Today Glenn Beck interviewed Independent candidate for New York’s 23rd Congressional District, Doug Hoffman. No need to editorialize here, but Beck’s right on – it’s time for principles over party; that’s the only way we…..

And if I’m right that there’ll always be at least 40 votes or so in the Senate and 45 percent among the population for progressivism, how does he presume to enact the libertarian agenda while confronting the realities of congressional compromise?

Maybe you need to hit the books to learn what the word “Progressivism” actually means. Read Holmes, John Dewey or Herbert Croly, or Cass Sunstein, Jonathan Chait, or Jeffrey Rosen, or any of dozens of others. These people were or are representative of Progressives. They are not garden variety liberals by any reasonable definition. Equally important, not all Democrats are Progressives by a long shot.

There isn’t 45% in favor of that philosophy today, even after 100 years of leftist propaganda. There is a considerable difference even between a garden variety liberal and a Progressive.

Progressives represent between 5-20% of the population in the country, depending on how generous you want to be with the definition, but nowhere near the nearly half you are asserting. Even those numbers have fluctuated – much smaller during the 50s, growing from the late 60s through the present.

There is nothing inevitable about Progressivism nor about political support for progressive policy. It is a battle of ideas and individuals have the choice of which ideas they will accept. Which they accept is a complex function of education and circumstances but in the end an individual decides what to believe. There is nothing fated about it.

The fact that Markos Moulitsas is supporting Scozzaflava over Owens This troubles even me as as I defend Scozzaflava. I want a reasonable moderate Republicanism, but I have been disappointed recently. Particularly, a few votes for the “stimulus” bill and its economic insanity. I still have faith that moderate Republicanism can be done right: hard core economic conservatism plus social liberalism plus some flexibility on other issues.

thuja on October 26, 2009 at 10:24 PM

The left’s version of Operation Chaos? This is the dems only option in 2010, run out 3rd party candidates to split republican support, recently used for Bill Clinton and against Al Gore.

We MUST demand the republican party elect ONLY conservatives or we will not vote for them PERIOD. They will take our advice.

The Republican party has no base. The Republican party RENTS the Conservative base. Once they stop paying rent – they lose the base.

HondaV65 on October 27, 2009 at 8:22 AM

That is an excellent observation.

What is the endgame?

AllahNewt

Obviously, slavish obeisance to the GOP party candidate no matter their actual public policy positions would be ideal. And yet Hoffman seems to be playing this election game to win office based on his conservative political philosophy.

Yes, AP — what on earth can he be thinking?!

Assume hypothetically now that the world isn’t perfect. What is the endgame?

The endgame is the relegation of both the Democrat and Republican parties to a plurality-only status, permanently.

Elect roughly 20% of the legislative branch as common-sense independents, not beholden to a third party or any party. People who seek to act as a buffer against bad ideas no matter where in the political spectrum they arise.

With a 40-40-20 split, neither party can ram hot-headed legislation through. Both sides are forced to work with the sane middle in order to get anything done. These folks can act as a bulwark against bad legislation, no matter how rapidly the political winds shift. Instead of having to wait years to correct for short term surges in political stupidity, these independents can compensate immediately.

With such a split, there’s far less damage that a Democrat or Republican President can do. No third party needed (or, for that matter, wanted).

Simple, really.

PastorJon on October 27, 2009 at 2:14 PM

You are absolutely right. The GOP BEGAN as a third party. Does anyone remember the “Contract With America”? Those were ROSS PEROTS ideas, a third party candidate, written NOT by Newt Gingrich, but by Larry Hunter, Dick Armey, Bob Walker and Bill Paxon.
Isn’t it strange that Hoffman has all of these endorsements from CONSERVATIVES like Palin, Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter, Pawlenty, Ken Blackwell, Peter King, Steve King, Dick Armey, and a host of others, yet Scozzafava is endorsed by Planned Parenthood, ACORN, SEIU, Teamsters and oh yeah, Newt Gingrich.

Pepsi or Coke? How about Root beer, Dr. Pepper, Sprite, 7-Up, Mello Yello, etc.

The problem isn’t a viable third party, but a lack of viable fourth, fifth and sixth parties. Just one third party will always draw votes, but maybe that’s what Republicans need to see happen to get their shiat straight, cause apparently losing to Obama wih their RINO in Chief didn’t do it.

Let’s see, Republicans keep proposing RINOS and keep catering to the Left, yet it’s either socialists to the left of me and RINOS to the right, and if I request something else, I’m a “Glenn Beck whack job”.

Like Dennis Miller once joked, “Of course Eskimos are gonna eat blubber, it’s the only thing on the Arctic buffet”.

Sure Obama is a walking catastrophe, because he is the a huge dose of leftist poison all at once. Instead, with RINOS, we get a small dose of the same shiat daily for years until we build an immunity to knowing any better.

It’s simple – Republicans wake up to the DEMAND expressed by the people and SUPPLY what is asked for, or they lose out in the political marketplace. I’m tired of being blackmailed into a lesser of the two evils “d0uche v. turd” contest.

You’re right – it’s far too serious now to deal with limpd!cks himming and hawwing over how best to “win the middle” by weakening the right, and standing by, watching while they do it, waxing academic. Be a man, grab your b@lls, and profess your conservatism. Don’t apologize for it, teach it, preach it, and win people over to it. Advertise (for the right) and antagonize (the left).

Better to be who you are and fail than sell out your beliefs to win.

And thus appealing to a majority of whatever is out there, is precisely the wrong strategy. What if it is ever the case of a marxist majority “out there”? Does that mean that the GOP wants the endgame to be that as near-Trotsky-ites, the GOP slows down the Stalinist fringe “out there”.

There is a strong suggestion in the framing of views “out there” that the views just are, they cannot be changed. They cannot be enlightened. That it is just the role of a majority that the can appeal to more of them than not. If that is the case, then why bother. You’ve already surrendered enough to the opposition–let alone nihilism.

Um….they built THIS country.

nazo311 on October 27, 2009 at 1:48 PM

Randian co-optive nonsense. Thomas Jefferson oversaw laws that had people put into the stocks overnight for “lewd” conversation.

Madison and Harrison were far from purists, and if you read the Federalists closely you’ll see not a plan for the one-true government, but arguments for a strategies that they believed would deliver a real-world government closer to the principles of freedom. They did not seek the ideological purity that libertarians read into originalist writings. Along with this, while Madison thought that army chaplains were “unconstitutional” he made no effort to purify the army for his interpretation, but gave deference to the tradition of chaplains in the army, based on his respect for the intellects of men who felt otherwise.

1) Conservative, true conservatives not RINOs, need to stop saying ‘third parties don’t win’. If the ‘third party’ represents more people than the repubs and enough people fall in behind it, including conservative commentators, then the GOP can become the ‘third party.’

2) At the very least, the GOP losses due to third parties should force them right, to stop nominating and supporting the Scuzzyfavas and McCains of the world and get behind the Pawlentys and Palins of the world.

If this is done right, and CONSERVATIVES are able to recapture the Republican party, and sit the “moderate” losers down, we can absolutely make the democrat party irrelevant for a generation.

In order to do this, we need actual conservatives who will stand by their principles.

This stuff isn’t rocket science. It’s very simple to understand, for most folks.

gary4205 on October 27, 2009 at 12:43 AM

I want more than one generation. I’m thinking FOUR at least.

The endgame? To get a conservative in office.

You see, my parents actually come from an older generation–they were born during the Great Depression. I might be quite young (in my early 30s), but the values that were instilled in them were also instilled with me, despite the opposing views that grew from the “Me generation” of the children of the 60s…

Why is this relevant? My parents knew–just as I know–that if it takes a short-term sacrifice for a long-term substantial gain, it’s well-worth it. I, like many, voted for McCain–or rather, voted for the lesser of two evils. Looking back, I totally threw away my vote. If Obama won, I (and American) would lose. If McCain won, I (and American) would have lost.

As Beck suggested, I should have voted for a conservative first, their party affiliation be damned. Heck, if it was McCain vs. Zell Miller, I would have opted for Miller.

And if we’re so focused on parties rather than ideals, and we can’t endure a single term under another party….then the game’s over before it even began, and any vote cast–no matter for who–is wasted to begin with.

The endgame is to win, AP. Not every throw will be received for a touchdown, and you can’t make every play a Hail Mary.

nazo311 on October 27, 2009 at 1:48 PM

That was my thought too.

…there’s a supermajority out there willing to return to Founders-style libertarianism if only he and other conservatives hammer the message hard and long enough. I don’t think there is.

I say

There IS a supermajority out there willing to return to Founders-style conservatism if only Glenn Beck and other REAGAN conservatives hammer the message hard and long enough JUST LIKE REAGAN DID. I believe there is.

FIF(AP)