CALIFORNIA
FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2020, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“THE ONGOING ELECTION: LAST OF
ITS KIND?”
As the official Election Day
approached while millions of voters were casting ballots by mail, in deposit
boxes and at early voting centers during the last month, it looked distinctly possible
that this might be the last election of its precise kind.
This wasn’t just because President
Trump threatened not to recognize the outcome, which bears the possibility of
throwing America into unprecedented, almost unbearable constitutional crisis.
But in California, there was the strong possibility that votes cast this fall
might be the last in a two-party system that has become almost an unbreakable
tradition.
That’s because a move is afoot to
begin a new tradition, this one involving a new, centrist political party founders
call the “Common Sense Party.”
Possessing clear potential to become a
major party, it’s headed by Tom Campbell, a former five-term moderate Republican
congressman from the Silicon Valley area who lost two bids for the U.S. Senate
and has been dean of the business school at UC Berkeley and the law school at Orange
County’s Chapman University, where he now teaches law and economics.
Before the coronavirus pandemic hit last
March, Campbell’s new middle-of-the-road party had gathered more than 20,000
voter signatures toward the 68,000 needed for official state recognition and
the accompanying ability to raise individual contributions of up to $38,800 for
distribution to candidates it favors.
The signature drive ended abruptly,
and Campbell has since sued and otherwise pressured state officials like Gov.
Gavin Newsom, Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Secretary of State Alex
Padilla to lower the signature threshold in recognition of the current virtual
impossibility of gathering names in person.
Those officials, like all others in
statewide office, are Democrats jealous of their party’s power and thus unlikely
to oblige anytime soon even though several other states have lowered the
numbers needed for new party recognition.
For sure, this party had few problems attracting
signatures while its drive persisted. One reason: it really doesn’t matter functionally
which party voters register with; California’s top two primary system lets
everyone vote for anybody they like in any party, except in presidential
primaries.
There’s also the clear reality that a significant
middle-ground party has been needed here for decades. That’s the deeper meaning
of the ongoing shift by voters from the rolls of both Republicans and Democrats
to no party preference. NPPs almost match Republicans in California now, while
Democratic numbers have not grown much even as population rose somewhat in the
last few years.
One reason for this is the drift
toward extremism by both Republicans and Democrats. GOP adherence to anything
Trump wants has driven away thousands of voters, while Democrats aren’t gaining
many by sticking with a left-wing agenda not embraced by the majority of party
voters. That was evidenced during last spring’s primary election season, when
Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders drew a consistent 35 percent or so of the vote in
virtually every state other than those with caucuses. Other Democratic voters
went for more centrist candidates, but the party’s apparatus is increasingly run
by Berniecrats, thanks to their packing local caucuses where delegates to state
party conventions are chosen.
Said Campbell via Zoom, “Most Californians
are dismayed by the two major parties’ movement to their extremes. The Public
Policy Institute of California reports that 55 percent of adult Californians
believe a third party is needed.”
Usually it takes a charismatic,
prominent figure to bring a party into prominence. Abraham Lincoln did that for
Republicans in the 1850s. Thomas Jefferson did it earlier for Democrats. The extreme
but prominent Jean-Marie le Pen and his daughter Marine did it for their far-right
party in France.
Campbell has never been accused of
having charisma, but he does have a record of not toeing any party’s line and
says he would not expect that of Common Sense candidates if the party becomes
real.
His new party, he said, “will support
candidates of any party – so long as they are willing to think for themselves.”
Only time will tell if this proposed
party will materialize and survive longer than the 1990s Reform Party begun by
former wild card presidential candidate Ross Perot. If it does, it has major
potential to change California elections.
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