Rants From The Blue Ridge
Just general musings and things of interest to me.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Photo 'O The Day...
A Moderates Manifesto
I guess now that the latest election cycle is over (or nearly so - thanks, Alaska) and our wonderful nation is seemingly more divided than ever that it is time to take pause and think about the governing of our land.
I think it's time to level set some conditions that can be easily proven as fact:
It could be assumed that there is a group of about 30%-40% of the voting population that will only follow or vote for democratic and/or liberal causes and issues, while another 30%-40% will do the same for republican and/or conservative issues. They will not consider opposing views or alternatives and they are becoming increasingly unwilling to compromise or may even support a candidate solely because they don’t like the other candidate.
We have become a nation of black/white, right/wrong, left/right, “I win/you lose” thinking. This is non-productive at best and can lead to hostility or even violence at worst. As it is often stated in business, “You don’t manage the black or the white. They seldom change and are often absolute. You manage the gray.”
Second, the overwhelming majority of elections are decided by less than 10% of the popular vote. Even when there are the wholesale changes in the makeup of the government by party, the individual votes are along the lines of 55%-45%. The most lopsided elections may be 65%-35%. What this means is that there is a fluctuating core group of people that actually decide the outcomes of these elections. The members of this group may normally lean left or right or they may deal with each issue individually but they will make their decisions as individuals and will not subscribe to group think.
This group consists of people that are often the most informed and well-read on the issues, exhibit the least loyalty to a particular political party or ideology, and are the most willing to compromise, realizing that it is often the only rational way to govern a nation of 300 million wildly diverse people effectively. Unfortunately, it is often this same group of people that are the most turned off by the political process and tend only to participate shortly before major elections.
If thinking, rational Americans are to restore any sanity to our political process, this key group of moderate, independent, and progressive people that comprise 20%-30% of the voting population need to organize themselves and get involved in the process - start to finish. Here is a framework that they might start with:
The parties do this by ensuring that their favored candidates receive the most money and attention while quickly dismissing or, more often, defaming those candidates that they don’t agree with or may not stand a reasonable chance of being elected. When the primary elections occur, their favored candidates are often the winners, often through a turnout of less than 10% of registered voters.