The PolyPartisan

I can’t help but lament the fact that I have entirely neglected Polypartisan.org for the past election cycle, and have done little but talk about the project.

Truth be told, I wanted to do more. I really did. But you know, life.

In the time since the 2008 election cycle, I’ve gone through a full mini-career. I had some modest success in my legal writing job, and had the opportunity to move up from that to a job as a Social Security Disability Advocate, a job which I am continuing on a part-time basis. I wrapped up my undergrad degree, took the LSAT, and applied to and got accepted to law school. Along the way I lost my mother, an experience which frankly caused more turmoil than I could ever have expected. I have since bought my first house, and have now made it through my first full semester of law school at the University of Buffalo.

I think I have as much justification as anyone for having bowed out from politics. It would have been impossible for me to have had more than a trivial level of involvement in the 2010 election because of the commitment level inherent to law school. For various and sundry reasons, postponing school another year was not an option. So here I am, staring back at the 2010 elections which did at least show some superficial progress for the concept of polypartisanship.

In the recent election, a surprising number of candidates ran under the “third party” banner of “tea party.” Yet at the end of the day the balance remains the same; N Democrats, and 435-N Republicans. Just like last cycle and the past sixty years.

(In this case, N happened to be 193).

(Technically, there still exist, and tend to exist once in a while, “independent” members of congress and the senate who are no longer affiliated with the party that they had been elected with. Because these rare individuals were elected and do caucus with the two parties, they do not contribute toward the polypartisan goals, and while not necessarily part of the problem, are not part of the solution.)

So enough of those particular idle words. Here we are facing the opening of 2011. The mechanisms of the major parties are already gearing up for the 2012 election.

And we… must decide. I’m not sure. I need your opinion.

On the one hand, 2012 will likely be an incredible election year. I suspect that voter turnout will be incredible, and we will certainly face an energized and motivated voting population. Who will probably also be confused, and possibly unsatisfied with more incumbents than ever before. It seems like the perfect storm for the polypartisan movement.

On the other hand, well, it will be an incredible election year with incredible voter turnout from an energized, motivated, and confused voting population. This high turnout will mean that achieving electoral results will take greater resources both monetary and human, because while an ordinary congressional election might be winnable with 80,000 or 90,000 votes, this election will certainly require well over 100,000 votes. History suggests that conserving resources until 2014 may allow for more effective use of those resources. Similarly, with such a passionate voting population, it may be even more difficult to persuade a voter from choosing a third party rather than the major party. True, this is always going to be a challenge, but we will face greater obstacles in a Presidential year, and it may be prudent to save these resources for later, and use the additional time for planning.

So there are three choices moving forward into 2011.

1. We can proceed with a full scale campaign to elect congressmen in 2012.

2. We can defer to 2014, conserving resources, planning, and fundraising for 2014.

3. We can proceed on a limited, focused, and strategic run for 2012.

I am of the opinion that choice three makes the most sense. We don’t pass up the opportunity that 2012 may represent, but neither do we spread ourselves thin. Actually, this may be the best plan because a focused trial is probably a good way to learn from some mistakes before going all out. I could further argue that 2014 is really the critical year, and it is essential that we do everything we can to prepare, including getting our first failures over with.

I had a very interesting conversation with my sister tonight about some disturbing changes that are taking place at a very low level of government: public school districts.  I’m a bit drafty on the details, but one example that she cited was a new restriction against providing “home made” food for special events in elementary school classrooms, with a provision encouraging “manufactured” food instead.

The real rationale at play is almost irrelevant to the liberty issue with which I am concerned.  While “distribution of baked goods” is not a specifically protected right under the constitution, it’s an erosion of liberty that has the possibility of tremendous significance.

I have been somewhat disconcerted by the shift from Liberty to Safety in public schools in the almost decade since I graduated.  For example, when I went to school, student IDs were checked at dances and similar events; I’m pretty sure I used mine once freshman year, and subsequently had a small ceremonial burning of them with my friends the day of issue each September.  But a few years later they were issued with lanyards and became a required permanent display.  Security has clamped down supposedly in response to 9/11, to the point that even as an active duty military member in uniform, I was not allowed to “walk the halls” without a faculty escort to retrieve my brother; visiting teachers and old friends had been ruled right out.  Not every school is quite like that; I visited with a friend at a neighboring district and we wandered freely after signing in with regular ID like at any government building.

This culinary restriction is alarming principally because it impinges upon the expressive rights of parents to share their culture and talents, but also because it threatens the continuation of traditional culture and good nutrition in exchange for the inappropriate promotion of corporate interests.  You cannot cook a low fat, low sugar apple bran cake for your son or daughter’s birthday or holiday, but you can distribute Snickers bars and Twinkies.  How is this healthy?

Additionally, this could effectively banish the concept of “home ec” and inevitably would if it hasn’t already.

All this detail to lead into my followup question to my sister: what are we doing about it?

What is the root cause of this problem, or the broader issue that it reveals?

The rule has been put in place primarily out of the relatively new extremist attitude of sterilization out of fear.  Administrators are sweeping through schools for any weakness to litigation or offense, because some element of our culture has either taken the idea of “political correctness” too far, or has allowed the fear of direct or vicarious liability to overwhelm common sense.  In other words, traditional values have been shoved aside in favor of corporate and legalistic expediency, or the value of government has changed from “For and by the people” to “managing assets and risks.” The corporatization of government and culture.

When I asked her why people haven’t banded together to fight this, my sister exasperatedly griped that the parents, in general, just don’t seem to care enough.

In the common perception, it’s easier to tolerate or work around an unjust policy than to take action to fix it.

This is why democracy is broken.  At the most basic level.  Because most of us just don’t care enough to do something.

In response to this, I encouraged her to work on starting a specifically targeted movement.  Simply put, I don’t want to, because I want to focus on Poly, rather than getting involved directly with any specific party.  But it seems to me that there is a need out there for a Sensible Parents party, or by some similar name, with a specific goal of organizing to help exasperated parents defeat unjust school regulations.  A reboot of the PTA.

The basic problems Polypartisan is designed to address are not unique to the congress.  In fact, the partisan bickering, ideological agendas, and constituent apathy that plague the congress are occuring at every level of our national, state, and even local governments.  This tells me that our crisis is not merely a problem in the legislative body, but throughout the culture.

I am stating, therefore, a revision of our goals.  In addition to our direct electoral goal of reshaping Congress itself, we need to educate the American people of the nature of democracy, the purpose of republic, and the power of involvement.

Lets fix the whole thing.

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Today’s volunteer need: Community organizers willing to identify and remedy unjust local laws and policies that hurt our children’s cultural, social, and health needs at school and at large.

I know I haven’t posted in a while, and I apologize to any who’ve been anxious for an update.

So far, the project is actually going pretty well.  We haven’t picked up any real party connections yet, but I can finally say “We” with some meaning.  A few new people have come on board, and I’d like to welcome the first people to join the project.  Steve will be heading up the graphic design needs, so we should have a logo, some printed matter, and an improved site design soon.  Marc Lefton, who created adholes.com, has come on board as our new Social Marketing Director, which will be a crucial position when we start reaching out over Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Adholes, and other similar sites.  Steve Woolsey, an up and coming musician and a new marketing professional in Buffalo, will be our new Art Director/Graphic Designer.  Additionally, Dan Mahoney of Gushi Systems has graciously offered hosting and technical services for our web system, and we should be switching from GoDaddy to Gushi in the next month or so, hopefully as the new site design hits.

The past few weeks, it seems like I’ve talked with everyone I’ve met about the Polypartisan concept.  I’m learning a lot about what needs to be done and what obstacles will be faced.  I have come to feel that the largest obstacles to true polypartisan or apartisan (without parties) representation are doubt, fear, and lack of understanding.

Doubt is perhaps the largest obstacle we will have to address, and make no mistake, it has served to hold America bound to the bipartisan system for many years.  The basic principle is that voters don’t believe that their vote for an alternate option will be effective.  There is an element of truth to this, but it is a social construct and a self-fulfilling prophecy.  It is the collective doubt itself that makes the votes ineffective, and it ties directly to fear.  If our voters don’t know that their vote for a third party candidate will result in that candidates election, we’ll see a kind of “Bradley effect” as they change their minds in the voting booth to defect to a major party in following with their doubt and fear.

Fear represents an overwhelming obstacle in a number of ways, but the greatest is the worry that, “If I vote for a third party candidate, I’ll be throwing my [Democrat/Republican] vote away, and the election can tip to the [Republican/Democrat] instead because of me.”  The so-called Nader Effect, based on the hypothesis that, if most of Ralph Nader’s votes had instead gone to Al Gore in 2000, then Al Gore would have won.  This is a real phenomenon, and we should not dismiss it.  It is a natural consequence of “first past the post” voting systems, and I maintain that we should eventually strive to replace FPTP with instant runoff or proportional representation.  (The Constitution does mandate FPTP, but only for the President and Vice President, and even those have a complex system of exceptions; conversely, other systems are often employed in America for local elections.)

Fear not- There’s Hope!  Still your Doubts- Have Faith!  Indeed, recent political elections have shown that Hope and Faith can overcome fear and doubt.  Hope that the future can be better.  Faith that with our efforts, it will.  It will only work if we believe it works: if a voter is confident that their third party vote will make a difference, not only will they follow through with the vote, but they will feel confident and involved because of it.  And when that candidate wins, and does a great job as a Representative, those voters will be more motivated to volunteer and help get the message out.

The key to all this is understanding.  Faith and Hope will only come about through knowledge and understanding of the issues and concepts.  The central role of this campaign is to educate people about the possibilities and values we stand for.  We need to disseminate these ideas, not just to our potential voters in our targeted districts, but to everyone.  I’m only expecting about 2% of the country at large to be eligible to vote for our candidates in 2010, but everyone you meet is a potential volunteer.  There is so much opportunity for involvement.  I’m really excited about the start we are getting, and even though we’re just a few people so far, that means a lot.  I can’t overemphasize that what we are planning to do has never been done before, and will be done against overwhelming odds and powerful opposition.  So every person who gets involved will play a crucial role.

Just a quick reminder about urgent jobs that still need people:

• Researchers to identify parties, party contacts, and candidates
• Researchers to compile data about parties, assigning issue categories and “rating” positions
• Writers to expound upon these ideas and share them outside of this site
• Representatives to make contact with parties and candidates
• An attorney to ensure our compliance with election and lobbying laws, to help file any necessary registrations, and to defend against legal attacks.
• An organizational professional to help determine the organizations structure and legal status.

Many more tasks will be needed as we move forward, and hopefully things will get extremely busy.  If you think you may want to get involved down the line, even if not yet, please don’t hesitate to contact me anyway, even if just to help me gauge the level of interest out there.

(By the way, there is no money at this point, and until our economic and legal status is established, there can be none except that of my solitary and meager personal income.  Ergo, the last two bullets are rather crucial.)

I’m watching CNN right now, and there’s a discussion going on about why the major parties are failing to attract voters who are within their policy/position umbrellas.  For instance, why aren’t social conservatives getting out to vote for Republicans?  Why aren’t liberals getting out to vote for Democrats?

The answer is so simple and obvious as to be painful.

Voters aren’t on board with the major parties because the major parties don’t represent most voters.  After all, only around 2/3 of registered voters felt close enough to a major party to register with it, and many of those did so on account of only a few issues out of many.  It got me thinking about the nature of the process, and how strange it is that for something as important as your representative in Congress, you usually get two choices.

Two choices?

We paint ideologies along spectra.  It’s rare for someone to be entirely on one pole, and most people gravitate toward the center.  Not only that, but we don’t all simply fall into two categories.  Again, why are social conservatives expected to be fiscal conservatives and support perpetual warfare?  Why are civil rights activists expected to be socialists?  For that matter, why am I forced to choose which of my moral values are to be represented by my political representatives?  I’m not trying to imply that we should each be represented by someone who is just like us in every way, but I think that more than two choices are in order.

Choosing between two extremes, with no option in the middle, and no “line item” control, is not democracy.

It’s not even a true republic.  It’s something less than that; it’s the Cliff’s notes, True/False high school exam version.  We are smarter than that, even the average voter.  We can do better, even if just by adding more choices.

Today I talked to a lot of voters.  Something that I’m learning as I interact with a wider and wider slice of the electorate is that most people want democracy.  Most people want different views, including moderate views, to be represented in government.  And if you ask them about it, most people like the idea of limiting the power of parties- although the issue is strangely distant from the forefront.

Looking at the state of our government today, the state of disconnect that many voters still have even after an election with unprecedented involvement, and the new technologies that enable us to communicate in new ways, there has never been a better time for this movement to happen.

We can definitely do it.  We can definitely change the face of American politics.

All it takes is the effort and confidence to do it.

As you start to talk to people about canging government, keep the numbers in mind.  Most people don’t realize just how powerful their influence can be.  Most people are surprised to learn that Congressmen can be elected by as few as 80,000 voters.  They’re more surprised that a group that would fit in a single large stadium (less than 200,000) can achieve congressional representation.  One woman remarked to me upon learning that, “Maybe I should run!”  And maybe she should.

I’m not suggesting we underestimate.  200,000, the number we need to guaranty victory, is still a huge number.  Because for every vote we achieve, we’ll need to make at least 5 voter contacts- that means over a million voter contacts, per race.  But each volunteer can achieve several voters, so we need to look at the steps we’ll have to take.  We’re at step one right now, which is just identifying the parties and helping to get them on board.  (Actually, I am at step zero- designing the movement and convincing my readers to help.).

This is the beginning of a long and exciting race.

Here’s a simple volunteer opoprtunity that anyone with some free time and access to Google  can do.

One of the first things needed to get this project off the ground is a list of relevant “third” parties.  Not to imply bias, but I have some basic criteria for what I presently consider to be a “compatible” party:

• Viable: Based on demographics and values, must be able to muster at least the required 80,000 voters in at least one district in America.
• Willing: Must be persuadable to participate in the program, regardless of immediate expression of interest (expressed interest preferred)
• National: Must exist across state lines and represent the interests of a group that is not strictly limited by local geography.
• Ethical: While freedom of expression is the goal, certain values, such as blatant racism and other forms of bigotry, are not welcome.  For example, the Nazi party is not welcome.  Some non-mainstream or questionable values, such as endorsement of certain currently illegal activities, will be permitted but not tacitly endorsed.

It is not the goal of polypartisan.org or this writer to explicitly or implicitly endorse any party or candidate at this time.  The intent is principally to provide networking, organizing, and strategic services.

There might be other criteria besides these, but the general rules are common sense based.  Since our goal is not limited to one ideology, we will inevitably accept some groups that don’t like each other, and volunteers may be helping to support groups they disagree with.

Right now, I just need to identify parties.  Name of party and web site is sufficient.

Ideally, please either contact a representative of the party and inform him or her of the project’s existence, or locate contact information for a contact in the party.

I wonder what you’d think of the project I’m planning for the next (2010) election.

What is your opinion generally about the two party system?  I happen to think that on the whole it’s a problem.  Both the Republican and Democrat platforms are severely flawed, and with the bipartisan system voters are always forced to choose not so much the lesser of evils, but which values are important to them and which don’t matter.  While it is logically impossible for there ever to be a party for every perspective, having only two polarizing choices is harmful because if forces voters to support people who specifically are against them.  For instance, why is it that the same party that is anti-abortion is pro death penalty?  Many people, such as myself, view those as logically incompatible views.  Similarly, why does the party that favors government benefits for the poor and disabled allow predatory lenders to flourish, and occasionally endorse trade agreements that are harmful to low end American jobs?

Neither party is perfect, less than half the population support either one, and independent voters like me are always forced to choose a side based on only some issues we care about.  That’s one problem.

The other problem is that at all times, some ideologically organized group tends to have a controlling majority share of the government.  With only two parties, the odd numbered Supreme Court tends to balance either Right or Left, the Presidency and cabinet have been predominantly unipartisan with a few short lived token examples for over a century, and both the House of Representatives and the Senate tend to be controlled by whichever party has 51% or slightly more.  So bills get passed with wording that most (>50%) of Americans would not prefer, and the wording of most bills that gets passed often includes a partisan agenda.  This is a problem for a number of reasons which are obvious enough.

The solution, at a glance, is simple.  Eliminate the single party majority.  Prevent any single ideological organization from ever gaining over 50% of either house, and over time, add additional choices to the candidacy for president and ultimately, the supreme court.

Polypartisan politics are not innovative.  The United States has often had several major parties, whether by schism within a previously major party, due to issues based organization.  These parties have often been pretty successful.  Probably the most famous “upstart” third party is the Republican party, which displaced the Whigs shortly before the Civil War.  Why the Whigs went away is slightly unclear to me, but the extreme similarity to the nascent Republican party, in conjunction with generally low public satisfaction, definitely contributed.

I don’t believe that common simplemindedness is singlehandedly responsible for the failure of third parties.  I do blame laziness and poor organization.

In the past few years, third parties in America have been little more than jokes and publicity stunts.  Many don’t even nominate their own candidates but instead endorse major party candidates.  When thirds do run, they most famously tend to accomplish nothing but cannibalizing the votes of the closest major party.

This is what I want to accomplish.  I want to give 10% of the House of Representatives to third parties.  This will prevent either major party from being able to simply have its way with the congress.  They’ll be deadlocked until they start applying common sense and reason, and more importantly, writing policies that include democratically determined compromises and that therefore start to consider the needs of the American People as a whole, not just special interest groups.

The big question is how to get there, and why we’re not there already.  Some basic facts.  In 2006, an NBC poll reported the highest mid-term voter turnout in recorded history, 40% of registered voters.  The average population of a congressional district is 646,946 people.  There are 540 districts right now, ranging in size from 495,304 to 905,316.

As of the 2006 elections, while the Senate is 49-49 with two declared independents, the House is clearly dominated by the Democrats with 53%, and while other parties listed on Wikipedia’s demographics page did garner enough votes to own several districts.  there isn’t a single independent or third party in congress.

The general strategy is to target campaigns in specific “winnable” districts.  A winnable district is one in which the running third party shares values that are popular in that district, with an unpopular incumbent, with economical access to relevant major media, and ideally, in which the unpopular incumbent shares similar ideals with the running third party.

Out of an overall population, only a moderate percentage are eligible voters.  Accounting for age, criminal status, and citizenship status, it’s safe to assume that only about 70% of the population is eligible to vote.  (There’s an official stat for this somewhere, which is within about +/-5 points of 70 to my memory, but I don’t know where to find it).  Of the eligible population, about 40% tend to vote, and anywhere from 51% to 80% choose the winning candidate.  So 650k * 0.7 * 0.4 * 0.5 (or 0.8).  This is a range of from 91,000 to 145,600 voters selecting the typical congressman.  Alternately put, combining the percentages, from 20% to 40% of the voting eligible population selects each representative.

This means that encouraging as few as 1 in 5 eligible voters, or as few as 1 in 3 non-habitual voters, to support a candidate for Congress can get him or her elected.  Let me repeat: As few as 91,000 encouraged voters can unseat an incumbent, and just less than 150,000 can nearly guarantee victory.

This year’s presidential election has demonstrated the importance and the power of grass roots politics and building movements.  Specifically, we’ve now seen how a candidate can fundraise tremendously by soliciting small donations from lots of like minded voters.  We can apply this to our project in a very specific way: since political parties are usually organized nationally, we can use the parties to fundraise nationally. By fundraising nationally, thousands of small contributions of as little as $5 to $10 each can have a huge impact.  Within the campaign finance rules, there is no limit to the campaigning that a party can do as long as the individual and PAC donation limits are not exceeded, and for our purposes, it is doubtful that individual limits would be an issue, though PAC contributions may be.

The new PAC, tentatively named Polypartisan.org, will be focused on helping coordinate the campaigns of third parties and encouraging parties to each focus their efforts on one targeted congressional district.  In addition, the PAC will do some independent fundraising which will be distributed to needy third parties with a shot at winning.  To prevent bias, some rules may need to be established governing the decisions of the PAC, including a mission statement or constitution enumerating the goals set forth in this message.

To reiterate, the simple goal is to break the partisan gridlock by helping third parties to elect congressmen.  I don’t particularly care which third parties get elected, though I would like to try and support a balanced grouping.  My goal here is not to accomplish or advance a single ideology, just to protect democracy from the destruction it’s been undergoing under the two party system and to hopefully pave the way for real growth and change.

Ultimately, I’d like to see the major parties erode down to minor pluralities of at most the 35-37% that they currently represent among the real voting population, and I’d like to see that goal realized in both houses of congress as well as many state legislatures.  Once that point is reached, there will be a real chance of a “third party” candidate being successful for the presidency, at which point we would begin to see real politial diversity enter the supreme court as well.

So what do you think?  I’m going to need a lot of help to make this happen.  I’ll need a few computer people to build, develop, and maintain both the major web sites for the PAC and its campaigns, as well as targeted marketing campaigns through Facebook, Myspace, Google Adwords, et cetera.  I’ll need at least one attorney.  I’ll need a lot of people to volunteer some time to make phone calls.  I’ll need word of mouth and eventually, canvassers.  My target will be 11 congressmen (2%) in 2010, so we’ll be supporting 11 simultaneous races spread out between up to 11 different parties and in very diverse locations and each one will need volunteers.

This is going to be a unique effort because I’m not aware of many if any PACs that have ever made an effort to support multiple parties simultaneously.  “We” (we means me and you!) need some volunteers from day 1 (this is actually like day -5) for everything from hosting and web design, a logo and some slogans, to locating parties and candidates, et cetera.

I further suspect that this new movement has the potential to be enormously popular.  Polypartisan.org is registered and hosted.  .com is registered without hosting.

Please contact me via jayratch@gmail.com to volunteer in any way.