A National Party Over There

A party in which, in Presidential primaries, everyone would have three votes, one for their preferred candidate on economic policy, one for their preferred candidate on social policy, and one for their preferred candidate on foreign policy.

Each state or territory would have 45 delegates, 15 in each category, with the highest scoring candidate in that category being awarded five, then four, three, two, and one. In the event of fewer than five candidates, it would simply go back to the top of the list, so that, if there were three, the first placed scorer would get five, the second placed four, the third placed three, the first placed another two, and the second placed another one. That would mean the return of a proper convention, choosing the nominee by exhaustive ballot while thrashing out a platform genuinely representative of a broad range of opinion.

Primary ballot access would be made conditional on nomination by at least five per cent of electors in the state or territory, including at least 10 per cent in each of its congressional districts, all signatures having been collected by registered electors in that state or territory. With that safeguard in place, all primaries would be open, even regardless of simultaneous participation in another party’s as a voter, though perhaps not as a candidate. All the state and territory primaries would be held on the same day.

Over successive months, or possibly weeks, and although the exact terminology is hardly the point here, there would be further primaries across sections, tendencies, caucuses and forums, each of which would elect a further 45 delegates as if it were a state or a territory. Anyone would be free to join up to two sections: Progressive (as the heirs of the New Left tend to call themselves), Liberal, Farm-Labor, Environmentalist, Fiscal Conservative, and Social Conservative. Up to one, or maybe two, tendencies: Moderate, Neoconservative, Paleoconservative, and Libertarian. Up to two caucuses: White British, White European, Black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian and Pacific Islander, and Jewish. And up to two forums: Women's, LGBT, Disabled, Farmers and Rural Communities, and Veterans and Military Families.

The National Committee would be elected on the same basis: states and territories, sections, tendencies, caucuses, and forums, with each voter (anyone in the first case, anyone who registered as above in the other four) voting for one candidate, and with the top five being elected at the end.

Yes, guaranteed places at the table for the old New Left, for liberals, for environmentalists, and for fiscal conservatives. But also for the Farm-Labor tradition and both parts of it, for social conservatives, and thus for those, expected to be an enormous number, who registered as both of those. Yes, guaranteed places at the table for neocons and for libertarians. But also for paleocons and for those who used to be called Moderate Republicans. Yes, guaranteed places at the table for blacks, for Hispanics, for Native Americans, for Asians and Pacific Islanders, and for Jews. But also for WASPs and Scots-Irish on the one hand, and for the old “white ethnics” on the other; black representation amount to representation for the black church. And yes, guaranteed places at the table for (effectively) feminists and for those who used LGBT as a political identity, but, as well as for the disabled, also for farmers and rural communities, and for veterans and military families.

When has either party ever had any of those guarantees built in? Historically, either of them might have arrived at the point where it can now restructure itself in this way. But as things stand, only the Democrats could now do it. Will they?

Or is it time for farmers, unions, social conservatives, paleocons, Moderates, WASPs, Scots-Irish, “white ethnics”, rural communities, and veterans and military families to band together and start again by issuing an open invitation to the old New Left, to liberals, to environmentalists, to fiscal conservatives, to blacks in general and the black church in particular, to Hispanics, to Native Americans, to Asians and Pacific Islanders, to Jews, to feminists, to LGBT identifiers, and to the disabled, on the basis of equality among the forums, among the caucuses, among the tendencies, and among the states and territories, including recognition of the need to express different preferences in the spheres of economic policy, social policy, and foreign policy?