Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Gangale
In the American Plan, we are talking about transforming the political environment at the national level. When speaking about modifying planetary environments, space scientists use the term "terraforming," to make an alien environment more terrestrial. The American Plan is a project to "demoform" the national political environment, to make an environment of alienation more democratic. This new term has a small "d" for a reason; it refers not only to changing the Democratic Party, but also to altering the Republican Party.
I spoke with a top political operative for about 10 minutes at a meeting of a state Democratic Party in early October, regarding the American Plan to reform the presidential nomination process. His objection to the plan was an artifact of his lack of understanding and his mindset. He said to me, "I've read this thing several times and I still don't understand it." Moreover, he was the prisoner of his "us versus them" mentality. That may make him a good political operative in the environment that he understands; his job is to win elections, period. However, his environment has limited horizons. He operates at the level of state politics; his purview of political strategy is trench warfare.
This top political operative wanted to know, what's in it for the Democratic Party? How does this give our party an electoral advantage over theirs? Frankly, it may confer no advantage at all. Audaces Fortuna iuvat. Fortune favors the bold. If the Democratic Party is not bold enough to implement the American Plan on its own, Fortune will not favor the party with any advantage. Why should she?
But that misses the real point. The real point is that there is a serious flaw in the structure of the American republic, to the detriment of both parties and nearly all Americans. In 2004, due to the early collapse of the Howard Dean campaign, 80% of Democrats were denied the opportunity to cast a meaningful ballot for the presidential nomination. In 2004, no rank-and-file Republican had the opportunity to choose another candidate over the re-nomination of George W. Bush. Who can pretend that this is democracy in any meaningful sense?
Now, imagine that there had been a serious challenge to the re-nomination of George W. Bush. For that matter, imagine that George W. Bush had never been nominated in 2000. Is it heresy for a Democrat to suggest that Democrats would be better off under President John McCain? I think not. I think it is safe to say that the Democratic Party would be better off were it dealing with a more reasonable, more moderate Republican administration. Certainly, Americans in general would be better off.
Key Republicans understand the seriousness of the problem, especially those who served on the Republican National Committee's Brock Commission six years ago. Last month, a former RNC chairman said to me that the presidential nomination process is "really very damaging, and it can't go on much longer. The nominees in both parties are being chosen by a few ideologues, a few nut cases." Clearly, this is not in the interest of Republicans, it is not in the interest of Democrats, it is not in the interests of Americans.
The members of the Democratic National Committee's Price-Herman Commission also understand this. They would like to see a follow-on effort that goes beyond their charter of tinkering with the 2008 presidential nomination schedule. They would like to see a new DNC commission that works, if not in close cooperation with a counterpart RNC commission, at least in loose synchronization with it, to restructure the nomination processes of both parties for 2012, for the common good.
It is in the interests of both parties to join together and "demoform" the American political environment. It goes without saying that a better Democratic Party is good for Democrats, but it is also good for Republicans. Likewise, a better Republican Party is not only good for Republicans, it is good for Democrats as well.
To embark on this project will require some boldness. To understand the need for boldness will require some imagination. Above all, we must rise above zero-sum thinking: "If you win, I lose." Implementing the American Plan is a "win-win" scenario. I also dare hope that such a cooperative effort by the two parties might begin to heal the red-blue divide, the polarization of our politics that paralyzes our governance.