Shouldn't there at least be a progressive third party for areas the Democrats won't contest?

[villager]

There's been a lot of talk here on DU about needing to get local again, building from the state up, etc.

But the Democrats have also famously abandoned Howard Dean's 50-state policy, already ceding too much turf -- and the battle of ideas that goes with it -- to the Republicans.

While there is much fear of an actually progressive third party splitting what vote there is from right-tilting Democrats, couldn't we all agree that a constructive role for a new progressive party -- a Labor Party, or whatever it might be -- would be to build infrastructure in areas the Democrats have already abandoned?

This Third Party probably won't win much in these areas, initially, but at least they could bring ideas out into the open that no one in such areas, or districts, is hearing -- on the campaign trail, in the local media that reports on the one or two (right-tilting and rightwing) candidates that might be running, etc.

Being tactically adept, this party wouldn't need to run a Presidential candidate, but could work at adding members to Congress (and local legislatures), and changing the discourse on the campaign trail

This could only help future Democratic Presidents. (And it would remind them they have to look over their left shoulders occasionally, too...)

[TreasonousBastard]

1. There are several, like the Green Party...

and Working Families... Others have come an gone.

The problem is the problem they have growing and gaining traction and a public voice.

[villager]

2. I'm thinking of one organized by non-traditional players in the "third party" game, like Unions

If there's enough infrastructure, complementary to the Democrats, there could become a much expanded laboratory of new ideas, in the public sphere...

[TreasonousBastard]

6. I doubt unions have the ability to do such a thing now...

Aside from possible legal complications, they could have problems with their current connections with Democrats.

Based on membership, environmental organizations may be larger than unions, so one might think the Greens have a ready, and organized, base, but that hasn't seemed to work.

The whole idea isn't a bad one, but I can't imagine how to get it working without some seriously inspired leadership.

[villager]

9. Those are all good considerations -- perhaps NGOs, instead of Unions, as far as an initial

...organizing apparatus.

And yes, there would also need to be inspired leadership.

But I think we have to start thinking "asymmetrically" now, rather than in traditional "two party" terms, since those strategies haven't worked to bring the kinds of changes we really need.

[KamaAina]

8. Working Families is in NY only

Unlike other states, NY allows parties to cross-endorse; that is, Working Families can run its own candidates for city council and assembly, but put Cuomo and Obama on their line. I don't understand why other states don't do this. It would greatly reduce the "Nader effect".

[Chathamization]

26. On the ballot in NY only, but they are active in several places supporting progressives issues and

candidates (and some not so progressive candidates as well, but they are generally a good group).

[Jackpine Radical]

27. Neither of the dominant parties likes the idea of cross-endorsement

& refuse to pass the relevant legislation when it is proposed. Personally, I think it's a neat idea, in that it more clearly shows politicians where their support is coming from.

[sabbat hunter]

10. the working families

party is very corrupt, at least here in NY.

But since this is Democratic Underground, shouldn't we be discussing ways to bring our party to the left, rather than about 3rd parties?

[Louisiana1976]

29. Yes--a third party won't be a solution because it would just draw votes away from the Democrats

and help the Repubs win. A better idea would be bringing the Democratic Party further left.

[JNelson6563]

4. It is up to the local people.

A big part of the problem is people who think a large organization should swoop in and make it happen. From a large organization's view it would not appear a wise investment of resources to pour into communities that don't even have the initiative to try.

Julie

[villager]

7. A national apparatus -- again, imagining unions here -- would bring more visibility to such efforts

Local candidates wouldn't be so atomized.

Such races could also be "labs" where new ideas that the Democrats can't / wouldn't enunciate yet, can be shaped, responded to, etc.

[MineralMan]

5. All it takes is a Democrat to run. If no Democrat runs,

there's no race. Anyone can do it in states where no Democrat is officially on the ballot. You just declare your candidacy, do whatever is required in your jurisdiction to make it official and Bob's your uncle.

Why doesn't anyone run in those places? Because there is no chance for a Democrat to even come close to winning. A third party will do no better. Some places are so desperately Red that there's no real point to running.

It actually works both ways. There were several offices in my districts where the Democrat had no Republican opponent. That's because the districts I live in will simply not vote for a Republican. It's the same thing, but in reverse.

Third parties are not the answer. Finding Democrats willing to be on the ballot and to campaign for an office they are almost certain not to win is the answer. Just being on the ballot gets the conversation going. But it's difficult to find candidates who know they can't win to take the trouble to run. But anyone can do it, even if the party doesn't care. You just have to declare and follow the procedures to get on the Primary ballot where you are. It's not really difficult. There may be a fee to pay or a number of signatures to collect, but it's always available.

[Maedhros]

28. It takes more than just running a Democratic candidate.

It takes party infrastructure and funding. If the Party leaves a candidate on an island, they likely will lose.

[MineralMan]

31. I'm talking about races where the party is

doing nothing, and has no interest. An individual can file and run as a Democrat. Winning is extremely unlikely, but there will be some votes. If the person is well known in the community, the number of votes can be surprising. If the person makes running a full time job, occasionally one of these candidates actually wins. Rare, but it happens.

There's no reason that a blank space where a Democratic candidate should be. Even a token candidate is better than none.

[Maedhros]

32. No argument there - something is better than nothing.

I do have a preference for Dean's 50-State Strategy over DWS's Six State Strategy, though.

Full court press. Give Republicans nothing without a fight.

[MineralMan]

34. Even with the 50 state strategy,

There were ballots with blank spaces where the Democrat should be. IMO, that should never be allowed to happen. Run a token, but run someone. I would run myself if there was no Democrat for any office where I lived. That has never happened, though.

[Maedhros]

40. I think there's room for both of us to be right in this instance.

More candidates, more chance to win, more pressure on the Republicans.

[MineralMan]

41. I agree.

[Recursion]

11. When did the 50 state strategy stop?

http://www.democrats.org/about/fifty_state_strategy

As far as I can tell the party still funds each state party to afford permanent personnel.

[villager]

12. "Looking Back at Howard Dean's 50-State Strategy"

"Despite opposition from national Democrats, the former Vermont governor's bid to build up party infrastructure in every state was a success in the unlikeliest of places -- at least while it lasted."

<snip>

Here's how the Democrats fared in the reddest of red states between January 2005 and January 2009, the period when the 50-state project was in operation:

State House seats: Net gain of 39 seats, a 2 percent increase of all seats in the states analyzed

State Senate seats: Net loss of two seats

Governorships: Net loss of one

Attorney generalships: Net gain of one (elected seats only)

U.S. House seats: Net gain of three seats

U.S. Senate seats: Net gain of one seat

Presidential performance: In 15 of the 20 states, the Democratic nominee saw an increase in vote share between 2004 and 2008. In three other states, the vote share remained constant. It dropped in only two states.

"Where we really made a big difference was in states like Nebraska, where Obama won an electoral vote in 2008," Dean said. "He had a real party to work with."

Overall, Democrats either improved their results in the reddest states between 2005 and 2009 or, at worst, suffered only minor setbacks, which, given the obstacles the party faced in these solidly Republican states, was almost a victory in its own right.

Now let's compare this record to the one between January 2009 and January 2013.

State House seats: Net loss of 249 seats, a decrease of 13 percent of the existing seats in those states

State Senate seats: Net loss of 84 seats, a decrease of 12 percent

Governorships: A decrease by half, from eight governors to four

Attorney generalships: A drop by two-thirds in elected AGs, from nine to three

U.S. House seats: A 40 percent drop, from 44 seats to 26

U.S. Senate seats: A drop from 11 seats to 8. (It could drop further by 2014: Of those eight remaining seats, three senators are retiring and another three face tough reelection contests.)

Presidential performance: Only two of the 20 states (Alaska and Mississippi) saw higher support for Obama in 2012 than in 2008. In most of the 20 solidly red states, Obama's 2012 vote fell back roughly to John Kerry's level from 2004.

Altogether, these post-2009 declines are, to put it bluntly, pretty catastrophic. In these 20 solidly red states, the Democrats controlled 13 legislative chambers in 2005, a number that fell to just three in 2013. Of the 40 chambers in these states, only two experienced a net gain of Democratic seats between 2005 and 2013; in the other 38, the Democrats lost ground.

<snip>

etc.

http://www.governing.com/blogs/politics/gov-democrat-howard-deans-fifty-state-strategy.html

[brooklynite]

13. Where does it say the policy was discontinued?

From the DNC website:

THE 50-STATE STRATEGY
In 2005, Democrats launched the 50-State Strategy—an ambitious effort to build the Democratic Party from the ground up in every single precinct, city, and state in the country.

We know that we won't be able to win everywhere until we are able to compete everywhere, and that means fielding candidates and providing resources to even the most traditionally "red" parts of the country. The DNC works in partnership with state Democratic parties and Organizing for America to provide resources for electoral efforts, voter registration, candidate recruitment, volunteer recruitment, and training.

In a short time, the 50-State Strategy already has a strong record of success. In the 2006 midterm elections, Democrats were able to take back the House of Representatives and pick up Senate seats in traditionally Republican Missouri and Montana. In 2008, President Obama helped expand the electoral map even further, winning states such as Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, Colorado, Nevada, and Florida.

Under Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz today, Democrats continue an aggressive and forward-looking effort based on the belief that if we invest in people, and if we invest in our party, we can turn once-red districts and states blue in elections to come.

Now, what the 50 State Strategy doesn't mean, and didn't mean in Dean's day is that we run and fund candidates in every district. It had to do with building up State and local party organizations, not candidate recruitment and suport.

[villager]

15. 2009

"Dean has long since left the DNC -- he served four years, departing in early 2009 -- and the 50-state strategy has faded from memories. But looking at it from today's vantage point, the project offers a nifty example of how modest investments in party infrastructure can pay tangible dividends -- and how those dividends can disappear once the investments dry up."

[brooklynite]

18. Who's opinion is that?

[villager]

19. Well, not yours, clearly

But given the thoughtfulness of the article its excerpted from (link's upthread, if you wanna bother), I'll defer to that one, thanks.

[brooklynite]

20. So an op-ed columnist says it was ended (without citation) and the Party says it's active...

...and even puts it up on their website. Hmmm.

[villager]

21. More "in name only," really. Here's a Wikipedia entry (with citations) on the strategy:

"Howard Dean pursued an explicit Democratic "50-State Strategy" as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, putting resources into building a Democratic Party presence even where Democrats had been thought unlikely to win federal positions, in hopes that getting Democrats elected to local and state positions, and increasing awareness of Democrats in previously conceded areas, will result in growing successes in future elections. Democrats who supported the strategy have said that abandoning red states as lost causes only allowed the Republican Party to grow even stronger in areas where it was unchallenged, resulting in lopsided losses for Democrats in even more races.[2]

During the 2008 United States presidential election, Barack Obama attempted a form of the fifty state strategy to reach into deep red states to try to flip them. This was largely based on Obama's appeal during the primaries in very Republican states, like the Deep South, and the Great Plains states.[3] In September, Obama scaled back his 50-state strategy, abandoning Alaska and North Dakota and reducing staff in Georgia and Montana..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-state_strategy

Guess we're seeing the fruits of that in those states now...

[brooklynite]

23. Um, this refers to a tactic specific to the Obama campaign.

It says nothing about what the DNC was doing, and also refers to campaigning vs Party development.

[villager]

24. Um, it refers to how the Obama campaign changed the 50-state tactic

Interesting that in the wake of electoral disaster though, this what you choose to argue vociferously about.

[wyldwolf]

38. that's something people online never seemed to grasp

what the 50 State Strategy doesn't mean, and didn't mean in Dean's day is that we run and fund candidates in every district. It had to do with building up State and local party organizations, not candidate recruitment and suport.

Exactly. The DCCC recruited for the 2006 House races. The DSCC recruited for the Senate races. The only reason I've been able to gather for this fantasy that Dean won the 2006 midterm was because Rahm Emanuel was the head of the DCCC at the time. If the 50 state stategy DID work, the time between it's launch and the 2006 midterms was WAY too short to make a difference.

Several threads in '06 - '07 asked people to explain how the 50 State Strategy worked in their state towards election victories and solid evidence was sadly lacking. In Georgia, several state party employees started getting paid by the national party instead. That was about it.

[brooklynite]

42. ...and by the same logic, DWS "won" the 2012 Election with +5 Senate seats...

[Algernon Moncrieff]

14. The Party needs to re-embrace the 50-state strategy

Not just Congress and governorships. We need to be be looking at state houses, county boards, city councils, and school boards. We need to be looking at best practices on how to campaign on a shoestring; how to use social media and internet to spread messages and raise money. We also need to teach our candidates basic debating skills. I'm not talking about staged media debates; I'm talking about how to make an affirmative argument and how to counter negative stratgy.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. If they ran and started winning, the Democrats would try to coopt their agenda..and water it down.

[villager]

17. At least there would *be* an agenda, and to the left of the right-tilted Democrats

Exactly the point -- pressure from the left, intellectually and electorally...

[marions ghost]

22. We have these progressive advocacy groups now

A true third party only works in a proportional system.

Poster NordicLeft said this. I think it summarizes the problem well:

the 2-party system traps your nation

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5766541

In order to get elected, both parties have to pander to so many types of people that they despise. On the Republican side, they dance a fine line between religious insanity, war-mongers, elite controllers, and then the majority of large grey centre-right. The non-radicals are more and more caught up in a media-controlled spiral that pushes them to further extremes.

On the Democrat side, the controllers are culled from the same group as the Republican elites. Hillary Clinton is the epitome of this, plus she is a situationally-driven war pusher. The far left of the base in the Democrats is NOT perceived by "swing-voters" as great progressives like Bernie Sanders (he is not even a Democrat) nor Elizabeth Warren. What they (your average swing-voter) sees, thanks to a divide and conquer mentality, is a group of radical splintered interest groups. The USA media plays the red team/blue team game to the extreme.

Brand A or Brand B as you 2 only choices is NOT a good way to run a country. Proportional representation is, but alas, the American system will not have this unless one of the parties rips itself apart. Demographics point to the Republicans falling first, but that is many years from now, and also what emerges may not be at all good for the Democrats, and/or the nation. All-in-all, its a true clusterfuck.

cheers from the EU

[brooklynite]

25. Look up the 19th Century People's Party...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Party_%28United_States%29

...which elected Governors, Senators and members of the House.

The difference is that they, like the Tea Party, built strength from the ground up, forming State Party organizations. Today, people dream that all they need is an Independent Presidential candidate, and everything else will fall into place.

[marions ghost]

30. Interesting history

but I don't believe that any independent third party is viable in the present conditions in America.

The Tea Party still operates within the Rethug party. We operate within the Dem party but we have no real power and get no respect. Nobody counts us separately from the Dems. The party just assumes we will be forced to vote for them. The left wing is not equivalent to the Tea Party.

[liberal_at_heart]

33. There should always be a third party. I refuse to give up my right as a voter to hold

all parties accountable and third parties help do that. If that ever gets me kicked off a stupid, petty message board so be it, but I will never give up my precious right to vote for a third party in order to hold the two major parties accountable.

[treestar]

36. There can be dozens of parties

nothing stops you from starting up a brand new one.

And each party can have their safe haven message board. If that's petty, go to Discussionist or Yahoo.

[kentuck]

37. I think we need to have forward thinking such as yours.

Personally, I would like to see the Congressional Black Caucus start an independent party separate from the Democrats. They would represent minorities and progressive issues. They would garner a lot of support as a Third Party. The moderates of the Democratic Party would have to negotiate with them before they could negotiate with the Republicans. It would pull our Party back to the left at a much-needed time.

[treestar]

35. They have abandoned my state legislative district

There was only a Republican running unopposed.

But this year the Green party did put someone on and they qualified. So I voted for them.

He actually did sort of OK, considering.

REPUBLICAN PARTY
3975 72 4047 80 . 7 %
GREEN PARTY
946 19 965 19 . 3 %

Almost 20% of the vote doesn't seem that bad. No where close to winning but for the Green Party that seems to be a lot.

[sadoldgirl]

39. Well, yes, the GreenParty is

the most common third party. When I took a kind of test with the parties I found 95% agreement with the
Greens and 83% with the Dems.

The problem is that this party is rarely successful due to a) its name, and b) because the 2 big parties claim
a monopoly, which is somewhat supported in the Constitution as far as I have read.