My New Party

5/23/2013

I have switched parties! A longtime reluctant Democrat, I am now an enthusiastic Centrist. I just finished Charles Wheelan's excellent book, The Centrist Manifesto, and find myself strangely optimistic about fixing politics in America. I urge you to read the book or at least the summary.

Wheelan proposes a new party, the Centrist Party, which takes the best ideas of Democrats (social progressiveness, concern for the disadvantaged) and the best ideas of Republicans (fiscal conservatism, awareness of the limits of government intervention) and combines them with a willingess to compromise on values where reasonable people can differ (abortion, guns). I think most moderate Democrats and most moderate Republicans will support most of the positions he takes.

Wheelan then goes on to outline a plan where four or five Centrist Party senators can win elections in swing states, become the swing voters in the Senate, and essentially run the country. Audacious. But it might just work. It would bring sanity and compromise back to American politics, which has become dysfunctionally partisan and unable to tackle important issues effectively these last fifteen years.

Please visit the Centrist Party's website. If you support the positions (and I'm confident most moderates will), then do something about it. Sign up for the newsletter, donate, and promote it any way you can. This is a movement that has the potential to accomplish great things. I can honestly say that this is the first political movement I have come across that I have been truly enthusiastic about.

6 Comments

Benjamin Jones

5/24/2013 05:35:31 pm

Considering that, over the last 30 years, Democratic presidents have been considerably more fiscally conservative overall than Republicans (consider the offsets in AHCA as opposed to the complete lack of offsets in GWB's medicare expansion), what is the difference between a centrist and a mainstream Democrat.

Put more concretely, what are three or four policy or fiscal positions where you would be more conservative than moderate Democrats? Put even more concretely, name a position that you would take that would be too conservative for any of the ten most conservative Democratic senators (say, McCaskill, Manchin, Warner, Webb, Hagan, Landrieu, Tester, Nelson, Prior, Bennett)?
And are there any Republicans currently holding office in the House of Representatives or the Senate other than Susan Collins (who is very likely to be bounced in her primary) that aren't well right of your positions?

Ben Mathew

5/24/2013 06:31:02 pm

You make a strong point. Cutting taxes without cutting spending, which is what Republicans have been wont to do, is not fiscal conservatism. It's fiscal irresponsibility. So it's more stated philosophy than concrete action. But, philosophy counts for something, right?

But moving from government spending into regulation (which I think is more important than spending), the Republicans have some concrete accomplishments stemming from their belief in markets and skepticism of government intervention. I think they were right when it came to the deregulations of the 1980s. They are more likely to support school vouchers. They are more willing to take on unions.

I may not be more conservative than moderate Democrats. But the Centrist Party should be the new home of moderate Democrats. And moderate Republicans like David Brooks and Senator John McCain and (I'm guessing here) my old thesis adviser, Professor Gary Becker.

Benjamin G. Jones

5/24/2013 07:10:15 pm

In order to guide my studying, what is one prime example of an 80s de-regulation greater than the 1976-1981 de-regulations? I agree that there is a Pelosi democratic party that never sees a regulation it doesn't like, but it seems like most effective de-regulation comes from centrist Democrats, especially at the executive level.

As I remember (and I'm an economists son, not an economist myself), there was more de-regulation under Carter (petroleum, airlines, telecom,trucking, trains) than under Reagan. The biggest leaps forward in anti-protectionism (WTO, GATT, NAFTA) are also under Democratic presidents. Can you name a Republican de-regulation that is more significant than those?

On public sector unions, you have a point (I support public sector unions, but I'm a social Democrat :-) ), but that is almost exclusively a state issue (GWB had a friendly court both houses of congress for four years and didn't do anything to limit collective bargaining for federal employees).

So it seems that, if anything, a good place for a Centrist position as you describe it is to elect state senators, legislators, and field candidates for governor in states like California, Washington, New York, and Massachusetts. Like a William Weld/Charlie Christ kind of party. Interesting. I'll have to think about it.

Regarding David Brooks: he calls himself a Republican, but he endorsed Barack Obama not once, but twice. A David Brooks Republican in 2013 is a Barack Obama Democrat.

Ben Mathew

5/24/2013 07:27:57 pm

But is there any reason that moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans should not peel off to form a Centrist party that controls the swing votes? They would be more comfortable in the Centrist Party than in their current parties. Why shouldn't they switch and deny either party a majority?

Benjamin G. Jones

5/24/2013 07:53:38 pm

My suggestion -- which is not proven, but for which there is some circumstantial evidence -- is that almost all former moderate Republicans vote Democratic now already; the remaining Republican voters are entrenched, pre-balkanized, unavailable. This means that, in federal elections everywhere except BOS-WASH and the liberal West Coast, a centrist party would simply splinter the Democratic party, removing the last shreds of incentive from the Republicans to play to the center.

In California and New York (and maybe your state), it's a whole different story. I could easily see a future where the Republican party is a modest sized third party, and the Centrists and Democrats are the main two, especially in state-wide elections (Governor Schwarzenegger would have been a centrist).

I have personal experience of this where no other party was available. In my twenties, I was on the New Mexico Green Party council. We had hoped to force Democrats to open up to different positions on core moral issues like the Death Penalty and Nuclear Weapons by giving a challenge on the left. It didn't work that way. Very conservative Republicans were elected to seats that were out of reach to them for decades, and the Democrats clipped right to hunt for more votes.

I think the inter-party notion you promote is right in it's field, but that that field is limited right now. You are basically proposing a combination of Perot plus half of Clinton's positions. That was, indeed, a winning combination. The only problem with that as a strategy is that, today, the bulk of potential centrist voters are fairly safe Democratic votes right now. That will change in a variety of ways.

In any case, I look forward to reading your book. It was recommended by my statistical idol Tim Harford, and I congratulate you on writing it and your ingenious promotion.

Ben Mathew

5/24/2013 09:54:27 pm

I am more optimistic about the composition of the Republican party. I think there are moderate Republicans who are there for fiscal reasons, who haven't crossed over to the Democrats, and who will cross over to the Centrists. In which case the Centrist party won't just splinter the Democratic party, it will splinter both parties. A third party from the center is a new idea that will have very different effects than a third party from the left or right.

I'd be curious to see a survey that asks social progressive fiscally conservative voters whether they vote Democrat or Republican. If it's not out there already, I think the Centrist party should commission a study so we know the answer to the important question you raised.

Tim Harford (timharford.com) has written some really good books on economics (The Undercover Economist and The Logic of Life) and I am honored that he tweeted about my book. I can't wait to get the book out, and I hope you will enjoy it.

My New Party

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