The debate Tuesday night between U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, and her Republican challenger, ultra-conservative Ron Greer, promised huge differences between the two candidates. Between Baldwin's unadulterated liberalism, Greer's uncompromising conservatism and the audience's constant booing and cheering despite the constant begging from the moderators to do otherwise, it was certainly a fun show. Coming out of the debate, it was absolutely clear that voters in this district have what some voters often wish they had between candidates of the two parties: a clear, unambiguous choice between candidates at the furthest ends of their respective parties. Is this a good thing? Furthermore, is it what most voters really want?
In neighboring Minnesota, voters have elections like this all the time. Their two parties don't have true open primaries, but instead an archaic system of party convention, endorsement and withdrawal of the remaining candidates such that the primary is simply a rubber stamp more often than not. Whereas primaries often result in more liberal Democrats and more conservative Republicans, the effect is heightened in Minnesota, producing ultra-liberals like Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., and ultra-conservatives like former-Senator Rod Grams.
How do Minnesota's voters feel about this polarization? In 1998 they elected a pro-wrestler governor in protest of the two major candidates. When Governor Jesse Ventura announced that he was getting off the stage after four years, many people expected Minnesota politics to return to normal, with a two-way contest and party-endorsed candidates, Democrat Roger Moe and Republican Tim Pawlenty. However, Ventura's Independence Party happened upon an interesting idea: what if they repackaged themselves as a reputable third party for disgruntled moderate voters ?
In pursuit of this goal, they were able to recruit as their candidate for governor a former Democratic congressman, Tim Penny. In the '80s Penny helped to found the Democratic Leadership Council, more commonly called the New Democrats. He often had ambition to rise higher but knew full well that the party's rigged nomination process shut out centrists like himself. However, if a DLC candidate ran as a solid independent candidate, the Minnesota voters, themselves moderate, might actually elect that candidate in a three-way race. He selected as his running mate Martha Robertson, a moderate Republican state senator who can round out the appeal for all the electorate, and his campaign kicked off.
How do Minnesota's voters feel about this option? Whereas Ventura had not led a single poll before the 1998 election, Penny has been ahead in most polls since he entered the race. Chris Matthews of MSNBC's \Hardball"" has taken to referring to him as ""the next governor of Minnesota."" More interesting is Penny's tendency to draw a good portion of Democratic voters and relegate the Democratic nominee to third place in some polls. One can only wonder what the famously liberal Minnesota Democrats might be like if they were to compete in open primaries. Whereas some third-party enthusiasts, especially Naderites, complain that the two parties are too alike and a third party is needed, the only state with a viable third party owes it to the fact that, for them, the two parties are too different.
In many places, the two parties don't go toward the middle simply for reasons of pandering or faking sets of beliefs, but because we live in a representative democracy. Centrism is not simply wimpy or half-hearted, but a vital set of beliefs that can command the loyalty of the vast majority of the American people when given a chance. Thus while we sit back and watch the show of Tammy Baldwin's inevitable landslide victory over a man running post-9/11 who got sacked from the marines and the fire department, we enjoy what a wider, neighboring electorate seems poised to reject. Our district will re-elect a more liberal member of Congress while a state renowned for its liberal politics might embrace what their people, and probably the vast majority of Americans, want: moderation.
