way prevent them for voting for a 3rd party candidate in the general election. If no 3rd party candidate is available in a given district, the vote bloc could again vote in a contrarian fashion. In this case, they would vote for the candidate of the opposite party of which they had registered for.
Unlike other people who make pronouncements about their opinion about how people should use their votes, I would not only be happy to have my proposals rationally evaluated by a competent game theorist, I actually did put this request to Bueno de Mesquita. See The Jesus Christ of Political Game Theory on the Stupidity of Lesser Evilist Voting
For anybody who says, “But what will your contrarian voting suggestions accomplish, since a D or R is most likely to win, anyway?” I note that this suggestion is for the currently weak and leaderless swarms of frustrated progressives, populists, and even conservatives, who recognize that business as usual is killing them. One would not follow this strategy when your voting bloc(s) grow large enough that they can dictate who wins! At that point, they would vote one of their own into office, on either D/R ballot line, or their own 3rd party ballot line.
Along the way, the D/R loyalty pledge that is the substance of your diary would be put to the test – but millions of people would be aware of it, not just a few thousand (more likely a few hundred) who read this diary. If the D’s and R’s are intransigent, and actually remove candidates from the ballot, the task is harder, because you’ve little choice but to go 3rd party in the general election. HOWEVER, you’ve now established that the local D’s and R’s are essentially traitors to democracy, preferring their own tribalistic affiliations to the will of the people. Having clearly established this, and properly educated the electorate, you will now have an easier time to get them to abandon the D’s and R’s in the general election, because they’re a) hopping mad and b) don’t like to be made fools of. (The 1/3 D’s and 1/3 R’s who are bots, loyal to the end, are irrelevant to this conclusion. They are in the minority. And if you argue that they’re not in the minority, do note that the situation is then officially hopeless. If Americans are too stupid to break out of the D/R straightjacket, when given a long-lasting, rational, strategic path to doing so, then they will “get the government they deserve”. And yes, they will drag us down with them. )
A little math: I don’t want to dig up a reference (it was at openleft.com), but a Pennsylvania primary, in an off-Presidential year (2010), had a 20% Democratic turnout. That is tiny – if we assume an average, even split between D’s and R’, that means if you get a voting bloc equal to 10% of the size of the electorate that votes in the general election, then you can throw out the incumbent. Do this in all districts, and you can fire each and every Congress critter. THAT is political muscle, even if not sufficient to prevent yet another crop of D’s and R’s from taking office. For the time being…. Such a sensational accomplishment would like spark a “scramble to the exits”, out of D/R fealty, and into the voting bloc(s). .
If disgusted voters can’t get their act together sufficiently to grow their voting bloc to such a relatively tiny size, then we DESERVE to be pawns of the D’s and R’s.
Think of this another way. I recently wrote a diary that could be described as a ‘negative space analysis’ diary. See
How you, too, can figure out that Obama betrays the 99%, and works for the 1%, first and foremost.
Why doesn’t Obama use his bully pulpit to remind voters that, if they’re not happy with the way things are being run in Washington, they can relatively easily (by voting together as a group, or voting bloc) fire each and every incumbent? Well, at FDL, hardly anybody trusts Obama’s motives, anyway. So, more interesting cases to consider, I suppose are those of so-called progressives in Congress. Why aren’t they educating the public about their best bet to disrupt business-as-usual (i.e., taking over primaries)?
Well, I don’t know why, but I’ll guess that they’re afraid of the Democratic Party, more than they really care about progressive values. (Or, of course, they may be complete frauds.) I noticed the absence of obvious efforts by so-called progressives in a diary called Q: What is PDA-supported Donna Edwards doing to grow the progressive movement? (A: Probably nothing)
I like your arithmetic, metamars, but I have one question. If each contrarian bloc votes for the other party’s candidate, won’t the result be a nomination of the two uniparty candidates, just on opposite tickets?
Only a good thing if the MSM cover it, which is by no means guaranteed. But worth a shot in hopes they might, for sure.
@mytwocents December 24th, 2011 at 2:11 pm
Good question. I didn’t really assume 2 contrarian blocs (I thought more in terms of 1 contrarian bloc, that would unite forces to break up the D/R straightjacket.) However, your scenario – 1 D leaning contrarian bloc, 1 R leaning contrarian bloc – is probably more realistic for many districts. The Tea Parties are 1/3 the way there, as an R leaning contrarian bloc (see Tea Party about to cross the Rubicon, become more effective – Wimpy Progressives, watch out! Although the Tea Parties are more aggressive than progressives (who are shamefully wimpy, IMO), even they don’t have the nerve to advocate voting for a Democrat, to teach a Republican a lesson, in a general election. They are intending to run their own candidates (I guess as 3rd party) in the general election.)
Even your scenario would be far preferable to what we have now, IMO. For one thing, you can see that Tea Party favorites are even unpopular with the Republican base. (Though the “can’t win” factor is hard to evaluate. Kucinich didn’t do too well when he ran in 2008, either.) I suppose that the most likely, short term scenario might tend towards more right-wing Republicans and more left-wing Democrats getting elected. That might well lead to grid lock on some issues, but significant progress on others, like campaign finance reform. Also, about 40% of Tea Partiers are anti-war. So, we might anticipate cutting the military.
Further election cycle iterations would, I believe, favor candidate who tended towards the populist middle. I.e., the middle of the 99%, NOT the middle of the Washington elite bubble universe. (That’s the one that only wants to talk about public option vs. no public option, and not even mention single payer).
For another reason why we’d still be better off in your scenario, consider how OWS gave people hope, and has sparked a lot of parallel activism. Shake up the system, and all of a sudden, all sorts of possibilities start popping into peoples’ heads. Here’s Ralph Nader talking about the overlap of Ron Paul with progressives. We need more of this sort of inquiry and coalition building, not less.
@mytwocents
See also Wanted: Republicans who plan to sell off CA and NY, to pay the national debt
If you live in a strongly R district, nothing you do on the Democratic side of the fence is going to make much difference (in the near term; after shaking up the system, all bets are off). I’m ignoring the complications of considering the Senate, of course.
This change in Ohio’s law can’t be blamed on just the controlling half of the Uniparty:
“Governor John Kasich signed the bill on Thursday, officially setting the primary date and the map. The Senate passed the bill with a 27-6 vote just an hour and a half after the House passed it 77-17 on Wednesday.”
Source: http://www.mydailysentinel.com/view/full_story/16821834/article-House-and-Senate-approve-Ohio-redistricting-plans
Agreed. Your effort to round up disgruntled Dems and lead them off the reservation is greatly appreciated. Boycott the legacy parties and support the resistance (currently that would be OWS). If you want to engage in electoral politics fine. Just don’t work for, contribute to or vote for the rat bastard D’s and R’s.
DING! DING! DING!
This is why the NPA has been differentiating between PDA/MoveOn/Dem Party “progressives” (small p) and true Progressives (capital P): Those who will NOT compromise on Progressive ideals like those in the Unified Platform under any circumstances.
Until a TRUE Progressive platform enjoys “our-way-or-the-highway” advocacy of a determination equal to that of the conservative elements who have sold us down the river, Progressivism will never again flourish in America as it did 100 years ago.
Did you mean the *conservative* half of the UniParty? Just to be clear, it is undoubtedly BOTH halves (Dem and GOP) that made this happen, and that’s why the UniParty sucks.
To clarify:
I wondered whether the Dems might blame this law on the Reps and whether Dem supporters could do so, so I looked for the vote. I meant “controlling” as the majority bunch in the two houses of the legislature. Passage of the law got substantial support from both halves of the Uniparty, once again proving that there ain’t a dime’s worth of difference, etc..
P.S. – Happy holidays to all and thanks again to Anthony for your good work!
Thanks mytwocents. I am old and tired, and should have “gotten” that from your first post :) Happy holidays to you and yours as well.
Thanks workingclass, you’ve been a stalwart supporter of the effort since Day One, and I can’t thank you enough. Have a great Christmas.