Political Parties are not Sports Teams

On Party switching (4.00 / 3)

If Smith went to the polls as a registered Democrat - as opposed to as an Independent who chose a Dem ballot that day - he was not allowed to leave the party at the polling place. He would have to go to City Hall to do that - which he could do, most workdays.

You have to be registered in a Party to run for office under its banner. The deadline for enrolling in either Party was June 3rd (pdf).

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by: elwood @ Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 05:21:32 AM CDT

Excellent - thank you. (0.00 / 0)

And if the letter Smith sent was on June 3rd (a likely typo in the article, I think) then it could easily have coincided with a party registration change. In fact, doing it on the deadline like that would underscore the drama of the party switch quite well (not that I agree with the switch).  

birch, finch, beech

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by: Dean Barker @ Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 05:26:37 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Whatever (0.00 / 0)

If Rep. Smith was sincere in his beliefs, he would simply have announced he wasn't running for reelection, because he did not agree with how leadership was doing things, or, he would have run for reelection and announced he was running for speaker.  Either of those actions would have been principled.  Becoming a Republican while claiming to have the same values? Not so much.




"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."  Franklin D. Roosevelt    

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by: Kathy Sullivan 2 @ Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 06:35:10 AM CDT

I didn't undersatnd this (0.00 / 0)

either, when I read it. Don't the Republicans also expect their members to tow the line, so to speak?

Maybe he's confused. I can see being uncomfortable with the resignations, but then can't he show it by voting for a different leadership if he gets re-elected and the Dems are in the majority again?

He couldn't have strong values if he can switch parties like that. Maybe to "independent" like some people (many of whom believe the Democratic party is not progressive enough), but Republican?

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by: Jennifer Daler @ Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 06:35:18 AM CDT

PS (0.00 / 0)

I think Smith was a Republican before he was a Democrat.

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by: Jennifer Daler @ Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 06:37:45 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

the Honorabe member from Nashua (0.00 / 0)

was a willing co-sponsor of any and all anti-lgbt bills introduced. Often the sole House Democrat voting for legislation.

Have you written a letter to the editor today? Have you donated today? Have you put up signs? Have you made calls? Have you talked to your neighbors?

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by: Ray Buckley @ Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 08:55:54 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Ah. I wondered why someone (0.00 / 0)

would say "The reason I'm leaving the Dems for the Republicans is this procedural issue" given the real, strong differences between the parties on civil rights, including LGBT issues.

If he agreed with Dems on those, why join the Republicans? If he disagreed with the Dems, why not say so? I guess he must figure that he's better off not advertising his views much.

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by: elwood @ Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 09:50:51 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

maybe he swings (0.00 / 0)

both ways...:-)

Not in the shot

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by: JonnyBBad @ Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 11:33:55 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

That's a donkey of a different color. (4.00 / 2)

Having read this thread up until this point, I was predisposed to defend his choice.  I'm uncomfortable with the Speaker's actions (but am not interested in getting into that debate here) and can see how a person of deep principle could be sufficiently miffed by something he saw as essentially anti-democratic to ditch his former party of choice.  And I can see how a moderate Democrat could see himself doing a good job for his constituents as a liberal-to-moderate member of the Main Street faction of the Republican minority, the out-of-power status of which he might well think would make it less likely to attempt to strictly control him.

But in this day and age, a person who is swift to put his hand to any anti-LGBT bill proffered is not a person who has a place in the Democratic Party.

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by: Tim C. @ Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 11:49:06 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

No lgbt bills- (0.00 / 0)

I just checked the list of bills he sponsored in the 2007-2008 and didn't find any anti-lgbt bills.  He was the prime sponsor of the payday loan bill, along with several bills relating to veterans/national guard issues and the Fish and Game Department.

"Plus Ça Change, Plus C'est La Même Chose"

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by: NHFlatlander @ Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 16:25:10 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

nothing is coming up (4.00 / 1)

for his previous terms - the link must be down. But I certainly know his record.

Have you written a letter to the editor today? Have you donated today? Have you put up signs? Have you made calls? Have you talked to your neighbors?

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by: Ray Buckley @ Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 19:23:59 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

And the roll calls (0.00 / 0)

show he voted against civil unions in  2007.

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by: elwood @ Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 21:06:44 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Sounds like he missed the boat (4.00 / 2)

Joining the Republican Party when the rats are fleeing the ship?  I just don't get it.

He's voted with the Republicans so much this session, it makes no sense why he chose to switch now.  Wait til the HRA scorecard for 2008 is made public.  I guarantee he makes Ronnie proud.

It's time we steer by the stars, and not the lights of every passing ship

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by: Andy Edwards @ Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 00:11:31 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

This is stupid. (4.00 / 1)

I object to the leadership purge too, but this is like becoming a Republican because most of the Democrats were for the Patriot Act.  Think about it, honestly.

--
"Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be given to you." -Aaron Sorkin

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by: Douglas E. Lindner @ Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 08:24:50 AM CDT

sign of the times (0.00 / 0)

This has been going on since at least the 2000 election.

The people that need to sorely be told this are those Hillarites who are threatening to vote McCain.

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by: romulusnr @ Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 11:36:04 AM CDT

And those Obama supporters (4.00 / 3)

who said they could never support Hillary.

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by: elwood @ Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 11:41:46 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I resemble that remark n/t (4.00 / 1)

www.KusterforCongress.com - www.paulhodesforsenate.com

www.nikitsongas.com - www.devalpatrick.com

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by: Jack Mitchell @ Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 11:46:16 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Political Party memberships are not values (0.00 / 0)

I have no opinion on the Smith thing but I must jump up and down and wave my arms crazily in disagreeing with you on the party=values thing, Dean.  Your analogy was sports teams, mine would be commercial brands: allegiance to a political party no more guarantees that an individual will hold and live up to a particular set of values than picking a particular commercial brand guarantees quality, freshness, or a pleasant customer service experience - that's simply what the company or their PR firm wants you to believe.

I also think spin doctoring in the last few decades has tried to change the meaning of the word "values" but we should not let it be changed.  Values are things that might be held as a virtue: things like honesty, fairness, patriotism, et cetera - things which transcend what side someone is on for any given political issue.

The Karl-Rove-like political marketing guys would have us believe that coming down on a particular side of an issue is the same thing as having virtue.  They want to blur the definition so severely that some voters will get it into their heads that there's no distinction between, for example, a particular position on the Iraq War and the value "patriotism" and that therefore having the opposite position on the War is the opposite of patriotism.

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by: Vis Unita Fortior @ Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 01:18:43 AM CDT

To qualify (0.00 / 0)

I would agree that a party's platform can articulate or emphasize a particular set of values.  But the platform is not the party; the party is a group of people and their actions and their collective honor, in the same way that a company is not what it says in that company's mission statement or on the advertising posters.

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by: Vis Unita Fortior @ Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 01:25:16 AM CDT

It's much more than that. (4.00 / 2)

Very specifically: the Democratic Party took the path of endorsing civil rights rather than segregation, starting perhaps with Humphrey's speech to the 1948 Convention and culminating in LBJ's 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Johnson knew and said that this would drive the South from the Democratic Party for a generation. Before this stand both parties paid lip service to civil rights; after it the GOP courted the racists.

This is no Bud vs. Miller, Ford vs. Chevy distinction. The Democratic Party stands strongly for civil rights, reproductive rights, and - increasingly - gay rights. The Republican Party strongly opposes all of these.

To pretend otherwise is not healthy skepticism but rather ignorant cynicism.

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by: elwood @ Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 05:57:08 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Division of labor. (4.00 / 1)

The freedom enjoyed by subjects of any government comprises rights and privileges, and the two main American political parties divide the responsibilities for defending these.

The Democratic Party defends the right of all people to liberty and justice, and the Republican Party defends the privileges of the fortunate.

Though to give credit where credit is due, the Republican Party is entirely egalitarian in its conception of inalienable rights; it would grant the poor as well as the rich the right to trade in unregulated derivative markets and limit their tort liability.

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by: Tim C. @ Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 18:05:11 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I certainly agree that parties as organizations have identities (0.00 / 0)

and a list of accomplishments and faults.

I'm just saying that, particular when there's really only two choices, the extent to which a politician's party membership invests that politician with virtue or faults is pretty limited.

I am blue in my political philosophy but I just don't accept that a Democratic stamp on a candidate or individual means that they hold the same values I do.  Nor do I automatically dismiss someone simply because they say they're a member of the Republican party.  I think we shouldn't do that and I think that sort of prejudice makes for increased and harmful divisiveness.

elwood, what about LBJ's Gulf of Tonkin resolution and his role as the George Bush of the Vietnam War, where fifty thousand U.S. soldiers died and so many Vietnamese died that no one even knows the numbers?  Not to mention the various secret wars in South East Asia (which essentially put Pol Pot in power, don't forget, and probably helped get this lovely Burmese military junta in place.)  That wasn't Democrat values, right?  This is the kind of thing I'm talking about.  Party = values / values = party is not only foolishly prejudicial and oversimplifying but it involves looking at history, sticking your fingers in your ears, and shouting "lalalala I can't hear you..."

"We're the good guys and everyone knows it, and they're obviously the bad guys" is exactly how the 2004 presidential election was lost.  Fortunately Bush has so persistently and cravenly screwed up that I doubt that will happen again.  But I think that sort of attitude will lead to laxity and eventually to failure to uphold the sorts of values the Democratic Party ought to represent.

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by: Vis Unita Fortior @ Thu Jun 12, 2008 at 02:59:45 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Well, I posited that parties are (0.00 / 0)

a kind of shorthand for values. There's no way having only two major ones would mimic each individual person's value system.

That said, the two sets couldn't be more starkly contrasted in 2008, which makes party jumping inexplicable, unless it has to do with ambition more than values, or else the rep was in the wrong party to begin with.

birch, finch, beech

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by: Dean Barker @ Thu Jun 12, 2008 at 04:30:47 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I'm definitely not trying to say anything about the Smith party-jumping situation (0.00 / 0)

And I trust that you've made cogent analysis of that.  It's simply that I've always regarded the party / values conflation as a fallacious ruse, usually conservative-employed, and I would see it exposed as such and fall into disuse if I had my way.  (Not that I think you were using it as a ruse, Dean, I'm just speaking truth to, uh, bloggers. :&)

Let me also say that in general I think it's great to talk about values and use them in political reasoning, as long as it's well-thought-out, not simply rhetorical, and the values are consistent with actions.

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by: Vis Unita Fortior @ Thu Jun 12, 2008 at 05:44:37 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Response: (0.00 / 0)

This combines the worst rhetorical tricks out there while you lecture others on being fair-minded.

• "What about Tonkin?" Straw man. I didn't say the Democratic Party or Lyndon Johnson were or are correct in every policy. I said there are clear and fundamental differences between the two parties. Foreign policy is not one of them. (BTW: the two 'No' votes on Tonkin were Dems.)
• "sticking your fingers in your ears..." Now you take your straw-man argument, misrepresenting what I said, and use it to insult me.

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by: elwood @ Thu Jun 12, 2008 at 07:34:18 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Not trying to lecture (0.00 / 0)

I'm literally just making the argument that parties are not values.  I do not have any personal contempt for people who honestly hold that position, I simply disagree with them.

You say that Tonkin was just an imperfect policy decision - I would say it and escalation of the Vietnam War and the prosecution of the Laos-Cambodia wars were value decisions and were representative of values radically different from what you would expect if you'd supported LBJ because you thought his Democratic party membership meant he held a certain set of values.  That kind of mismatch happens all the time and there's no reason to expect it won't happen in the future.

The "sticking your fingers in your ears..." thing is NOT a straw man argument.  You are definitely ignoring history if you're asserting that there's some inviolate connection between an individual's party membership and their values - if you're going to say that there are things Republican politicians will always do, and which Democrats could never do, because they're guided by certain values.

I think that Obama genuinely represents change but that's no reason to let our guard down or become this politically simplistic.

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by: Vis Unita Fortior @ Fri Jun 13, 2008 at 09:51:30 AM CDT

[ Parent ]