Third Party Myths; or, Why You'd Be Nuts to Leave the GOP

Every so often, someone decides that the world is too corrupt to reform. And they start a political party.

Sometimes this makes sense. More often, though, it's just foolishness, and bad stewardship to boot. And for Christians today, that's exactly where things stand.

Third party advocates will sputter and fume at this. They'll talk about conscience, as though there are no issues of conscience concerning the second-order consequences of their actions when they help a leftist win. They'll pontificate about how God could sovereignly raise up an army of believers for their new party, as if He cannot do the same thing in the Republican Party, or even the Democrat Party. They'll claim we are advocating power politics, while they advocate electing a President (just a President) and using his veto pen and executive orders to thwart all other freely elected branches of the American government.

The particular third party which advocates that last bit, by the way, only passed the resolution declaring itself officially "Christian" by one vote. But no one ever mentions that, of course, any more than they notice that their preferred method of "reform" would involve making their standard bearer a dictator.

Like most things which ought not be done, this is all very well-intentioned. The advocates of this are fed up with the compromises of many leaders in the Republican Party, can't stand the outright wickedness they see in their government, and want to do something now. This is all admirable, and correct.

What is not correct is the set of myths which swirl about third parties, myths without which those parties could not attract even the handful of followers they have. Here are a few of them.

1. The Republican Party is a monolithic entity, controlled by Washington "insiders".

The exact opposite is true. In fact, the Republican Party (like the Democrat Party), is made up of literally thousands of legally independent entities, none of which have any power to tell each other what to do, expel each other from the party, or meddle (much) in each other's affairs. That's all the county parties, all the state parties, all the regional groupings, even the various national entities (yes, the National Republican Congressional Committee is completely separate from its Senatorial counterpart and even from the Republican National Committee). That's not even counting the support groups, like the Republican Women and the College Republicans; and the support groups are as independent of each other as they are of the party, and the national, state, and local levels of each of these are independent as well.

In fact, there are only two ways in which any of these bodies are joined together: (1) in most (but not all) states, campaign finance laws lump them together for the purpose of limiting total contributions; and (2) in most cases, the lower bodies elect the levels immediately above them. That's it; that's all. And for the most part, this isn't a choice: it's the law. If a third party ever grew large enough to be subject to those laws, it would have to be "organized" the very same way.

2. Okay, but none of that matters, because the "big boys" keep control by disbursing the money.

Pardon me while every activist in America laughs. Each party organ just mentioned has the joy of raising its own money. That's why, once you get on their phone lists, you get constant telemarketing calls from the NRCC and the NRSC and the RNC and your state Republican Party, plus any number of other groups. And since they have to raise their own money, they're loath to share it: they each have their own kingdoms to build. This is why the majority of county Republican parties in America have an annual budget of less than $1,000. That's not being "bought"; it's not even getting taken to dinner.

3. Well maybe, but the party bosses in Washington certainly control the elected officials.

Nope. Once again, follow the money: the candidates have to raise their own too. And whomever this might or might not come from, precious little of it comes from the party. Quite the contrary: the various party organs depend on the officeholders to raise money for them.

It gets worse (or better, depending on your perspective): the parties don't pick the candidates either. They recruit very few of them, they recruit opponents for a lot of the ones they have, and they have no say in who gets nominated. The law, once again, has usurped this traditional party role, once guaranteed by the First Amendment freedom of association: even though a political party is a private organization, its candidates must be chosen (for the most part) by a vote of the people. And in many states, "the people" don't even have to identify with the party in whose primary they vote! In states like Michigan and Arkansas, Democrats frequently flood the Republican primary to elect the "Republican" of their choice. In Louisiana, no party nominee is selected at all: everyone has to run in one big primary together, with the result that the two general election opponents are usually both Democrats.

This means that parties have no say in the most important thing parties do. Likewise, candidates, having been turned into lone wolves, have exactly as much loyalty to their party as happens to suit their own personal agenda. And once again, this is the law: the Constitution and Reform Parties would, if they ever got big enough, have to play by the same rules.

4. Whatever. I'm sticking with my teeny-tiny party because no one could possibly take over that whole, gigantic Republican Party.

Newsflash, friend: if you can't manage to take the Republican Party -- much of which already broadly agrees with you -- how are you ever going to take the whole country?

The fact is, all the things I just described mean that the Republican Party is completely open to any movement which can produce the numbers and organizational skill to get the job done. If you show up with enough people, you win all the offices at the county committee. Win enough county committees, and you have a majority of the state committee. Win enough of those, and you have the whole party.

The party is porous at the bottom: you just have to know what to do, and have the patience to stick with it. Sure, unorganized grassroots will rubberstamp lots of stuff the higher-ups want, but the power is still below; and if a leader — or leaders — organized them, they could easily and quickly permeate the whole party with their agenda. If.

The problem remains that the party is very big: there are 3066 counties in America, and it would require organizing, taking over, and controlling the Republican committee in a majority of the counties in a majority of the states to be able to elect most of the state committees and the national committee. This, to many third party folk, seems impossible.

It isn't. And if it is, they should abandon their third party as well: building a third party that was vaguely competitive would require organizing even more counties still. And its one thing to get people involved in reforming something they've heard of and (probably) already belong to; it's quite another matter to get them to go off with Don Quixote.

Hey, lay off my weight! And anyway, the answer's pretty simple, and you'll have to deal with it no matter which party you pick.

Our problem isn't mean old bad Republicans preventing us from holding office. In fact, nearly all the vocal Christian officeholders in America are Republicans, and studies show that the Christian Right has steadily gained power (although not yet control) over the past eight years in all but seven of the nation's state Republican parties, and outright control in seven more. The problem — and this is especially true the more particular you get about what you want believed and done — is that Christians don't have enough cultural influence to consistently field candidates and win primaries, much less fill party positions. There are huge chunks of the country where we never run anyone at all.

Now whose fault is that? The left's? Billy Graham's? The New World Order's? I don't think so.

If Christians are thin on the ground — and if the Christians we have are less sound than some might prefer — we have no one to blame but ourselves. It's our job to disciple, our job to preach, our job to fill the Earth with the things we believe. And it seems to me that if we can't even get our own local churches and denominations running decently, we shouldn't expect any better success in an endeavor (politics) where people normally have some idea of what they're doing. Hint: ranting at them won't work any better than it did in the last three Reformed denominations you left.

Winning takes more than ranting. Winning takes a lot of prayer, and a lot of time. It takes preparation (ask Moses). It takes set-backs (ask David). It takes enough postmillennial vision to stick with something which may not be fulfilled in your lifetime (ask Abraham). And it takes a plan; preferably a plan which doesn't require multiple miracles to have any hope of success.

6. Okay, you've convinced me. But after all that stuff about how impotent the party structure is, why would we want it? Why not just run candidates?

You can't elect candidates without a tremendous labor pool. The party has it. Likewise, you can't do it without raising money; and people don't like giving money to things they've never heard of, much less things they're convinced can't win.

Why reinvent the wheel? If all you have is enough activists to organize a county anyway, organize yours. Go to your Republican county committee meeting, get involved, and when it comes time for officer elections, elect some good ones. If you don't like what the rest of the party's doing, pass your own platform. Send out press releases. Do whatever you want to do. And like the Apostle Paul, go teach other Christians in other counties to do the same thing.

Somewhere along the way, in your area/state/whatever, the word "Republican" is going to come to mean what you say it means. And at the same time, you're going to have a real say in the real world, from the election commission seats which are legally guaranteed to the Republican Party to the press coverage which comes when a Democrat does something and your local newspaper needs to cover "the other side." Oh, and the donor base: don't forget the donor base. Because lots of people will vote for and give money to Republicans just because they're Republicans, and they couldn't care less what those Republicans believe.

I’m not sure why you classify Bell as anti-slavery. He campaigned on a platform, if you can call it that, of continuing the compromises that had got the Union to where it was.

He opposed secession by his native TN, but accepted it when he couldn’t stop it, unlike Andrew Johnson, who fought on in exile.

The Crittenden Compromises were perhaps a good example of his political philosophy, and they were certainly not anti-slavery in any real sense.

I would rank Douglass as more anti-slavery than Bell.

Lincoln - 39.8%

Douglas - 29.5%

Breckinridge - 18.1%

Bell - 12.6%

Thus, if you class Bell as anti-slavery, which I don’t, the anti-slavery candidates totaled 81.9%.

More realistically classifying Bell as pro-slavery gives you 30.7% for slavery, and 69.3% against. Of course 1M+ black men were not allowed to vote.

Convenient, but not an accurate reflection of what occurred.

How so? George H.W. Bush lost the election for the Republicans. Or, did he just blow it off to win it for the Democrats?

Regardless, that is how I see Giuliani... A Trojan Horse on the issues for the Democrats to nullify the conservative activist core of the Republican party.

Turning the general election into a second Democrat primary will lose the election. I am perfectly fine with letting you lose it, because it is the issues that matter, not the fancy Madison Avenue designer labels.

If Giuliani really wanted to take Mrs. Clinton off the table, he would have done something when she sought reelection to the Senate the second time around.

He didn't. He campaigned in lots of other places for other candidates who all lost. (He even endorsed flaming leftist Mario Cuomo previously over Republican George Pataki in a New York gubernatorial race.)

That is not someone I want leading the GOP if I am to remain in the party. It is a track record of failure.

“Amnesty was defeated. Point scored.”

Yet the illegals are still pouring across our borders by the thousands. Bush as well as Giuliani are open border politicians. We are almost past the crossroads of the illegal immigration problem. You won’t have to worry about who you elect.

Americans have built this country up to be the greatest nation on earth. Americans strive to get ahead by providing the best for their families, good neighborhoods, schools, less crime, better health care. However, our politicians are allowing all of the ills of this imported poverty to wreak havoc on the very things we strive for.

I will not vote for a candidate unless they promote for building a 2,000 mile fence, deporting illegals, fining employers who hire illegals, and remove the social programs that are given to illegals.

THE ONLY WAY THE IMMIGRATION ISSUE IS GOING TO GET RESOLVED IS TO VOTE THESE POLITICIANS OUT OF OFFICE. READ THE CONSTITUTION PARTY’S PLATFORM.

Bush has been a major disappointment. He claims to be doing the work of the people. It surely is not his core conservative base. Illegal immigration, big government expansion, an ill advised war have been total disasters.

but to refuse to exercise your "duty as a citizen" simply because you are stubbornly blind is not being a Conservative, it is reacting just like the Liberals. It is acting out of pure emotion rather than reason and to be Conservative one must have reasoning power.

Indeed. So I would ask you, why do you refuse to do that duty?

Why do you remain stubbornly blind, voting for a party that neither represents you, nor what you profess to believe in? Isn't that, in fact, more the emotional knee-jerk liberal-like reaction you had just accused me of? "Vote for the party, no matter what"- Isn't that a trait of Democrats?

It certainly isn't a function of conservative reason to vote for candidates that are not just nominally conservative on an issue or two, but are the antithesis of conservatism on almost every issue. Yet you would have me vote for them? It is you who is being unreasonable. You tempt me, not in the least.

I am a Republican, don’t intend on leaving, but won’t vote for Giuliani... I’ll write in “Bullwinkle” first...

And no, I have always voted Republican, given money and actually worked as a party activist in many elections at the local, state and federal levels. I even publicly predicted George W. Bush would be the next president on a large regional radio station during an afternoon drive time when he was campaigning for governor of Texas (I supported his candidacy for president back then).

I am voting on the issues, not on a cult of personality. The fancy Madison Avenue designer labels don’t mean a thing anymore, epecially if you are talking about moving the party to the left. No thanks.

Turning the general election into a second Democrat primary is absurd...

Believing in the Chimera of the perfect Conservative candidate is irrational. Believing that there is no substantive difference between Hillary and Rudy or Mitt is irrational.

Not choosing the lesser of two evils by sitting out an election and whining is irrational and irresponsible.

I vote for the Republican because the alternative is unthinkable. In the final analysis, I place my nation's welfare above my own narrow philosophical preferences; to do otherwise is selfish and irrational. It is the act of an immature and underdeveloped sense of duty.

One only has to look back into our nation's history to observe that however abhorrent one may find the Republican candidate to be through the lense of conservatism, the Democrat alternative has invariably been worse. I give youJohn Fitzgerald Kennedy, creator of the "White House of Prostitution," "the Bay of Pigs Fiasco," and "the Cuban Missle Crisis," Lyndon Baines Johnson, creator of the "Great Society," Jimmy Carter, creator of the "Economic Triple Double" (double digit inflation, double digit interest rates and double digit unemployment), and William Jefferson Clinton, creator of "the Oval Office B.J.," "the Most Corrupt Administration in American history," and the primary cause, by his inaction and inattention, of our problems with terrorism.

So you tell me, who is the rational one in this discussion, the one who will vote for a Republican candidate that meets a few but not all of his standards, or the one who is willing to sit out an election because he can't find a reason to vote for the lesser of two evils thus allowing another Democrat to win the White House?

On second thought, don't bother. It's a rhetorical question. completely out of your league.

Believing in the Chimera of the perfect Conservative candidate is irrational.

I never suggested a belief in a perfect conservative candidate. I only want a candidate who could be considered to be conservative. As I had said earlier, I will vote for any candidate who stands for traditional conservatism and has a record that backs him up. RudyMcRomney is not conservative.

Believing that there is no substantive difference between Hillary and Rudy or Mitt is irrational.

I said nothing of the kind to you- Since we're on the subject, Which of the three stands upon traditional planks of the Republican platform, and how many of those planks do they stand upon? Lets leave the WOT out of it, as none of the above are qualified to be Commander in Chief.

Not choosing the lesser of two evils by sitting out an election and whining is irrational and irresponsible.

I will not be staying home- But I already know that I will not vote for RudyMcRomney. They do not deserve the vote. I will vote for someone, however.

I vote for the Republican because the alternative is unthinkable. In the final analysis, I place my nation's welfare above my own narrow philosophical preferences [...]

LOL! "narrow philosophical preferences"... Is that what we are calling principles now? How absurd! How does voting for liberal RINOS aid in our nations welfare? I would think it quite the reverse.

One only has to look back into our nation's history to observe [...]

That argument is untenable- While I agree to a point, you are assuming their Republican counterparts would have been better. That is not valid, and cannot be proven.

the one who will vote for a Republican candidate that meets a few but not all of his standards

RudyMcRomney do not qualify as meeting "a few but not all". Again, judging by their records, which traditional conservative principles can you honestly be confident that they would uphold?

If you believe that Goldwater would not have been better than Johnson, that Nixon would not have been better than Kennedy, that Ford would not have been better than Carter, and that Bush senior would not have been better than Clinton then your entire argument is untenable, historically uninformed and naive as to the point of absurdity.

Having agreed with you (to a point), I merely suggest that we can't assume it is so- As an example: Bush's second term looks *nothing* like his first. To predict an alternative history is a useless and unprovable endeavor.

Perhaps you could provide an answer to the questions I posed in the previous post rather than ranting without substance.

You are, to be blunt, clueless.

Yeah, right. Whatever.

"Leave out the WOT as none of the above is qualified to be Commander in Chief."

According to what standard? Yours?

Yeah, let's leave out the single most important issue facing America today and the single most important duty of our government. We don't want to discuss that because we know that all three of the front runners are hardline opponents of our terrorist enemies.

Are you claiming that John McCain would be weak in defending our nation against the Terrorists? Do you truly believe that Rudy or Mitt would be weak against al Qaeda or the various terrorist groups against whom we are fighting? YOu think Hillary would be, in any way, more effective this time around in fighting the same people she and Bill spent eight years ignoring?

You ought to be a stand-up commedian.

You ask me to tell you why I would be willing to support a man with whom I disagree on a very basic and gut level on the three main social issues facing America today, abortion, guns, and gay marriage. I have answered that question. I am willing to do so because the first and primary obligation of the President and the rest of our government is defense of the nation.

I am also not so paranoid as you when it comes to our 2nd amendment rights. There are enough in congress who would stand against any abridgement (beyond those already in place) of our rights (hopefully). I also do not believe that the repeal of the second amendment is at or anywhere near the top of "RudyMcRomney's" agenda.

The real fantasy here is your belief that we can teach those ba$tards a lesson if we let Hillary get elected. That is a genuine fantasy based on the flimsey hope that another Ronald Reagan will suddenly appear as savior of our nation. Ronald Reagan did not suddenly appear, he was fighting the battle long and hard for decades, he was a great orator, and had a compelling presence on stage combined with a disarming wit. He had a strong single-minded agenda which was to restore America to the place of primacy in which it belonged.

I have looked far and wide an I see no Reagans waiting in the wings to propel Republicans into ascendency if we lose. I see no Newt Gingrich's in Congress with the depth and breadth of historical knowledge or the ability to schmooze his opponents the way he did, in the offing. There is no guarantee that America will "wake up" once we are under the socialist rule of Hillary and the Democrat party.

What I see is a voting populace that is more and more preoccupied with "reality TV," scandal ridden celebrities, and as Juvenal said (pay attention sonny):

"iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli vendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim imperium fasces legiones omnio, nunc se continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat panem et circenses.

(Long ago, the people cast off their concerns, when we stopped selling our votes. The people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things — bread and circuses.)"

With a Democrat House and Senate and with Hillary, Barrack, or John in the White House, we may never get the chance to once more "meddle." With implementation of the "fairness doctrine," they can effectively squelch all public opposition and alternative media. With more and more middle class welfare, they can buy the votes they need to continue their domination. They did it once before and held on to the House for forty uninterrupted years. What makes you so sure they can't or won't do it again? History says the odds are against you.

What you and those like you who are so adamantly opposed to any moderate RINO presidential candidate are doing is betting the fate of our nation on the intellect of a population whose reading comprehension, educational quality, and reasoning ability is in steady decline. If we are to surmount or reverse the damage which has already been done, we must swallow our pride and gag down the lesser of two evils in the hope that a better Republican might rise up to lead us. No matter how good a man Duncan Hunter is, he is one of the most uncharismatic and unelectable politicians out there and no amount of wishing it were otherwise will change that fact.

Voting for a 3rd party candidate will yeild the same result this time as it did the last time. A Democrat in the White House with a Democrat majority in both houses.

If you cannot see these thruths, then forget about it and go ahead and pout your way to the new Socialist regime.

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