Post editorial on extremist politics
Nov. 14th, 2004 09:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acroyearPretty good read, mostly covering how the moderates still outnumber the extremists, but the voices that are loud and moderate voter apathy at the earlier stages of the election process is what's keeping extreme party-liners in congress.
Most interesting excerpt: Falling turnout in primary elections, particularly in congressional races in off years, cedes the field to fiery partisans. Between 1996 and 2002, turnout in congressional primaries halved from 34 percent to 16.8 percent, according to David C. King of Harvard University.
In my interpretation, this means that the moderates stopped being involved in picking congressional candidates in the first place, and thus the hard party-liners are the ones being offered to the electorate in November, and as such pull the party-line voters who still would rather have had anybody else, but nobody else was available.
and its their fault for not picking somebody else 7 months earlier...
(for those states that even have congressional primaries, of course)
hopefully, the larger electorate that was inspired to vote this year will keep the habit up. the easiest way to throw the bumbs out is to not even let them get past the first steps again...
it continues: Nonetheless, the resulting polarization is worrisome. By reducing the space for bipartisanship, it can condemn Congress to gridlock. By driving elected officials to the fringe while citizens inhabit the center, it can alienate citizens from their government. Over the long term, moreover, the polarized minority may eventually succeed in polarizing the majority.
it ends with a plea to end the homogenous redistricting that happens every 10 years based on the census that both sides have used to keep incumbents in power (though it has betrayed the democrats in the south on numerous occasions, especially parts of texas and south carolina). however, it doesn't hold up any alternative to put in its place.
Another editorial tries to offer some hope that now that the election is over, the moderates of the republican party that are still in Congress will start to assert themselves more directly, in aspects like PATRIOT, the deficit, and that the national Congress likely will never pass a national-level gay marriage ban amendment.
The author doesn't, however, bring up his thoughts on whether or not moderates in the Senate will even be willing to put up any resistence to Bush's upcoming cabinet and court nominations. Considering that even the 50-50 split and 50-49-1 Senates from 2001 to 2003 still passed an overwhelming majority of his nominees (something like 85%, higher than any other congress including Clinton's Democratic Senate of 1993-1995), I'm not holding my breath...
Yet another editorial already says that Gonzalez has support within the Democratic party (probably because of his moderate position on things like Affirmative Action, which is irrelevant to the position of Attourney General).
Most interesting excerpt: Falling turnout in primary elections, particularly in congressional races in off years, cedes the field to fiery partisans. Between 1996 and 2002, turnout in congressional primaries halved from 34 percent to 16.8 percent, according to David C. King of Harvard University.
In my interpretation, this means that the moderates stopped being involved in picking congressional candidates in the first place, and thus the hard party-liners are the ones being offered to the electorate in November, and as such pull the party-line voters who still would rather have had anybody else, but nobody else was available.
and its their fault for not picking somebody else 7 months earlier...
(for those states that even have congressional primaries, of course)
hopefully, the larger electorate that was inspired to vote this year will keep the habit up. the easiest way to throw the bumbs out is to not even let them get past the first steps again...
it continues: Nonetheless, the resulting polarization is worrisome. By reducing the space for bipartisanship, it can condemn Congress to gridlock. By driving elected officials to the fringe while citizens inhabit the center, it can alienate citizens from their government. Over the long term, moreover, the polarized minority may eventually succeed in polarizing the majority.
it ends with a plea to end the homogenous redistricting that happens every 10 years based on the census that both sides have used to keep incumbents in power (though it has betrayed the democrats in the south on numerous occasions, especially parts of texas and south carolina). however, it doesn't hold up any alternative to put in its place.
Another editorial tries to offer some hope that now that the election is over, the moderates of the republican party that are still in Congress will start to assert themselves more directly, in aspects like PATRIOT, the deficit, and that the national Congress likely will never pass a national-level gay marriage ban amendment.
The author doesn't, however, bring up his thoughts on whether or not moderates in the Senate will even be willing to put up any resistence to Bush's upcoming cabinet and court nominations. Considering that even the 50-50 split and 50-49-1 Senates from 2001 to 2003 still passed an overwhelming majority of his nominees (something like 85%, higher than any other congress including Clinton's Democratic Senate of 1993-1995), I'm not holding my breath...
Yet another editorial already says that Gonzalez has support within the Democratic party (probably because of his moderate position on things like Affirmative Action, which is irrelevant to the position of Attourney General).
