Tag Archives: President Obama

Bring Back The Platform!

1 Feb 2012 By in The Party System Tags: , , , , , , , , , 8 Comments
Political textile advertising the Republican ticket of McKinley & Hobart (1896)
1896 textile proclaiming the principles and candidates of the Republican Party.
Courtesy Cornell University Library via Flickr Commons.

I get tired of the politics of personality, and when that happens I find myself wishing that the party platform was still an important part of American politicking.  Back in the day, the platform was a formally arrived-at set of principles that all the party’s candidates “stood upon.”  Platforms had “planks”, and these were “hammered out” at the same conventions where party delegates settled on a presidential nominee.  Being on the platform committee was a big deal, and sometimes battles over planks were as suspenseful and heated as the question of who the party’s nominee would be.  The platform was important, because it was binding and because it charted a course for the party.  During the long period in our history when most Americans never so much as glimpsed the people they were electing, platforms gave citizens another, perhaps more reliable, way to identify not so much with a candidate, as with a party.

Buttons advertising the 1896 Democratic ticket
Campaign buttons advertising the stands of the 1896 Democratic Party.  Nominee William Jennings Bryan ran on a platform of reform and a silver-backed currency.  So-called “silver bugs” hoped to triumph over the “gold bugs” of Wall Street.
Image courtesy of Cornell University Library via Flickr Commons.

The parties still have platforms, but they’re unimportant today.  At least as far back as Eisenhower, parties began fudging on their platforms, in the belief that bland compromises would maximize the votes their candidates could snag.  The platform received another blow in the television age.  When the networks began live coverage of the conventions, they decided that the platform was boring.  Why give air time to such a tedious process?  As for the parties, they worried that strife over the platform would embarrass them and make them look iffy.  So the platform was eventually removed from the stage.

Too bad, because platforms efficiently accomplished many important ends, and, today, increased reliance on them could carry many advantages.  For instance:

1. Platforms make best use of the ideas floating around within a party.  To create a compelling platform, party members must consider what interlocking set of ideas will best serve their larger interests and aims.  In what amounts to an exercise in “wholesale politics,” pols pause to consider how to make their stands palatable to the voting majority.  In such an exercise, Democrats might be forced to consider, for example, how their desire for greater equality and opportunity could be made to gibe with the smaller, more efficient, government Americans crave.

2. Platforms differentiate between dominant and minority views.  This sort of clarity is badly needed in the Republican party, where extreme views, whether social or fiscal, are in danger of tearing the party in two.  Platform debates create an opportunity to air and resolve some potential sources of strife before party members take office, and provide a definitive gauge of when a minority view has gained enough traction that all members of a party accept and endorse it.  Does the GOP as a whole really want to embrace the balanced-budget pledge that some members have signed?  Does it really want to repeal universal health care?  Oppose same-sex marriage?  If so, put it in the platform.  If not:

3. Political minorities know who they are.  By establishing which are minority views, platforms enhance party discipline and make it clear when individual politicians are deviating–not just on the stump but when governing.  Rather than allowing political minorities undue influence, as we do today, we should be encouraging them to form their own distinct parties, thus forcing them to confront the weakness of their position vis-à-vis the voting majority.  The Republican Party has made a terrible mistake in allowing its conservative wing so much influence, when it has been clear since at least 2008 that American voters as a whole abhor ultra-conservative views such as those that Rick Santorum has been articulating.

4. Platforms constrain the executive, while making the job of president easier.   Historically, the president has been styled as the “standard-bearer” of a party.  Up until the time of Teddy Roosevelt, it was understood that the president was a party figurehead, who, besides carrying out his constitutional duties, would faithfully adhere to a course of action that his party had already articulated and communally endorsed.  The presidency requires independent judgment and action, of course, but, as we have seen in the Obama administration, chaos results when the president gets too much ahead of his party and insists on acting as an engine of change.  Party platforms promote smooth governance because, through them, the president and his party’s representatives in Congress are bound to a mutually agreed-upon set of ideas and to what are judged to be attainable goals.

Overall, an emphasis on shared ideas could mitigate our increasing preoccupation with individual actors and their opinions.  Our political system demands that majorities organize themselves and act harmoniously, and it requires leaders in the legislative and executive branches who can acknowledge and embrace their interdependence.  Platforms, by emphasizing what is mainstream and attainable, contribute to the achievement of these aims.

McKinley Campaign Poster
1896 poster envisioning the consequences of the Republican Party’s protectionist platform vs. that of the Democrats, which called for free trade.  Note how nominees are depicted as flag-bearers who will advance what a whole party believes.
Courtesy of Cornell University Library via Flickr Commons.

2008: The Critical Election That Wasn’t (Part II)

1 Jan 2012 By in The Party System Tags: , , , , , , , , , 13 Comments

This is the conclusion of a two-part article.  For Part One, click here.

Looking back on it, what’s striking about the 2008 election is the shallowness of Obama’s victory.  It was a great victory for a man and a race, but not a great victory–a transforming event–for the Democratic Party or the party system more generally.  This lackluster outcome surprised me, because, going into it, I had expected that a lot more would happen.  The departure of George W. Bush from the presidency without any obvious successor had thrown the door wide open to real newness.  I had firmly expected to see, not just new candidates, but real ideological innovation on one or both sides.

Bush’s departure not only created an opportunity for a new cadre of leaders to rise; it also invited the introduction of new political paradigms that would reinvigorate or replace the tired ideas on which both parties have been coasting.  The country hasn’t had a critical election since Reagan’s in 1980.  Yet, since then, our circumstances have greatly changed.  Issues that have since become important include the rise of China, disturbing changes in finance and American industrialism, growing commodity scarcity, green issues, immigration, the diminishing power of nation states in the face of globalism, and changes in the quality and character of life for American citizens.

For Republicans, the challenge is to refashion the worn-out elements of Reaganism on which the party still relies.  As the election cycle of 2008 made plain, the Republicans face two central difficulties.  The first is that of continuing to integrate the various blocs of voters that have sustained Republican party power since Reagan’s ascendancy.  The religious and socially conservative bloc of the party tends to pull the party in a different direction than the purely economic one, and that direction is not in accordance with the American mainstream.  Now that the party has become so thoroughly associated with conservatism, its second difficulty is articulating an ideology palatable to an America that is increasingly diverse and cosmopolitan.

The triumph of McCain over competitors like the evangelist Mike Huckabee demonstrated that the power of the Republicans continues to rest principally with the more moderate elements of the party.  But the phenomenal popularity of his running mate, the provincial and anti-modern Alaskan Sarah Palin, and her polarizing effect on the electorate point up how problematic the more extreme yet energized elements within the Republican Party can be.  How can it move itself away from reliance on this base in order to maximize its appeal to the mainstream?  No one emerged in 2008 who was capable of weaving together the right combination of themes.

As for the Democrats, let’s face it: the old ideas that have galvanized the Democratic Party are frightfully tired; they’re used up, exhausted, and have been for decades.  The Democratic Party has not had a redefining era since the late 1930s, and by now we’ve gotten all the mileage we can out of New Deal Democracy and Keynesianism.  Forgive me, Paul Krugman.

Bill Clinton realized this back in the eighties when he began moving the Democratic Party toward the center.  His campaign and presidency marked a departure from the kind of ideological high-mindedness that the ineffectual Jimmy Carter had embodied.  Clinton, though not chiefly an ideologue,  recognized that the traditional New Deal beliefs of the Democratic party boxed him in.  So he practiced a kind of pragmatism that enabled him to capture the votes of more people in the center of the political spectrum.  No wonder old-style liberals hated him: in many ways, he was indifferent to their core beliefs.

Tone-deaf as an ideologue, Clinton was an outstandingly effective problem-solver.  His great political skills and grasp of presidential power enabled him to accomplish a great deal even in a fractious political environment.  Because Clinton was pragmatic, he was comfortable following through on and appropriating several landmark initiatives–including NAFTA and welfare reform–that his Republican predecessors had initiated.  He likewise eagerly backed legislation to liberalize the banking industry, making it easier for more Americans to qualify for mortgages and buy homes.  These measures helped lay the groundwork for the 2008 financial crisis, but at the time they were popular and contributed to the great economic boom associated with Clinton’s presidency.

Clinton supplied his party with a winning style of leadership that continues to influence Democrats today.  Within the party, a general stance of moderation, coupled with a benign, can-do mentality, is more important than any principle or ideal.  This was evident in 2008, in the narrow contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the presidential nomination.  Both were highly educated, attractive, moderate candidates who are good problem-solvers.

In the end, the contest hinged on tactics and personality, not ideas.  Shrewd tactics on the part of the Obama camp enabled him to win a few crucial primaries, and he beat the Clintons at their own game by winning former Clinton supporters, notably Caroline Kennedy, to his side.  In the debates, Obama excelled at hewing closely to Hillary’s positions while qualifying them.  His style in the debates was responsive and has remained so ever afterward.  In the end, Obama’s nimble campaigning captivated voters, swaying them with vague slogans like “Yes We Can” and “Change You Can Believe In.”  Sadly, this contest never amounted to a struggle for the soul of the party.

Isn’t it strange to look at a political scene full of people constantly opinionating and editorializing, that reels with up-to-the minute coverage, “political action,” and political advertising, where voters are constantly being appealed to dramatically–only to realize that nothing’s happening?  Particularly in the Democratic Party, ideological work that needs to be done simply isn’t getting done for some reason.  In the meantime, popular movements like the Tea Party and Occupy express the discontent and frustration that many citizens feel.