People versus parties

parties carry history, people carry hopes

Published on February 4, 2004 By Solitair In Politics

I once saw a statistic saying that 80% of the American population would always vote for their political party irrespective of it's policies. While I don't believe the number is so high (and I can't find the reference) it seems believeable that many people do indeed always vote the same party. I see it among my friends and colleagues. Worse is the fact that many of them have no idea of who their candidate even is, just which party they stand for. So what's wrong with this? How can it be put right?

The wrongness is that many people are behaving like sheep. Every election they should be asking themselves who is best for me. Who will take the decisions that I want taken. Even more importantly people should listen to what all candidates have to say. There may be questions that people forgot to ask. Issues the candidates raise that are indeed very important. Finally once them are informed, people should make the decision on who to support.

I can imagine most people nodding sagely at this sensible advice. But in reality most people don't inform themselves of what the candidates stand for. A major part of the problem is to do with parties. Parties have replaced people in elections.

In my opinion the sooner elections return to being about the people and not parties the better. Sure people can belong to political parties but it's very different. Try replacing a current candidate name in recent posts and you get very stupid statements like "Bush freed the slaves, Kerry to save slavery". I don't care what happened 150 years ago. I care about what going to happen in the next 4 years. I want to vote for a candidate who inspires confidence in me. Someone who I can hold responsible for their achievements and failures. Someone who makes promises that I can then see if they keep.

So I say to posters. Please relagate historical 'my party was better than your party posts' to the history forum where they belong, and leave the politics forum for discussing real day political issues. Lets get some proper political discussions going about the individual's policies, the promises they are making, the future they want to create for the American people.

Paul

Comments

JEPEL

on Feb 04, 2004

The use of historical facts in the way you describe look more like unclever propaganda to me. It shows also a negative way of arguing, saying you did this and that wrong so shut up you cannot raise those issue. Like you, I find the manner untrue, too easy and really partisant.
Nice post

Franco Mazzaro

on Feb 12, 2004

I never registered Democrat or Republican in my life. I too felt disgruntled and annoyed at people’s stupidity when it comes to knowing the difference between candidates and political parties, let alone being able to comprehend different political philosophies. However, I recently move to Los Angeles from Brooklyn, and out here you have an even greater level of ignorance. It goes something like this: Forget political parties – too boring. What we need is celebrities! Yeah! I like his movie, he’s got my vote. I like her face, and she’s wearing glasses, that means she’s smart…etc.

I’m all in favor of selling Southern California to Mexico for a couple of pesos.

PoetPhilosopher

on Feb 13, 2004

Funny - I feel just the opposite.

As a voter you have an incomplete picture of a candidate - party affilliation is a useful way to fill in the blanks.

Sure it would be nice to sit down with them and discuss not only how they voted in the past, but what are their fundamental beliefs, how they will vote in the future, going thru every scenario of every decision they might make while in office, but it's impractical.

Multiply that by every candidate on the national and local level - commissioner, mayor, governor, judges, etc, etc, etc.

A candidate declaring a party affiliation is [or at least should be] a way of that candidate saying - "my views are most similar to this group of people".

I don't care about the specific details, but I know the Republicans favor making the economy strong thru tax incentives to business and I support that.

I don't care about the specific details, but I know that Democrats stand up for protecting the poor by giving them a safety net.

I'm curious, do you analyze every candidate you vote for? In how much detail? If not, how do you draw the line?

Besides both parties are shades of the same color, and anyone outside the norm is "unelectable", right ?

thoughts?

Solitair

on Feb 13, 2004

Interesting approach.

I do indeed analyse whoever I vote for. Whether this is in a local election or a national election doesn't matter. I suppose I don't trust parties, I trust individuals. Maybe coming from a multi-party country means taht the differences between parties is not as marked. Sure I know what the party manifestos say, but no one ever sticks to those. So I have to ask, is this person the one who believes in these issues and will vote in accordance with those beliefs.

I suppose if parties were legally obliged to carry out any laws they propose in their election promises then things would be different.

Paul.

messybuu

on Feb 13, 2004

People do vote by parties for reason as Poet explained. It's not as if people choose to vote for parties who are completely opposed to their beliefs, and if a party or a candidate really pisses them off, they're going to vote differently, as seen in California's recall. Also, I think the two main parties seem quite similar to each other because people, for the most part, have similar beliefs and also don't want radical parties that'll turn the US into a country ran by fickleness, no matter how different it is.

Franco Mazzaro

on Feb 13, 2004

My problem political parties is that they don’t work for the people that they are supposed to work for. For now, I’ll give one example.

In the Jan/Feb 2004 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Joshua Green wrote an article “In Search of the Elusive Swing Voter,” which stated that “Two decades ago as much as a third of the voting public was deemed to be in play. [Campaign] Strategists in both parties have narrowed their focus to no more than 10 percent of the electorate.”

So what does this mean to me, some who has never registered for any political party? In national elections, it means I’m worth nothing, because I vote in New York, which almost always goes Democrat. I’ve been alive since Nixon, and no matter who has been President, New York always pays out more in national taxes than it receives back in services. Who is looking out for me? Not the Republicans, they never get the New York vote. But not the Democrats either. Why should they make waves in the rest of the country by supporting New York when they know they will get our vote anyway. How do I win here?

JeremyG

on Feb 13, 2004

I call Bullshit on that....not even 80% of the american population votes in the first place

AR-15

on Feb 14, 2004

"Swing voters are more appropriately
known as the 'idiot voters' because they have no set of philosophical
principles. By the age of fourteen, you're either a Conservative or a Liberal if
you have an IQ above a toaster."

-- Ann Coulter

Listen to Ann

on Feb 14, 2004

Ann Coulter's "Simpleton's Logic" assumes that our current political party system is divided along conservative and liberal ideologies. Clinton ushered in NAFTA which was one of the most detrimental policies effecting the working poor in this country. Her whole statement makes her sound as if she were educated by the toaster she makes reference to.

Solitair

on Feb 16, 2004

It's interesting to conpare the American system with some of the European systems.

I live in the UK and for national elections there is a 'first past the post' system. This means that only 1 candidate gets elected in a single constituency. Therefore the voters who vbote for the otehr candidate are unrepresented.

In Some Eu countries there is proportional representation. Here a constituenty consists of multiple seats. Votes are counted. Any candidate with enough votes is elected and their spare votes are allocated to the voter's second preferences. If no all the seats are not filled then the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and their votes allocated to the voters second preference. This system ensures that the majority of voters count and feel that someone is representing them in power.

A variation of this also seen in the EU awards a fraction of seats in this manner and then awards more seats based on the total vote for the party. So a party may have 3 candidates win seats, but because it got a higher percentage of the vote across the country may be given an extra 32 seats.

None of these systems really answers the problem with a presedential system though as you're voting for a single person. In such situations I don't think the party matters as much as the person. That is the basic focus of this article. A presendential election is about the now and the man or woman being voted for. Previous party history should not play any part.

Paul.

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