“Centrism springs from the idea that neither political party has a monopoly on good ideas. ”
A Different Perspective
Moderates Need Institutional Structure
November 10th, 2010
Grassroots movements are all fun and games until they reach Washington. When they finally do they realize that they don’t have the institutional structure to support them. This is true of the Tea Party and it was true of the “change” movement that swept Obama into office in 2008.
Grassroots movements are good for creating enthusiasm, attracting attention, and winning votes, but they are bad at actually changing policy. The power of grassroots movements usually recedes on the Capitol steps. In Congress, grassroots movements rarely make any waves.
To actually make reforms and change policy a movement needs institutional structure. “Institutional structure” is the third party organizations that help with research, policy creation, and messaging.
In the 50s when the conservative movement was just getting started the leaders of the movement realized that institutional structure was what they needed most. By 1980 when Reagan was elected, conservative “Idea Factories” as political scientist Barbara Sinclair calls them had become extremely influential. These “idea factories” which in most cases were think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and The Heritage Foundation had created the intellectual framework of the conservative movement, continuously disseminated the conservative point of view to the media, and in some cases became the media themselves. In her book “Party Wars” Sinclair even argues that the conservative movement would not have occurred without the help of the “idea factories.” It was the idea factories that made conservative ideas like supply-side economics legitimate alternatives. It was the idea factories that made taxes a serious political issue. And it was the idea factories that changed Americans’ attitude about welfare and social programs. The institutional structure that conservatives had built allowed their movement to not only win elections but to also change political debate and public policy. This is how the conservative movement became a tidal wave that transformed American politics for the past 30 years rather than just receding into American history.
For us moderates we need to do the same. We need to start building an “institutional structure.” We need think tanks or a collaborative effort to create a centrist intellectual framework. We need to decide what reforms to promote, what policies to support, and what ideals to uphold. And we need help disseminating our perspective to the media. We are so unorganized and marginalized, because we have no one to lead us or to speak for us. Institutional structure can provide that. That is why moderates need institutional structure!
(2 votes)
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I'm looking forward to the day when rank-and-file centrists will organize into their own intelligentsia, for lack of a better term. With social networking, it's possible to create our own media, our own think tanks, our own PACs from the ground up. I would hope, though, that it never yielded an unquestioned centrist orthodoxy of the Heritage Foundation variety.
I am of the view that centrism is too elusive, since it depends on the state of the two parties competition, which is prone to change.
What we need most is 3-seated Hare LR elections in state reps elections....
http://anewkindofparty.blogspot.com/2010/11/toward-winner-doesnt-take-al...
This could be advanced as a single issue via a multi-state movement, which would then help the advancement of more pluralism in institutions in the US.
dlw
Have you been reading the book Practical Progressive? :)
This is pretty much what that book is about.
No I haven't, but I will definitely check it out. Thanks for the recommendation.
You are right. There need to be institutions.
So great to just discover your site. It seems more than a mere blog. I have been laboring in the pragmatic center garden for over 14 years, nearly full time since 1996.
Bottom up institutional structure is the necessary element to give voice to the moderate middle. Most of us, by far, are there. Unlike conservatives, who used idea factories linked to existing institutional structure, the R party, we majority moderates must create the structure to support our idea factories. Bolgs, Facebook, Twitter, could be our idea factories. The structure can be modular and templated web pages interconnected on millions of our "computer desktops." This is more than a mere idea. I have four examples of the structure published. The templates are mostly compiled. The work has made a lot of progress in the last months, since 12-10. Long development time.
I am a dreamer, an idealist. Always first before the reality. Rich Stevenson
We manage the structure from our desktops, "yours and mine."
Intro: two? http://cs2pr.us/hamco/free_tools.html , and http://cs2pr.us/hamco/MeetTheIVA.html . Four Local IVA home pages so far:
http://cs2pr.us/hamco , http://cs2pr.us/clifuc , http://cs2pr.us/cin20h , and http://cs2pr.us/kings . In two states, OH and NY, 48 states to go. Bottom up.
Thanks for the comment! Yes, I try to make The Pragmatic Center more of a virtual think tank rather than just another blog. I want it to be a site where moderates/centrists across the country can collaborate to help unite and ignite centrists. I want to make it the intellectual center for the movement where we can discuss and propose how to move the movement forward.
I will definitely check those pages. Please let me know what I can do.
Excellent statement of one of the major political/practical challenges facing “moderates” (whatever they are).
Institutions are, in part, sets of intentions, or aims and purposes that give the institution members unity and guide their action over time. So square one is to have a set of clear intentions. What is our institution for? What are our aims, or purpose in life – reason for being, etc.?
One of the goals of CA Prop 14 was to break up the one party legislature, which is still dominated by Dems. The Dems refused to cooperate with the Repub governator simply because they didn’t want his party to get credit for doing what the state needed. A similar situation existed between the two parties in Congress 2008-2010. Californians hoped to have a more “moderate” legislature when 54% voted to pass Prop 14. In this state, the term “moderate” has come to mean somebody who doesn’t give a hoot about the two party competition, but wants a government that enacts policies to solve problems, rather than to get credit for the “team.”
One lesson I think Prop 14 teaches is that when the focus for moderates is on the reform of the political process, they will have the best chances of success. The aim of such reform is to produce politicians who aren’t in debt to, or under the control of, any self-serving political party. In theory, hopefully, only this kind of politician will be in a position to dedicate himself or herself to the best interests of the district, state, or nation.
In my view, then, the central rallying point for moderates should be reforming the process so that nonpartisanship is the prevailing principle. With the focus on process reform, opinions about public policy can be set aside. I think it’s the policy opinions that divide us into right, center, and left. But if we can agree on process reform, we could get something done. In CA, the guy most responsible for getting Prop 14 on the ballot was a Repub – Able Maldonado. But the biggest backers for the law were progressives – Independentvoting.org, and others. This could be a model for building a nation-wide institutional infrastructure, like Nicholas says we need.
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Internetvoting@gmail.com
http://bit.ly/h0c5ub (for my writings on process reform and Prop 14)
Thanks for the comment!
I completely agree with you. We should focus on political reforms such as primary reform and redistricting reform. I think those should be our top two priorities.
There was a great op-ed in POLITICO recently.
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=4EF3D329-AAD4-430E-82A7A18A9940F538
Please keep in touch and let me know how we can collaborate more.
Thanks.
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Hi Nicholas!
Just read that article.
I agree completely with you that the two main objectives should be to work for open primaries and nonpartisan redistricting.
I write a lot on Top Two and CA Prop 14. Look me up on The Hankster, Examiner.com. and Op Ed News.
RE: the third Rx in the article: I don’t think the 60% vote for congressional leadership recommended by the article is either doable or worth trying to do. The problem for us citizens is to put pragmatists, rather than ideologues, into Congress. Then they can govern themselves. Anyway, how could citizens force them to adopt such a measure?
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Internetvoting@gmail.com
Twitter: wjkno1