Commons Increasingly Moving Towards Non-Affiliated Ballot Position
2004, the Year of the Stolen Election in the 9th Congressional District of the State of Washington, was the first year of the pre-organizational phase of the Party of Commons in which the founder of the party, Mark Greene, ran for U.S. Representative under a major party label, that was pretty much forced upon Commons since the governor back then, Gary Locke, forced the so-called Montana-style primary on Washington which lasted a few years until the voters rebelled by instituting the Top 2 primary. Now, independents and 3rd parties are more free to participate in elections without having to jump through additional hoops that the major parties cleared themselves from having to do. This also makes it easier for 3rd parties to be independent without having to become, loosely or otherwise, affiliated with a major party just to be on the ballot. Even though almost everybody says that it is impossible for 3rd parties to make the Top 2 in the relatively new primary system.
Commons might just try to defy that conventional wisdom in the next Congressional election, especially in the 9th District. We take a little heart from Councilwoman-elect Kshama Sawant's, whom we endorsed, recent victory in Seattle (after all, a slice of Seattle is in the 9th District, now, and the Republicans seem to be weaker in the 9th than they were before last year's redistricting). On the other hand, we won't have the "strange" tabloid endorsing us -- which is good and problematic -- as their endorsements do appear to be powerful since it is doubtful that either McGinn (Seattle's mayor) or Sawant would have been elected, in respective election cycles, without them.
The biggest problem, as the 2012 Lieutenant Governor election showed -- is that liberals and progressives vote for Democrats (even in Top 2 primaries) no matter how non-liberal or non-progressive the Democrat in question is. In other words, they see a label and they vote for it -- period. It's hard to beat back that kind of knee-jerk, practically zombie-like voting, especially with a grassroots (read "no money") campaign. Yet, it would be easier in a district campaign than it would be in a statewide campaign, and who knows if we might get lucky if 5 or 6 Republicans filed for 9th District Representative, thereby splitting up the G.O.P. vote in several pieces of the pie. That would be too good to be true, but not as unlikely as winning the Powerball jackpot. And if we did make the Top 2, we would of course be to the left of Adam Smith on economic and foreign policy, so would that cause a Republican surge to Smith? After all, a good number of Republicans didn't have any problem voting for Dean Logan's protégé, Sherril Huff, at the Elections Department in 2011 (if they can vote for the Democratic-controlled status quo at Elections in a relatively short period since the Rossi-Gregoire imbroglio, they can vote for just about any Democrat). Yet, that at least seems plausible when you consider that there's not a dime's worth of difference between Democrats and Republicans.
The Democrats and Republicans are practically the same party. Call it the Democratic-Republican Party, if you will. They both believe in drastic foreign intervention, thrashing the New Deal and the Great Society, i.e., cutting social security and other safety net programs to the bone, if not outright dismantling them, rejecting Habeas Corpus that's enshrined in the 5th and 6th Amendments of the Constitution, thus rejecting the heart of the Bill of Rights, keeping tax loopholes in place for fabulously rich corporations, doing pretty much nothing about environmental and nuclear armament/energy problems, and not raising the taxes on Billionaires and Near Billionaires more than the present 39% rate (thirty-nine per cent is a vast drop from the 90%-or-so that it was under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, though filled with even more loopholes than in 2013, believe it or not), nonetheless, they manage to find enough present-day loopholes to keep themselves from even paying that, e.g., Mitt Romney's bragged about tax rate in 2012 (can't remember it without research, but it was under 15%).
Adam Smith wouldn't even be an Eisenhower Republican from the 50s (he would be far to the right of that), but more like a Bush II Republican (slightly to the left of the Tea Party). The latest Commons campaign might be another Bryan-type effort, after all, referring to William Jennings Bryan, the "Great Commoner," and the moniker from which the Party of Commons formed its name back in 2006. In other words, we might have to just run -- hopefully in more than one Congressional district -- no matter the odds, in order to do our part in getting the truth out, since after all the truth will set us free, as the Bible informed us so well.
[revised on 3/20/14]
Commons might just try to defy that conventional wisdom in the next Congressional election, especially in the 9th District. We take a little heart from Councilwoman-elect Kshama Sawant's, whom we endorsed, recent victory in Seattle (after all, a slice of Seattle is in the 9th District, now, and the Republicans seem to be weaker in the 9th than they were before last year's redistricting). On the other hand, we won't have the "strange" tabloid endorsing us -- which is good and problematic -- as their endorsements do appear to be powerful since it is doubtful that either McGinn (Seattle's mayor) or Sawant would have been elected, in respective election cycles, without them.
The biggest problem, as the 2012 Lieutenant Governor election showed -- is that liberals and progressives vote for Democrats (even in Top 2 primaries) no matter how non-liberal or non-progressive the Democrat in question is. In other words, they see a label and they vote for it -- period. It's hard to beat back that kind of knee-jerk, practically zombie-like voting, especially with a grassroots (read "no money") campaign. Yet, it would be easier in a district campaign than it would be in a statewide campaign, and who knows if we might get lucky if 5 or 6 Republicans filed for 9th District Representative, thereby splitting up the G.O.P. vote in several pieces of the pie. That would be too good to be true, but not as unlikely as winning the Powerball jackpot. And if we did make the Top 2, we would of course be to the left of Adam Smith on economic and foreign policy, so would that cause a Republican surge to Smith? After all, a good number of Republicans didn't have any problem voting for Dean Logan's protégé, Sherril Huff, at the Elections Department in 2011 (if they can vote for the Democratic-controlled status quo at Elections in a relatively short period since the Rossi-Gregoire imbroglio, they can vote for just about any Democrat). Yet, that at least seems plausible when you consider that there's not a dime's worth of difference between Democrats and Republicans.
The Democrats and Republicans are practically the same party. Call it the Democratic-Republican Party, if you will. They both believe in drastic foreign intervention, thrashing the New Deal and the Great Society, i.e., cutting social security and other safety net programs to the bone, if not outright dismantling them, rejecting Habeas Corpus that's enshrined in the 5th and 6th Amendments of the Constitution, thus rejecting the heart of the Bill of Rights, keeping tax loopholes in place for fabulously rich corporations, doing pretty much nothing about environmental and nuclear armament/energy problems, and not raising the taxes on Billionaires and Near Billionaires more than the present 39% rate (thirty-nine per cent is a vast drop from the 90%-or-so that it was under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, though filled with even more loopholes than in 2013, believe it or not), nonetheless, they manage to find enough present-day loopholes to keep themselves from even paying that, e.g., Mitt Romney's bragged about tax rate in 2012 (can't remember it without research, but it was under 15%).
Adam Smith wouldn't even be an Eisenhower Republican from the 50s (he would be far to the right of that), but more like a Bush II Republican (slightly to the left of the Tea Party). The latest Commons campaign might be another Bryan-type effort, after all, referring to William Jennings Bryan, the "Great Commoner," and the moniker from which the Party of Commons formed its name back in 2006. In other words, we might have to just run -- hopefully in more than one Congressional district -- no matter the odds, in order to do our part in getting the truth out, since after all the truth will set us free, as the Bible informed us so well.
[revised on 3/20/14]
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