Long week at work and still not done! (Hence, the small number of recent posts.) But I wanted to park a link to a blog post that instapundit.com linked to yesterday, “If the GOP wants to jumpstart a National 3rd Party movement for Conservatives ,” on a blog called datechguyblog.com, which I hadn’t run into before.
His basic arguement is that conservatives should form a third party, as negotiating leverage with the “party bosses” if nothing else, but he starts off with the key point that the GOP leadership, based on various reporting, is eager to cut a deal with the Democrats on an immigration amnesty, on the basis that they’ve got their base locked up, with nowhere else to go anyway, especially if they wait until after the filing deadline for primary challengers — but the Romney and McCain campaigns have demonstrated that if you move too far to the middle, you may not find your “base” voting for an upstart challenger, but you will find that they just stay home, not in an intentional boycott, but just because, in marginal situations that repeat themselves in town after town, precinct after precinct, they’re just not as motivated to make it to the polls when it’s inconvenient, or to campaign heavily, or work the get-out-the-vote drives. (Just re-read that sentence — I’d fail the “short & simple” writing guidelines.)
The fundamental problem is that our winner-take-all political system lacks a structural role for third parties, in the way that proportional systems such as Germany’s offer.
On my to-do list (for next week, or maybe this weekend if I get everything that’s due today sent off) is to work this idea out more fully and see if I can brainstorm on alternative solutions. . .
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