A recent piece from Vermont Public Radio focuses on the Vermont Progressive Party’s primary for Lt. Governor. One candidate sees alliances with Democrats as reasonable, while the other would like the Progressives to be more independent. Read or listen to the full thing here.
(Kinzel) Power says the key is whether or not the winning Democratic candidate supports most of the key priorities of the Progressive Party:
(Power) “… And has a better chance of winning than I do myself … Then it seems to me that it would be for the greater benefit of the state of Vermont for me to withdraw.”
(Kinzel) The other candidate in the Progressive race for Lt. Governor is Boots Wardinski. He thinks it’s a mistake for the Progressives to join with liberal Democrats:
(Wardinski) “Many of the Progressives seem to have more of a kinship with the Democratic Party than they do with their own. Anthony Pollina is in the Democratic primary, Peter Clavelle did, two candidates for statewide office have said that they will step aside if there is a Democrat that they can support and some of the functionaries of the Progressive Party have already endorsed Doug Racine.”
(Kinzel) And Wardinski says he’s running to encourage the Progressive Party to return to its core principles:
(Wardinski) “I think that I would be the one person that would actually speak for alternatives, Socialists, more left wing policies.”
Peter M @8, very astute comment.
[Wikipedia] Sample of 20th Century ‘Progressive’:
Sinclair spent seven weeks in disguise, working undercover in Chicago’s meatpacking plants to research his fictional exposé, The Jungle. When it appeared in 1906, it became a bestseller ………
[Political career] In the 1920s Sinclair moved to Monrovia, California, where he founded the state’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union …….
moved to Southern California with an interest in politics, twice running unsuccessfully for Congress on the Socialist ticket: in 1920 for the House of Representatives and in 1922 for the Senate.
……. [Upton] Sinclair ran in the 1934 California gubernatorial election as a Democrat.
Fading fortunes [via wikipedia …….]
“The effects of fusion with the Democrats were disastrous to the Party in the South. The Populist/Republican alliance which had governed North Carolina fell apart in the only state it had any success. By 1898, the Democrats used a violently racist and violent campaign to defeat the North Carolina Populists and GOP and in 1900 the Democrats ushered in disfranchisement[10].”
“Populism never recovered from the failure of 1896. For example, Tennessee’s Populist Party was demoralized by a diminishing membership, and puzzled and split by the dilemma of whether to fight the state-level enemy (the Democrats) or the national foe (the Republicans and Wall Street). By 1900 the People’s Party of Tennessee was a shadow of what it once was[11]”
“In 1900, while many Populist voters supported Bryan again, the weakened party nominated a separate ticket of Wharton Barker and Ignatius L. Donnelly, and disbanded afterwards. Populist activists either retired from politics, joined a major party, or followed Eugene Debs into his new Socialist Party.”
[Lake, in informal, general conversation, Progressive, People’s, Peoples, Popular, Populas groups can be lumped together and or inter changed.
Specifically, if you are doing a formal report on ‘Politics USA’ in the 1880s and the 1890s, Populas hints at poor, agricultural, rural anti establishment groups ……
while Progressives continued as urban upper middle class elitists intelectuals, including news paper, magazine and book authors, including Presidents, Pulitzers, and Nobels, and a close run in 1936 (or there abouts) as Governor of California.
@4
I don’t think it’s accurate to call the VT Progressives the most successful minor party in the country. While its true that the Progressive Party has been consistently successful in getting candidates elected to the state legislative in Vermont, many of them (like current St. Reps. Susan Davis and Mollie Burke) ran on both the Progressive and Democratic ballot lines, meaning that they didn’t face any opposition from Democratic candidates. Tim Ashe, the VPP’s only state senator to date, ran on the Progressive, Democratic, and Republican ballot lines.
So this nod-and-wink working relationship between the Democrats and Progressives in Vermont has a fairly strong history, and as such I would question the VPP’s status as a successful *independent* minor party. Either that, or the ghost ballot line parties in New York are arguably more successful in terms of getting people elected than the Vermont Progressives.
Fusion makes these judgements tricky, though I side with independent politics and campaigns, and not just an independent organisation running within a major party.
Vaughn @ 4 – the Vermont Progressives are successful because they include both people who want to be independent, and people who see value in allying with Democrats.
They will only be shooting themselves in the foot if one faction tries to drive the others out of the party.
The same can be said for the Libertarian Party, which includes people who want to be totally independent, people who ally with Republicans & Conservatives over gun control. taxes etc, as well as people who ally with Democrats over civil liberties issues.
Vaughn // Aug 20, 2010:
The most successful [local] minor party in the [21st Century] ……… and they are shooting themselves in the foot?
[History Lesson / Paraphrazing: the most successful national minor party since the GOP in 19th Century America, the powerful, grass roots, ground swell, of the NATIONAL Progressive Movement of 1892 ……… and by ‘playing footies’ (my words) wtih the national Democratic Party, they shot them selves in the head ………. and disappeared from the scene entirely by 1900!
The Progressives have spoiled several elections; they must be stopped except in the most left-wing legislative district.
May God’s blesssings go with candidate Power and the faction of progressives which wishes to support the Democratic Party, aka the pro-Catholic Trotskyist faction, amen. Now if the Constitution Party of Vermont would join the Democrats too, we could move the Democrats towards being pro-life and against gay marriage, and even more anti-war.
The most successful minor party in the country…and they are shooting themselves in the foot?
Now just how did I know you were going to say that?
PLAS solves this problem. The progressive can win. No agreements with the democrats. In fact, they get voted out!
Oh oh… disharmony in Marxville?