Any party switchers in our future?

hgc

Penultimate Amazing
hgc
Joined
Jun 14, 2002
Messages
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The big political wet dream, that things are so bad with the other party their office-holders start to switch sides, is starting to bubble up in my imagination.

Sure the Jim Jeffords switch (R to I, caucusing with D's) didn't unleash a avalanche, but the dissatisfaction with current situation may bring on more. I think that James Webb, former Navy Sec under Reagan, and now a Dem running for Senate in Va, will provide some inspiration if elected.

Who thinks there will be switchers, in either direction? My favorite candidate is Chuck Hegel (R, Neb). It also looks like Bush's favorite Dem, Lieberman, will run as an Independent if by some small miracle he loses his primary.
 
Darat said:
Out of curiosity do the USA two main parties publish an election manifesto?
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Manifesto? No. That's for commies. :)

Both parties issue platforms which consist of a list of party objectives where each line item is referred to as a plank.
 
Darat said:
Out of curiosity do the USA two main parties publish an election manifesto?
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Not in the same sense as is done in parliamentary democracies. During presidential election years, there is a party "platform" agreed upon at the nominating convention. Same goes for state party conventions. But these are hardly binding on candidates, and little publicized anyway. The most famous and successful example of an election manifesto would have ot be the Republicans' "Contract with America" during the 1994 congressional campaign.
 
Thanks for that clarification - it's what I thought was the case but wanted to check.

How then do you decide which party you wish to vote for if they don't make their objectives and their policies clear?
 
Darat said:
Thanks for that clarification - it's what I thought was the case but wanted to check.

How then do you decide which party you wish to vote for if they don't make their objectives and their policies clear?
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In the most direct sense, you don't vote for a party, you vote for individual candidates for office. Of course this translates for many votes as a party preference anyway. People have an idea of what a party stands for based on what their elected officials, party officials and candidates and media talking heads pontificate about policy and politics. It's sort of the unofficial manifesto being bandied about in the body-politic. Of course, it often bears little relation to reality.
 
JamesDillon said:
McCain might what, as well? Switch parties?? I can't see that happening.
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I used to think it was possible for McCain to find a comfortable home as a Democrat, but he's made it crystal clear that he's a loyal Republican. Backing Bush to the hilt in 2004 was the final word on that.
 
As is common with wet dreams, you will find this one bears little resemblance to reality. Office holders seldom switch parties and when they do, it is usually akin to signing their own political death warrant. Neither side trusts them.
 
peptoabysmal said:
As is common with wet dreams, you will find this one bears little resemblance to reality. Office holders seldom switch parties and when they do, it is usually akin to signing their own political death warrant. Neither side trusts them.
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Richard Shelby (R, Al) is not a trusted Republican?
 
peptoabysmal said:
As is common with wet dreams, you will find this one bears little resemblance to reality. Office holders seldom switch parties and when they do, it is usually akin to signing their own political death warrant. Neither side trusts them.
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As evidenced by all those Dixiecrats, like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond, who faded into obscurity when they joined the GOP.
 
I personally vote for whose partisans win the most debates on politics message boards ...

Seriously though, its as vague or as specific as each candidate wants it to be. If they think it will help them win the election, they'll publicly break with their party over a particular issue.

Conversely, if they agree with most of the party's platform but know that a one or two issue break will lose the voting party faithful, they remain silent on an issue (you don't hear too much about pro-choice Republicans or anti-affirmitive action Democrats much for this reason.)

Everyone has a website these days, and you can pick up stuff from debates too.

Sadly, probably the biggest source is the other candidate's campaign ads and how the first candidate responds to them. That's why there is a lot of voting for the perceived lesser of the two evils.
 
hgc said:
Richard Shelby (R, Al) is not a trusted Republican?
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I have no idea. I don't live in Alamama nor do I follow it's politics, except to the extent that I don't think very many people in Alabama trust any of their elected representatives.

Did I not use words like "seldom" and "usually?" To refute a statement like that takes more than a couple of exceptions to the rule.
 
Furious said:
Seriously though, its as vague or as specific as each candidate wants it to be. If they think it will help them win the election, they'll publicly break with their party over a particular issue.
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McCain has crafted a successful public persona on the basis of that tactic, while remaining for the most part a loyal syncophant.

Conversely, if they agree with most of the party's platform but know that a one or two issue break will lose the voting party faithful, they remain silent on an issue (you don't hear too much about pro-choice Republicans or anti-affirmitive action Democrats much for this reason.)
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That's generally true, but there are exceptions, such as Arlen Specter (a pro-choice Republican) and Harry Reid (a pro-life Democrat). Can't think of any anti-affirmative-action Democrats, offhand.
 
hgc said:
The big political wet dream, that things are so bad with the other party their office-holders start to switch sides, is starting to bubble up in my imagination.

Sure the Jim Jeffords switch (R to I, caucusing with D's) didn't unleash a avalanche, but the dissatisfaction with current situation may bring on more. I think that James Webb, former Navy Sec under Reagan, and now a Dem running for Senate in Va, will provide some inspiration if elected.

Who thinks there will be switchers, in either direction? My favorite candidate is Chuck Hegel (R, Neb). It also looks like Bush's favorite Dem, Lieberman, will run as an Independent if by some small miracle he loses his primary.
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Well, I have witnessed a bit of political party switching myself.

Here in West Virginia, there is a fellow by the name of 'Richie Robb' who was the Republican mayor of South Charleston, WV for the last several years, but he finally had enough of the Iraq War, switched to the Democratic Party, and is now running for the House of Representatives seat that is now held by a Republican.

Go figure!
 
peptoabysmal said:
I have no idea. I don't live in Alamama nor do I follow it's politics, except to the extent that I don't think very many people in Alabama trust any of their elected representatives.

Did I not use words like "seldom" and "usually?" To refute a statement like that takes more than a couple of exceptions to the rule.
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So sorry. I assumed you knew what you were talking about when you made your assertion. Shelby has been re-elected since switching and is Chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

The use of qualifying adjectives not withstanding, you can provide evidence that party switchers "usually" sign their political death warrant, or not. I provided a counter example. Cleon provided a few more. Where's the evidence for this "rule" you think these are exceptions to?
 
OK, did a little digging. Now I 'member who this Shelby guy is.

Senator Shelby served on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence from 1995 to 2003, stepping down because of a Senate rule limiting committee terms to eight years.

In 2002, as vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Shelby was summoned to Vice President Dick Cheney's White House office and secretly briefed on the NSA's warrantless domestic spying program along with Democratic Senator Bob Graham of Florida. The two were not permitted to bring staff members to the meeting and were ordered not to discuss the matter with anyone else.

Controversy surrounds Shelby's role in leaking national security secrets involving the September 11, 2001 attacks. In 2004, a federal investigaton concluded that Shelby revealed classified information to the media when he was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.[1] Specifically, Shelby revealed classified information on June 19, 2002 to Carl Cameron, the chief political correspondent on Fox News. This information had been given to Shelby only minutes before at a closed intelligence committee meeting. This information consisted of two messages intercepted by the National Security Agency on September 10, 2001, but only translated after the attacks the next day — "the match is about to begin" and "tomorrow is zero hour."

Intercepts by the National Security Agency are among the most sensitive of classified information. Both the U.S. attorney's office and the FBI investigated the case, and a grand jury empaneled; however, as of 2005, no one has been charged with a crime.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Shelby
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Maybe my statement about not trusting office holders who switch parties has more merit than I thought?
 
hgc said:
So sorry. I assumed you knew what you were talking about when you made your assertion. Shelby has been re-elected since switching and is Chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

The use of qualifying adjectives not withstanding, you can provide evidence that party switchers "usually" sign their political death warrant, or not. I provided a counter example. Cleon provided a few more. Where's the evidence for this "rule" you think these are exceptions to?
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Both yours and Cleon's examples were of "Southern Democrats" which are a crossover anomaly with Republicans and do not represent the rest of the country accurately. These folks's roots are in a group who wanted to form a Democrat-Republican party and secede from the Union to protect their right to own slaves.

Maybe you would believe the opinion of Gary King of the Department of Politics for New York University?

Since, for elected leaders partisan loyalty is more important than for other citizens, a change in partisanship for these leaders can be presumed to be more consequential as well. Such a change has personal as well as professional implications. It affects not only the politician's current and future career but, at least in the short and middle term, the entire network of friendships and relationships built up, both within and outside the legislature, over the course of that career. As a result of a party switch, the leader is perceived as less predictable, less constrained by the "normal rules of the game." The natural question that arises is, "what other untoward behavior may be expected from this person." And from the switchers perspective, the reactions of others become less certain, especially in the near term, when the partisan thread is severed.
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So in the short term, there are consequences to switching partisan loyalties.

The document is available here: http://gking.harvard.edu/files/switchers.pdf

The document also indicates that more switching occurs during times of political stress (which I think we could all agree is the current situations), but it is still a modest amount and goes both ways, not a major shift from one party to the other as in your current wet dream.
Though prior research also indicates that members of congress switch parties for reasons of ideology and ambition, members always have some level of political dissonance. In this work, we model a two century long time series of party switching and find that switching is more frequent in
periods when extraordinary stress is put on the legislators. As expected, even at these times, the increase in switching is modest.
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