You WIn by the People You Lose

Each of our two major parties is losing a good section of our populace do to the presence of a few very small sects within their respective ranks. It is my belief that the first of the two parties who takes upon my advice and jettisons the said groups is on the way to a dominant status. These things being said, I personally do not care about the success of either the Democrats or Republicans, not to mention any party. As far as I am concerned this is common sense stuff. The two major parties have a few very small factions of the populace exercising disproportionate influence to their representation across the whole census and this angers a lot of people and causes them to vote for the party they probably wouldn't were it not for the presence of these factions or simply not vote at all.

We will begin with the Democratic Party. The Democrats used to portray themselves as the "party of the common man" but today they are anything but. The problem the Democrats have is with a few factions in their midst that have driven the party far to the left of the American people and has caused many former Democrats to leave the party. The first of these factions are celebrities and other liberal elitists. I don't need to explain why the constant presence of Barbara Streisand and Alec Baldwin are hurting the Democrats. As for the "other liberal elitists" I think of the left-wing politically correct types: the vegans, the gun control activists, the secularists, the radical environmentalists, the nanny statists etc. When you have a few people who expressly look down on meat eaters, "gun nuts," religious people, smokers, etc. and are trying to put their views into law, you piss off a lot of people. Another thing that ticks people off is the radical environmentalist and other tendencies that gripe about our personal habits and are standing in the way of cheap gas. Advice for Democrats: if you want to win don't even pander to this group.

Next you've got what I like to call the "Jesse Jackson Caucus." It is those of the mind that they are somehow entitled to have everything handed to them. I am not going to say "women and minorities" because that would be profoundly unfair, although there is a percentage of NAACP members and feminists who fit into this group. These people tend to see white males as oppressors even if many of their enablers are themselves white males, often university professors. The prime leader and namesake of this group is the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who seems to label almost everything he disagrees with as "racist" and demands handouts without accountability. Thankfully, since the 1990s this group has diminished somewhat but they remain and are eager to take back the reins. In order to drive this group away Democratic candidates like Barack Obama need to start emphasizing personal responsibility more forcefully and draw out that they want a government that helps you when you're down, not a government that acts like your maid from cradle to grave.

Finally you have the infamous teacher's unions. I am not at all suggesting that Democrats abandon unions, I am simply saying that teacher's unions in general are quite problematic. For years, teacher's unions have been standing in the way of almost every proposed educational reform; they aren't even open to trying anything new in many cases. While Democrats have held less of an ear to other unions in the past, teacher's unions still pretty much get their way as long as Democrats are in power. This is probably one of the most powerful unions in the world since it has so much effect on the world's biggest economy, and if Democrats want to show that they are serious about that economy then they need to quit allowing teacher's unions to have a stranglehold on our educational system.

The GOP has a bit of a problem of its own; we will begin with the neoconservatives. The neoconservatives have been controlling our foreign policy for the last eight years and their interventionist ideals led to the war in Iraq and would probably take our military to Iran and North Korea if it were politically feasible. Some stalwart national defense fanatics might be pleased with the neocons but many other Republicans have left the party and many mainstream voters, independents and libertarians especially, feel that they could be more sympathetic to the GOP if not for the presence of this group in directing the foreign policy. Coincidentally, getting rid of this group would send a message to the American people that the Republicans are flushing Bushism out of their system.

I could not help but mention the Religious Right. The Religious Right is like the Jesse Jackson Caucus in that it has gotten so out of control on some issues that its influence is waning under its own weight, still, it does have a stranglehold on the GOP. Sure, this group may make up a huge lot of the GOP membership but they do not provide for the welcoming of new Republicans. The truth is that if the GOP were to moderate its social stances somewhat then I and others might be more comfortable with them. As much as strong moralistic stances appeal to some people they alienate a lot of others and cause tolerant persons to look down on Republican values. In the old days, Republicans like Eisenhower, Goldwater, Nixon, and Ford never focused on social issues; until the Reagan years the GOP was a bread and butter party that promised to get crime off the streets, cut your taxes, and run government more efficiently than Democrats. Reagan, in spite of his pandering to social conservatives, was still welcoming to socially moderate Republicans; that tone changed in the 1990s and 2000s and as of 2008 the GOP risks regionalizing itself to the South and losing its former grip on the libertarian West. If the GOP wants to regain the West and make some inroads back into their former stomping grounds in the Northeast then they need to lose the Religious Right.

Finally, the Republicans need to ditch the Big Government Conservatives. Wasteful spending has upset a lot of people who used to be attracted to the Republican brand of balanced budgets and low taxes. The bottom line is that if the GOP wants to win the fiscal conservatives again then they need to quit pandering to Big Business with handouts and bailouts and start focusing on tax cuts for the middle class rather than the rich and balanced budgets. The bottom line is that for the Republicans to win they need to be more consistent economic conservatives and moderate their stands on social issues and foreign policy. Democrats simply need to shift to the right a tad on social issues in particular, and economic issues somewhat. What the Democrats don't seem to get is that this is a conservative country and what the Republicans don't seem to get is that we may specify that said conservatism is a moderate one more driven by populism and distrust for government than by religious fanaticism and militarism. The first party to take me up on my advice and eject the caucuses that are ruining their brand is the first party to win broadly; until then we are going to be seeing close elections that are more about who you are voting against than who you are voting for.