Two-Party System Woes

A particularly cringe-worthy exchange took place May 21st on Larry King Live. The exchange was between Jesse Ventura, the former (independent) governor of Minnesota and a philosophical libertarian, and Charlie Rangel and Robert Wexler, two Democratic congressmen. A snippet of the transcript is included for those of you that missed it:

VENTURA: You know, people like me, who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal, we're made to choose the lesser of the two evils all the time. And, you know, if you're -- and it puts you in a precarious position, because there's no real candidate that I could say represents my viewpoint and my lifestyle [...] because we don't have more choices than the two that are offered, either liberal liberal or conservative conservative.

KING: Congressman Wexler, does he have a point?

WEXLER: No, he does not.

[...]

WEXLER: Senator Obama has offered a very fiscally responsible economic plan to both bolster the economic conditions of ordinary Americans. He's talking about an ambitious energy plan to relieve our dependence on foreign oil. He's talking about shoring up social security. He's also talking about giving tax relief to working Americans. I believe that this actually is a very practical, important economic proposal for the country.

At the same time, he's offering a different kind of foreign policy, which will make America safer, begin to extricate ourselves from the war in Iraq and engage, with a position of leverage and strength, with some of the most difficult parties in the world.

KING: I want Charlie Rangel to respond to what Jesse's thoughts were.

Do you think that there's a need for a third activist party here, Charlie?

RANGEL: Of course not. But he's entitled to his opinion.

(CROSSTALK)

RANGEL: And I assume when he reaches the point that he can bring out the crowds that Obama and Clinton are coming, then it would mean that he's been able to attract a lot of people to his point of view.

But right now, the country has done pretty well in electing outstanding leaders. And in this particular election, it is clear that Hillary Clinton and Senator Obama have captured the imagination of millions of people throughout the country.

So you can't deny one who says he doesn't want any of the options and he has the best view. And that's what makes America so great.

I don’t even know where to start. I swear I become more of a Jesse Ventura fan every time I hear him speak. In fact, his first statement embodies my entire political philosophy and explains my seemingly perpetual dissatisfaction with our elected officials. As a “small-L” libertarian, I feel like the 2008 election will either boil down to a lesser-of-two-evils vote or, more likely, a vote “wasted” on a third-party candidate.

And what’s this nonsense about America doing “pretty well in electing outstanding leaders”? This is an interesting point to make, given the fuss that Democrats (rightly) make about our current president. Further, out of the last forty years’ worth of US presidents (Bush Jr., Clinton, Bush Sr., Reagan, Carter, Ford, and Nixon), we have had maybe two decent administrations. It’s quite a stretch to call them “outstanding.”

My primary gripe is this: the opinion shared by Wexler and Rangel that we do not need a viable third party for people that identify with libertarian values is just plain dumb. Rangel’s point about Ventura not receiving massive turnouts compared to a Democratic super-star is as mind-boggling stupid as it is shallow. Does Congressman Rangel completely discount the likely possibility that one of the reasons Ventura draws relatively small crowds is that he refuses to join a party and not the other way around? Is it completely inconceivable that if Obama hadn’t been a Democrat (or a Republican) then he wouldn’t be such a powerful politician? Does Rangel not understand that a primary factor in a person’s party identification is his or her parents’ political affiliation and identification, which further renders proof-by-popularity a moot point? I hate to succumb to Godwin’s Law, but the Nazi party enjoyed great popularity in its day, too.

Politicians have always been the sorts of people who have no qualms back-tracking over their own historical record to increase their own power. At a time when at least twenty percent of survey-taking Americans (that are, of course, susceptible to self-selection bias) hold libertarian beliefs, the statements by Rangel and Wexler are completely incorrect. One would think that the party that champions voter-fraud reform would want to see to it that the libertarian-leaning portion of America had its voice heard, not stifled. Plus, Rangel is a Clinton supporter and Clinton has been steadfast in her belief that Florida and Michigan votes should be considered in determining the Democratic nominee. What gives? Democrats in rule-breaking states should have votes, but the libertarian voice can be dismissed as a fringe that has no significant representation in society?

Or does disenfranchisement only apply to Democrats and Republicans?

The simple fact is that the liberal/conservative spectrum has a nice symmetry with our two-party system but it does an extremely poor job of accurately portraying the beliefs of many Americans. I’m for tax reform but against the drug war. Does that make me a liberal or a conservative? A slightly better partitioning of political philosophies is the two-by-two matrix developed by William S. Maddox and Stuart A. Lilie in “Beyond Liberal and Conservative”. A variation of this 2d matrix is used in the Enhanced Political Quiz. Even this approach is not perfect, but it is much better than the one-dimensional political spectrum.  Perhaps a similarly “enhanced” version of our one-dimensional two-party system would work better.

The Republicans used to have people like Barry Goldwater.  Until recently, the Democrats had Mike Gravel. But just as the one-dimensional liberal/conservative spectrum fails, so fails our two-party system. In a competition betweens Democrats (“liberal liberals”) and Republicans (“conservative conservatives”), libertarians like me have no viable party to consistently support.