Political Parties

Copyright (c) 2006 by Blake S. Atkin

If you have read the Constitution lately, you will see that there is nothing in there about political parties. In fact, if you read the writing of the founders, you will find that some of them were very wary of political parties. Indeed, strong political parties would tend to dilute the mechanisms of checks and balances and diversified constituencies that we have discussed.

However, in practice, American political parties have tended to be weak kneed machines. If you have watched the voting in this country, the Republicans and the Democrats each have their base, but in order to get elected they have to draw those who consider themselves “independent.” Further, if you watch the workings of Government you see that even though the president is the head of his political party, if local politics (the constituencies) of a particular congressman is strong he will go for the local and thumb his nose at the president

All in all, because of their weakness, political parties do not greatly threaten those elements of our government that keep us a self determinant people. If you see efforts to strengthen political parties, you should do all you can to defeat such efforts. A recent example of the kind of political party power consolidation that we should condemn occurred with the presidential debates. Perhaps you’ve noticed that the last time there was an third party (other than democrat or republican) candidate involved in a presidential debate was Ross Perot, when he debated George Bush and Bill Clinton. Why is that? Are there no more third parties? Here again, if you voted recently you have seen that there is a number of third parties. The reason that they have not been invited to the debates is a dangerous development. Before, when there was an attempt to accommodate independent views the debates were sponsored by the League of Women Voters. When the Democrats and Republicans demanded that they not invite third party candidates the League refused. Whereupon the Democrats and Republicans coopted the debates. This was a sad and potentially dangerous development.