Posted on the Idaho CP’s website on May 22nd, 2016 (via American Third Party Report)
Being a presidential election year, the quadrennial Little Orphan Annie songs about “tomorrow” have been pulled out of storage and slapped back down on the marketplace sound systems. A seasonal tradition.
How many times this habitual marketing method will substitute for substantive public policy from the menagerie of third party presidential candidates is any body’s guess. Hope does have a market…as Americans woefully discovered in 2008…and we dare say, to turn the pun, learned in 1992 as well.
Freshly queued on the merchant turntables at the beginning of each election season, the same songs sure sound good…at least the first few times those tunes cycle the loop. But, the tune gets predictable. It’s been heard before too many times. So the political shelf life is short; it becomes quickly dated.
Ah! But here! Here at the beginning of another presidential election summer…is hope nonetheless. This year, things are going to be different. This time, voters are really, really mad. This cycle, surely a third party will be the benefactor of voter largesse. So, why not ours?
For starters, waiting for a last-will-and-testament to probate is a poor financial plan. You can be written off and out. Similarly, waiting for the duopoly to implode is just as poor of a political plan. Third parties should have reached their Einstein Moment about such methods in elections long, long ago. But apparently not.
Our friends at Fox reported a recent article of interest.
Fox News points out that, over the past three election cycles going back to 2010, only 17 federal incumbents have been ousted at primary. And thus far in 2016, only one Congressional incumbent has been ousted. And that, due to a raft of criminal indictments. Slim pickings for such a plan.
Fox News cited David Payne, a Republican data guy. Payne observed that, in the case of Congressional Districts, these have now been “so carefully constructed” in gerrymandering by state political parties, few if any Congressional primaries are actually competitive. Fox News cited Payne: “Look at all of the insiders who are picking up 60% of the vote.” Certainly no evident anger tsunami.
We would mention the “careful construction” of the fixed nomination within the late national Constitution Party convention; but there’s no profit in that horse. The rickety beast is filled with spotted fever. And no; we do not refer to an Appaloosa, Idaho’s state horse.
CP-Idaho’s point is that offering active engagement to the electorate, putting forth cogent, honest and intelligent solutions—to be, not to pretend to be—is a far better plan than waiting around every four years for the Siren songs of anger. Besides, a strategy to “capitalize” on voter anger, especially via the same type of insider entitlement, is a dead end.
As Payne was quoted in the Fox article, “The year of the outside candidate is a neat, tidy package put out by the media to a certain extent.” Unfortunately, the media’s “neat, tidy package” has its seduction. It is the lure of something for nothing. That always finds its marks, or spots, in keeping the metaphor.
Sure enough most third parties, including this national party, seem to expect a ballot bonanza to fall from the skies of voter anger in 2016; and hey, they don’t figure they even have to do much of anything to earn those ballots either. They can just sort of hang around, and votes fall without effort. It’s a neo-manna complex…or maybe U.N. airdrop syndrome.
In physics (and human interactions) objects tend to stay at rest until something acts upon them. There is little doubt that the national Constitution Party has been at rest, immobile if not moribund, for some time now…waiting. But a political tactic of simply waiting around for some external catalyst to come along and move voters to you (rather than actively engage and include and involve them), is a laggard’s plan with limited likelihood of success.
But, third parties apparently still insist on this technique. They plan to wait around, almost tick-like, in hopes that some event, this time, will surely come their way. This year, there’ll be enough anger. This time, they’ll feed.
Tomorrow…is always a day away. Just wait, Einstein. You’ll see. You’ll see.