Birth of a New Political Party................

Birth of a New Political Party .

Author: John Armor ..who practiced in the US Supreme Court for 33 years.

The last time a new American political party came into being, one strong enough to elect a President, was in 1854. As you have guessed, that was the Republican Party. Its first elected President was Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

Many third party and independent campaigns have been mounted since then. The Progressive Party around 1900 managed to elect Governors and majorities in the legislature of several states. Their high water mark was in 1912, when former President Teddy Roosevelt chose that Party as his vehicle to run again when the Republicans declined to nominate him, again. (No, there never was a “Bull Moose Party.” Don’t send letters and postcards claiming that there was.)

What’s the relevance of this ancient history to the off-year, congressional election in 2010? Well, take a look at that history and see what seems familiar.

The Republican Party began with a meeting in Ripon, Wisconsin, in 1854. Present were members of the Free Soil Party (favoring continued homesteading rights) and Conscience Whigs (northern Whigs separated from their southern members over slavery). The meeting was led by a disgruntled Democrat (who also split with his Party on slavery).

Remember this point. The new Party was created by people who had been elected under other party labels, but became dissatisfied with their current parties’ stands on key issues. The current two major parties are both fractured over key issues, including taxes, public debt, growth of government regulations, and respect for the Constitution......

All new party efforts since 1854 have failed at the national level. The reason for that unbroken history of failure is because all those new party efforts sought to reinvent the wheel and create parties from scratch. All successful efforts up to 1854 followed a different path. In the successful examples, elected officials changed their party labels, and later captured the support of voters who’d made the same shifts.

In 1856 the Republican candidate, John Fremont, won a third of the votes though his Party wasn’t one of the two strongest parties, going into that election. By 1858, the Republicans held a majority in Congress, not because they had elected a majority of the Senators and Representatives. They elected many. But the Members who put them over the top had been elected under other party labels, but switched to the Republicans.

All right, what is the situation of the current major parties? The Democrats are split into three groups, the hard left, the center, and the moderate right. There is no love lost between the right and left wings of that Party. Votes coming up in Congress will probably demonstrate that the wings of the Democrats hate each other enough so they will refuse to vote together.

The Republican Party is also fractured, into the hard right, and the squishy moderates. The hatred within the Party may be less, but the refusal to hold together for votes in Congress will be equally apparent.

And where do the American people stand? They have contempt for both the Republican and Democrat Parties. On the issues, public opinion is more against the Democrats than Republicans. Experts on both sides of the aisle expect the Democrats to lose seats in both Houses of Congress in 2010. But because the Republicans are also disrespected, they will probably will not win a majority in either House.

Some Republicans talk of “rebranding the Party.” Such efforts will fail. Just because the cat has kittens in the oven, doesn’t make them biscuits. However, if a majority of Republicans and a minority of Democrats all support these four issues -- obey the Constitution, cut taxes, reduce government control of lives of Americans, and support term limits – as a group they will dominate the elections and control both Houses of Congress.

What label will they adopt? The Tea Party Party is too casual. They will dump the current leaders of both Houses of Congress, assuming that Senator Reid has not already been dumped by his Nevada constituents, a preliminary shock heralding the coming earthquake.

No pundits are currently talking about this new party possibility. It is a long shot. But those who ignore the political history of American parties do not even realize this has happened several times before, and can happen again.

The reason the Congress critters are having such a hard time is because they are acting against the will of those they represent and for the will of lobbyist most of the time (as TheGoldenGoose has correctly stated).

one thing I have never understood is why is it that when some local alderman or other official gets campaign money from a contractor and then gives them a government construction contract, thats BRIBERY BUT when the "health insurance" industry slathers the congress with money to vote against health care reform, that's LOBBYING?

the basic definition of "bribery" is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as "the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or other person in discharge of a public or legal duty. The bribe is the gift bestowed to influence the recipient's conduct. It may be any money, good, right in action, property, preferment, privilege, emolument, object of value, advantage, or merely a promise or undertaking to induce or influence the action, vote, or influence of a person in an official or public capacity."

sounds like "lobbying" to me!!!