RE: How About Thirds?
I normally find Bartlett to be a rational, independent thinker. I guess he still is, but this sure looks like adoration of the status quo to me. Maybe it's because he's writing for NRO.
And with that, he breezes on by the topic like an express freight train. Not so fast, Sparky.
The original intent of the founders was not to elect the President by popular vote, just as the original intent was not to elect the Senate in that way. Remember, they were building a republic, not a democracy. The idea behind the Electoral College was to have a small group of interested individuals meet to select the chief executive. There were a number of ideas suggested on how the members of Electoral College would be selected, but it was finally decided to leave it to the states. Fans of democracy and anti-federalists wouldn't abide such an arrangement and the popular sentiment behind "electing a king" won the day. Many political scientists and historians have often wondered at the circumstances that essentially gutted the concept of the Electoral College.
Removing the beauty contests that are the election of the President and of the Senate would almost certainly empower third parties. In nations with parliamentary governments, third (and fourth) parties are the rule, not the exception.
Bartlett's claim to be examining circumstances beneficial to third parties is dishonest. In the end, he simply embraces the two party system with only the most shallow of considerations otherwise. I seriously doubt Abraham Lincoln would agree with Bartlett's assessment of the transition from one two party system to another. The fledgling Republicans struggled as a third party in local and Congressional elections for years before the presidential campaign of 1856. Bartlett simply ties the two party system inexorably to the election of our "king." He had already made his conclusion and just produced spin to support it.
One, obviously, is a European-style parliamentary system where the president is, in effect, elected by Congress. The Founding Fathers rejected this idea, and I see nothing in the way parliamentary systems govern that seems better than what we have.
And with that, he breezes on by the topic like an express freight train. Not so fast, Sparky.
The original intent of the founders was not to elect the President by popular vote, just as the original intent was not to elect the Senate in that way. Remember, they were building a republic, not a democracy. The idea behind the Electoral College was to have a small group of interested individuals meet to select the chief executive. There were a number of ideas suggested on how the members of Electoral College would be selected, but it was finally decided to leave it to the states. Fans of democracy and anti-federalists wouldn't abide such an arrangement and the popular sentiment behind "electing a king" won the day. Many political scientists and historians have often wondered at the circumstances that essentially gutted the concept of the Electoral College.
Removing the beauty contests that are the election of the President and of the Senate would almost certainly empower third parties. In nations with parliamentary governments, third (and fourth) parties are the rule, not the exception.
Bartlett's claim to be examining circumstances beneficial to third parties is dishonest. In the end, he simply embraces the two party system with only the most shallow of considerations otherwise. I seriously doubt Abraham Lincoln would agree with Bartlett's assessment of the transition from one two party system to another. The fledgling Republicans struggled as a third party in local and Congressional elections for years before the presidential campaign of 1856. Bartlett simply ties the two party system inexorably to the election of our "king." He had already made his conclusion and just produced spin to support it.
posted by Anonymous | 10:56 AM
1 Comments:
I like Bruce Bartlett's original idea about libertarians forming a political action group instead of trying to organize a political party.
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