A "Kadima" party in the United States?

[JohMunich99]

Shortly before Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke, he founded Kadima, a moderate political party that bridged the gap between the two major political parties in Israel. Whether or not Kadima will survive without Sharon is certainly up for grabs. Let's avoid that question and focus on the potential of the same thing happening here in the United States. I think Tuesday was a fascinating day for politics because not only did Democrats nominate a more liberal candidate over a moderate incumbent for Senate in CT, but Republicans nominated a more conservative candidate for Congress over a moderate incumbent in Michigan.

Moderate candidates find it harder and harder to adjust to their entire party. Many people here decry Senators like our former Democratic Senator Lieberman, and Democratic Senators Byah, Salazar, Nelson (take your pick), and even Feinstein, Clinton and Schumer get the wrath from time to time. Anyone who has visited Free Republic has seen the Freepers decry Snowe, Chafee, McCain, Hagel, and Specter. What is the likes of Lieberman, McCain, etc. said enough of this B.S., let's work together and form our own moderate party.

As I see it the likelihood of this is not very good because American has a winner takes all approach to politics. At least in many other Democracies, people vote for political parties. If a party gets 10% of the vote nationwide, they get 10% of the seats in parliament, congress. If a McCain/Lieberman party candidate got 10% of the vote all they would get is a label: spoiler. That is certainly an obstacle (among other things like volunteers, funding base, ballot access, the list is mind-boggling) but if politics gets to the point where the two sides are so far from each other, could moderates be energized to unite?

What if the "Gang of 14" Just split and set up the "14 Party". With that kind of leadership they could probably get the volunteers, funding, and ballot access they would need to at least stand a good chance.

I've noticed people don't respond to well to long posts though, so I'll stop there. Anyone else like to jump into this?

[Syrinx]

1. as I see it, the Democratic Party...

Is the Kadima party. Lots more moderate Dems than Pukes.

[Warren DeMontague]

2. Erm, the point of party unity is to get on board even when your guy

doesn't win the primary.

It's what the "moderates" and DLC types have been harping on us to do for years. Now, surprise, surprise, when their guy -like Lieberman- loses, all of a sudden the rules need to change.

Baloney. The "moderates" in the GOP got behind George Bush for the past 6 years as he pursued a far right agenda and stacked the SCOTUS with two ginkuses committed to the overturning of Roe, the total elimination of personal and privacy rights, and the criminalization of birth control. But our moderates can't handle someone like Dean, or Lamont, without jumping ship?

Nope. UNITY works both ways. And this idea that McCain is somehow a "moderate".. tell it to Jerry Falwell, when the Senator has finished kissing his ass. Tell it to the hundreds of millions of American women McCain thinks shouldn't have the right to control their own reproductive systems.

McCain aint a moderate. Neither is Lieberman, for that matter. Americans are far more liberal than the media wants to let on. Most Americans are opposed to the Iraq war.

Dean and Lamont are the true CENTRISTS.

[SoCalDem]

3. We just need to disect the parties we have

Social democrat
Traditional republican
Religious conservative

should do it..

Make people own up to exactly what they are...and have three slates of candidates to choose from..

[Warren DeMontague]

4. I think we need space for social libertarians.

People who believe simulataneously in a SPHC system and the rights of individuals to make their own decisions about their own lives and bodies.

I think the authoritarianism of both the right AND certain parts of "the left" at times turns people off.

[Selatius]

7. But generally speaking, many libertarians don't want political office

They're more interested in movements than political parties because of their suspicion of state power and of authoritarianism in general. That's the nature of libertarianism be it left libertarianism with the likes of Noam Chomsky and others and right libertarianism with the likes of, say, Milton Friedman, the free-marketeer.

[Warren DeMontague]

8. Yeah, but I think they can still be persuaded to vote.

I think our party needs to do a better job of speaking to those instincts, particularly the left-libertarian kind.

[theanarch]

5. i have to question the premise of your post that...

...Kadima is a 'moderate' party--based on their actions to date, one can more credibly argue that, if anything, Kadima is more to the fascistic right than Likud. At least Likud felt constrained enough by world opinion to have a Palestinian "negotiating partner", and after they corrupted and compromised Fatah into being their sock-puppet/strawman/whipping-boy/scapegoat, they had one in Arafat...and it was in response to Arafat's selling out that Fatah lost control of the Palestinian Authority (which is to say, that part of it the IDF hadn't gotten around to bombing back to the stone age) to Hamas. Olmert ran on a platform of no more negotiating with anyone about anything...the Palestinians (and now Lebanon/Hezbollah) can either agree to whatever Israel dictates at the point of a gun, or they can be exterminated. Period.

The Democrats, under the DLC, have become a right-leaning "moderate" party (GOP-lite); and have become America's almost-permanent second (minority)Party ever since. What we really need is a genuine, kick-ass Party of the Left to provide the proper counter-balance to the hard-right leanings of the GOP, and the soft-right leanings of the Democrats. The only question is if the Democrats can "reclaim their (New Deal) soul" to become that counter-vailing force, or if progressives have to look outside the DP for that.

[Selatius]

6. Kadima, from my political vantage point, is center-right

Just because it occupies the space between Likud and Labor does not make it centrist.

[JohMunich99]

11. Perhaps using Kadima was a bad example

I meant more is there the possibility of a third party starting out of nowhere created from the top down as opposed to bottom up like other third parties in America.

Kadmia's politics are somewhat irrelevant for the conversation I was hoping to get going.

[Selatius]

12. It's not possible in our two-party system

It's feasible if we operated on proportional representation as it would allow more than two parties to participate in government, but we operate on single-seat constituent representation instead.

[Nimrod2005]

9. Kadima may not be here few months from now, Olmert lost the war w/Hizb'ah

and whatever he was trying to demostrate in this mess did not work.

No more Kadima for Israel...We won't have one here either.

[karynnj]

10. As you said, Israel has a parlimentary style government

more suited to multiple parties that combine to form a government. Here this would likely result in the RW being the biggest single party.