As we await the third and final presidential “debate” tonight, one can reflect on the way in which our two-party system has put a straight-jacket on the range of choices that voters can exercise in an American presidential election. We really are limited to the choice of Democratic and Republican Party candidates. While a third party candidates’ debate is scheduled for Sunday October 19, no one seriously believes that any one of these candidates has the slightest chance of winning the election, as probably 90% of voters have already made their choices before they ever heard any debate except by those on the Democratic and Republican tickets. Here they are, folks, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, who is your choice? If you say “none of the above” you are accused of sabotaging the electoral chances of one or another of T or T; so you’re expected to fall in line and play the two-party game of choosing between the only “viable” candidates.
Well, I could reluctantly play this game, perhaps, if I felt that I and other “principled progressives” had the slightest opportunity to express our political viewpoint in the primary nominating process by means of which these candidates were selected. And that is precisely what we did not have. Just ask Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel and their supporters. They were excluded from the Democratic and Republican primary debates and effectively from running for President on the circular reasoning that they had insufficient support to be “viable” candidates and therefore were not to be granted an opportunity to become viable candidates. I wrote of this exclusionary process in an article on the “uninviting” of Dennis Kucinich to participate in the Democratic debates, but the same process applies as well to the exclusions of Paul, Gravel and other “fringe” candidates, leaving only centrists McCain and Obama to provide the only two “viable” electoral options in the November elections. Those who incastigate those of us who persist in supporting third party candidates whose views reflect those excluded from primary contests, if they are true to democratic principles at all, should have been in the trenches to insist that the primary elections were fully open to those of all political persuasions. My Kucinich article made the point that not only those three Democrats who survived the eliminating processes to that point, Obama, Clinton and Edwards, made no effort at all to insist on such an inclusionary approach to the campaign. (Clinton and Edwards having been caught whispering about the necessity of eliminating “fringe” candidates from the debates). As well, there was not a peep of support from so-called “progressive” organizations like MoveOn, Democracy For America or Progressive Democrats of America to protest the exclusion of an important progressive voice from the debates. So now we are left with no progressive representative to compete within the Democratic Party and have to suffer oxymoronic entities like “Progressives for Obama” to even get our viewpoint mentioned in the campaign.
So to summarize, we (progressives) wuz robbed of our chance to express our views in the presidential primary elections, and now we are condemned as “spoilers” if we even think of voting and campaigning for independent or third party candidates. If this is democracy, please let me have a little bit of enlightened oligarchy.
Jerry D. Rose – Editor, The Sun State Activist
I’m not sure what your point is here– that is, you have already gone over this ground at some length. I disagree with you; this is indeed democracy at work, albeit a democracy of many millions of people, where most do not pay attention to the issues of the day, and only fitfully participate in the democratic process. When you say in your Kucinich article, “America has become so “success” oriented that we seldom ask whether a person should get an academy award or people should be making money on Wall Street”, I am not sure what entity “America” you are talking about. Am I “America”? If so, then I would say that you are wrong. Are you “America”? If, as I assume, you are talking about a great mass of people, then the statement is so vague as to be meaningless. The same with this current post: “we (progressives) wuz robbed”– who, precisely, is this “we”? Who, precisely, did the robbing? These are rhetorical questions. You yourself—I will not be so illiberal as to presume that you speak for all progressives (though perhaps you may feel that you do)may have to suffer oxymoronic entities, but that is the nature of a gigantic democracy, which will always have its outliers–who may certainly behave as spoilers if they so wish; but they should do so with eyes open.
Mark, thanks for your response. I’ll comment on two of your comments.
1. on the “so vague as to be meaningless” of my characterization of “Americans” as success-oriented. I don’t know what’s vague about people being so obsessed about who’s going to win an Oscar that they don’t engage in real film criticismn; or who’s going to have a chance of winning an election and pay more attention, for example, to who is “winning” in the polls and therefore who is “viable” and qualified for a debate, rather who has views that need to be represented in a debate. As for what is “America,” well I’m a sociologist (occupational hazard) and I tend to think in “culture” terms, great masses of people if you will. I look at the masses who watch an academy awards show or a super-bowl and look for what it is that appeals to so many people, and it’s apparently the case that “nothing succeeds (in popularity) like success.”
2. As for the “we” in “we wuz robbed” I speak not just for myself but for a countless number of us “outliers” who feel that, because we lie outside the pale of accepted political alternatives (but not necessarily of the feelings of “masses of people”) we are persistently denied a voice in the decision of this “gigantic democracy.” I don’t know how many folks we “outliers” are but it sure just ain’t me and plumber Joe. And it doesn’t give me a great deal of sense of comradeship with a fellow citizen that, if I persist in expressing that outlying political attitude I should do so “with eyes open.” I could as well tell my comrade to open his eyes to the way in which his “behavior” is being manipulated by corporate political parties and a corporate media.