Centropians: The Third Party Seduction

Whenever shrill debate produces destructive partisan gridlock, many otherwise sane pragmatic realists start talking about how great it would be to have a third major party.  You know, for Independents.

The latest casualty to this wishful thinking seems to be the otherwise quite incisive Matt Miller:

I'm a Clinton White House alum who had hoped President Obama could usher in the debate we need. It's hardly all his fault that we're not there, but I'm convinced the parties' interest groups and "thought police" make real progress impossible without a new force that shakes things up. Democrats and Republicans care first and foremost about winning elections, a task that bears no necessary relationship to actually solving our major problems. Having our two-party duopoly control the terms of debate may have sufficed when America was the world's dominant economy, with little competition. But those days are gone. The challenges we face are serious. People know our current arrangements aren't up to them.

Anecdotal evidence: Speaking to 400 professionals of all stripes in California the other day, I asked who would be seriously interested in a third major political party. Fiscally conservative, socially liberal. Nearly every hand shot up.

Something's afoot and it's not just about the Tea Party. The radical center is ready to rise.

I hope he's right about the radical center, but the idea that a third party will end the gridlock in Washington is laughable. 

Inevitably, when Utopian visions of third-party intervention appear, they feature a party that is "fiscally conservative, socially liberal."  Set aside that this is a perfect description of both the modern Democratic Party and Libertarians.  The real problem with Miller's anecdotal evidence is that it includes so many different perspectives that it could not possibly hold together a real coalition unless it addressed many of the same communications issues facing the current Democratic Party.

Since I don't want to type "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" over and over, I'll just call this mythical new coalition Centropian.  Immediately, a number of questions come to mind for Centropian candidates:

• Where do Centropians stand on economic regulation?
• Since Centropians are "fiscally conservative", we can count on them to cut taxes, right?
• Where does the Centropian Party stand on global climate change?  What should we do about it?
• Do Centropians think we should remain in Iraq and Afghanistan?
• Do Centropians support the death penalty? What about for terrorists?

Of course, I could go on all day.  Ultimately any Centropian candidates would be forced into the same impossible choice as the existing major parties: govern or get elected.  The problem the Centropians would face--a problem that they share with today's Democratic Party--is that they cannot win without saying more about their principles and priorities.  And they can't win without defeating the experienced, entrenched propaganda machine on the right.

I'm just saying that if you're going to put a bunch of energy into building a coherent counter-narrative to the GOP, using pragmatic American values, then you might as well put that energy behind the party already trying to do it. Anyway, as Bloomberg reminds us, Centropian candidates never win.