We need better political parties
By John Gaylord September 21, 2011 at 7:09 pm 
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Our political parties are failing us, and their failures are becoming much harder to ignore. Paralysis in Congress, dementia in the states and a student council campaign for the White House have Americans of all stripes wondering where it all went wrong.
Presidential campaigns can be irritatingly insistent reminders of our national shortcomings, and this year’s Obama hunt has already given us plenty of reasons to feel embarrassed.
In particularly sad election cycles — meaning almost all of them — certain pieces of our system are always getting dragged out and castigated. The Electoral College, the two-party system, women’s suffrage — surely something must explain how this keeps happening.
The big scapegoat of the season, at least this week: the closed primary. Writing for CNN, former Giuliani speechwriter John Avlon railed against the evils of closed primaries, blaming them for radical candidates like Christine O’Donnell.
All of Delaware lost, he argued, when hard-right Republican primary voters dropped a viable candidate in former Rep. Mike Castle for a virtually unelectable O’Donnell.
But closed primaries in Delaware, as elsewhere, are hardly the real problem.
If Delaware Republicans feel the way Avlon assumes, meaning they generally line up center-right and love Castle, closed primaries should’ve been a non-issue.
But only 32 percent of Republicans voted in Delaware’s primary. So the problem wasn’t a lack of Democrats and Independents; the problem was a lack of Republicans.
In a perfect world, party-based elections give us twice the vote: one in a primary, and another in the general election. They are inherently more participatory, and when they work right, most people have a better chance at an acceptable general election candidate.
But a two party system only works with two healthy, working parties. If the bulk of one party checks out, ceding power to its rabid minority, general elections become meaningless. Republicans nominate an idiot, so Democrats just need a lesser evil.
This problem wouldn’t be too hard to fix, if reasonable people would just check back into politics. But given the state of the parties, that’s a tough sell.
Political parties are not for governing. They are, or are supposed to be, servants and facilitators. They allocate money and influence to support credible candidacies, meaning ones that represent the party membership. A well-functioning party should weed out hilarious sideshows, and help distinguish rising leaders.
They do these things in service of their members, who should always feel some sense of ownership. But for most Americans, that sense has been gone for some time now.
Instead, our parties have become exclusive clubs for true believers only. RINOs and DINOs need not apply, regardless of how popular they are with voters.
The solution to this problem isn’t open primaries; the solution is better parties.
Americans deserve parties that represent them. Parties that tailor themselves to the views of their members, instead of forcing canned platforms down their throats.
It’s not something that’s just going to happen — somehow, we’ve got to first shake off years of apathy.
Voters have to ask themselves, what can this party do for me? And then demand it.
Reach the columnist at john.a.gaylord@asu.edu
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How is today different from any other time in our country’s history?
I agree that our political parties are problematic. They are unabashedly prone to petty political maneuvering and preaching to their relatively small bases. The latter is especially true during primaries, where candidates are encouraged to cater to their party’s base, against candidates from their same party.
In general elections, particularly for president, candidates shift back towards the “center” somewhat.
Unfortunately, partisanship and legislative gridlock are neither new problems facing our country nor easily solvable.
Personally, I do not believe the problem is closed primaries or bad parties. The problem is the parties themselves. They breed inherent distrust and oppositional attitudes while catering to small segments of the American population, those few who are motivated enough and happen to share similar views that are constantly involved in politics.
The rest of the country suffers from apathy or the collective action problem, if not both.
More worrisome are those who simply are “republican” or “democrat” and blindly accept whatever their parties’ candidates say without expending the slightest bit of critical judgement. The sky is not blue, it is red, you say? Then, surely, it must be so.
Abolishing the electoral college in favor of basing Presidential elections on the popular vote of the country as a whole might be the most important first step we can take in the right direction to move away from petty partisan politics. Hopefully that would also instill a renewed sense of deep political interest in our population, along with less self-interest and more properly informed voters. My optimism for this, however, is not high.