"All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books."
-Thomas Carlyle

by Paul Lytle

In every election year, there is much talk of "the lesser of two evils." It is, perhaps, not one of the more prominent phrases, granted, but it is often brought up amongst the more politically active of us who might not find it so easy to choose a candidate as it should be.

For those who pay attention (a group of people which seems to shrink on a yearly basis), choosing our votes is normally a very simple matter. Let us be honest — if someone is undecided a week before the election, it is usually only because he is not trying. It is usually by not understanding the differences in the parties that we have trouble choosing between them.

But though inattentiveness is the primary cause for American indecisiveness, it is not the only cause. Sometimes the choice becomes difficult not because the differences between the candidates are not defined in the voter's mind, but because their positions are too far away from our own.

In such a case, we are told that we should "support the lesser of two evils." When Republicans find themselves with a candidate that is too Liberal (or Democrats with someone too Conservative, though I will use the Republican Party as the primary example in this essay, as my own political views lean right), the Party members are encouraged to not vote for their candidate, but against the other guy. No, the Party leaders will admit, our guy is not perfect, but just think of all the problems if that other guy got elected. Those who refuse to vote for the Republican on principle are ridiculed, accused of helping the other side. Those who vote third Party are said to have "thrown their vote away." Republicans sometimes blame Ross Perot for the fact that Clinton was elected in 1992. Democrats might blame Ralph Nader (or the Supreme Court, but that is another issue that has no bearing on the subject of this essay) for the Bush win in 2000.

But doesn't it seem odd that we constantly criticize Congressmen when they fail to vote their conscience, following the Party-line instead, when we will not do the same ourselves?

How far must we take this lesser-of-two-evils theory before we ourselves are to blame for the outcome? If the Democrats nominate a Communist and the Republicans a Socialist, can we really claim to be without blame when we vote for the Socialist? To use a more extreme example (there are some that will claim that the first example has already happened several times), if one Party nominates a man who wants to kill all foreigners, while the other Party wants to kill all foreigners except those from Cuba, are we still justified, under the lesser-of-two-evils theory, to vote for the latter candidate?

Or is there a point when conscience must override? When we will wash our hands of the process? When we say, "Enough; no outcome is a good one, and I refuse to be a part of it"?

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Of course, the parties themselves are hoping that we never reach that point. They assume that the base will always support the Party simply because there is no other choice.

The driving philosophy is usually credited to Richard Nixon, who said that to win the Republican primary, a candidate should position himself to the right, but to win the election he has to move toward the center. Of course, the same works in reverse for the Democrats.

The strategy is sound on the surface. When only campaigning amongst Republicans (as in, the primary), you need to sound more Republican than the other guys, which means running as a Conservative. But in the election, a candidate must appeal to the more moderate voters, since the base of a Party is not large enough to win an election. Since the choice provided to the base is either the watered-down version of their nominee, the opponent (who is worse), or a third-Party candidate with no hope of winning, they will usually grit their teeth, mutter something about the "lesser of two evils," and vote for their more moderate candidate.

The Party then tries gradually to move farther left, trying to steal votes from the other side by adopting some of the positions of the other Party. This is the reason that a Democrat passed welfare reform while a Republican authorized the largest increase in the history of the Department of Education. It seems counter-intuitive, but both happened.

The assumption is that the base will remain forever, since the lesser-of-two-evils theory prevents them from voting for anyone else. To see proof of how this gradual move across the political spectrum can add up, compare the beliefs of the Founding Fathers to those of either major Party today. Show me a man that believes that Thomas Jefferson would be pleased with the size of today's government, and I will show you a man who has not read a single word that Jefferson wrote.

Unfortunately, this practice has been a mistake on both sides (one Republicans make more often than Democrats, which is why we find ourselves so far left of Jefferson and our other Founders). It is a mistake for the Party to move to the middle, and it is a mistake for the voters to accept the lesser-of-two- evils.

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First, let us dispense with this idea that the Party should move to the middle at all. I am not certain why we believe Nixon such a visionary on this topic when his administration is generally frowned upon (whether rightly or wrongly is a topic for another day, but even Nixon's supports must admit that public perception on him remains poor, and likely always will).

Nixon was elected for a second term in a landslide, but that alone does not prove that he was right in his assessment on the elections. The economy was good and growing, after all, and Nixon promised to end the war (which he did). Internal problems within the Democratic Party seemed to help Nixon win more than any move he might have made to the center.

But I do not need to overanalyze the 1972 election to make my point, since it would be much more productive to look at the candidates with strong ideological beliefs and see how they faired.

The most recent example is Ronald Reagan. Of the twentieth- century Presidents, he was perhaps the most Conservative, and yet he won by two landslides, the second greater than Nixon's. Nothing about Reagan was moderate. He walked out on Gorbachev when any other President in our times would have tried to work out a deal. He made no compromise in tax cuts or defense, even when such spending, combined with the increases in social programs that the Democratic Congress made, created a budgetary deficit. Despite warnings from the left that he would bring about World War III, Reagan could do little wrong in the eyes of the public.

Earlier, Franklin Delano Roosevelt won not two, but four Presidential elections, turning the country from a Republican- dominated one that would be controlled by the Democrats for another fifty years. He did not do it by appealing to the middle ground, since his policies were easily the most Liberal the country had seen to that point. He even blackmailed the Supreme Court, telling them that he would add members to the Court and thereby weakening the power of each established Justice, if they declared his new bills Unconstitutional. We think now that his popularity was mostly war- related, but only when we forget that Pearl Harbor did not occur until his third term. Besides, the country would not elect someone it saw as incompetent or extreme just because a war was being waged (look at Vietnam as an example, when the Presidency changed between the parties several times).

As for our recent moderates, the first George Bush rode Reagan's coattails into office in 1988, but after failing to keep his very Conservative pledge of "no new taxes," he lost in 1992. Of course, the economy contributed to the loss, but the numbers now show that the great recovery we experienced in the '90s began in that year before the election, and so the economy could not have done it all. Let not our memory fail us — that "no new taxes" pledge caused a great many people to vote against Bush.

And what of Bill Clinton? Despite the fact that some Democrats still almost worship him and defend him under any circumstances, Clinton did not receive even 50% of the popular vote in either election. We might look at health-care to prove how Liberal he was, but in truth Clinton became almost a mockery of moderation, becoming almost Conservative after the Republican sweep of '92, when the country wanted more Conservative leadership, and followed the polls like gospel ever since. He signed and even tried to take credit for NAFTA and welfare reform when Republicans and polls forced him to action.

So why doesn't the Nixon paradigm work? It should in theory, but only if we assume 100% voting. We normally think that only moderates will skip election day (some will claim, after all, that people are moderate because they haven't made the effort to find out what they believe), but this is simply not the case. The base, I suggest, is not as solid as the parties wish it to be.

Just like any voter, the base needs to be excited about a candidate to care. Those in the base are probably more likely to pay attention to the issues and shows (except, perhaps, the extremists of either side), but attention does not mean compliance. For proof, look at all the talk about "energizing the base." We hear it every election year, but why? If the base was so loyal, why do they need such specialized consideration?

The truth is, even the most staunch political junkie might stay home on election day if he feels betrayed by the candidate. Or he will jump to a third Party. I will not say that it is impossible for a third-Party candidate to win the Presidency, but it is almost impossible. That doesn't really matter in this discussion. What really matters is that they siphon votes from the two major parties. When an election is decided by just a percent or two, as several have recently, we see how important that one or two percent who voted the Green Party or Libertarian actually can be. I do not claim that those voters did something wrong, as we will see later. But in a perfect system, Libertarians should belong to the Republican base, but most of these voters would say that they have been betrayed by the Party in the past, for whatever reason, and now that two percent is gone.

Another factor is that Americans like people who take a hard stance on an issue. We generally feel strongly about certain issues, and it is difficult to vote for someone who wants to make compromises between two sides. Reagan was loved, in part, for his strong stance against Communism. He will always be remembered for his bloodless war against Russia. Few Presidents will be remembered or even admired simply because he agreed to dismantle a handful of nuclear weapons.

Consider these historical examples. Which President is better remembered: Buchanan, who wanted extensive compromises between the slave-owners and the abolitionists, or Lincoln, who fought a war to end slavery? Which passage in our founding documents is better loved: the hard stance by Jefferson that "all men are created equal" in the Declaration, or the compromise in the Constitution that slaves would count as three-fifths of a person?

Whatever the reason, it appears counterproductive for parties to do what they have been doing for years — moving to the middle for votes. But the parties tend to change only when the base forces change upon them, which will be the topic of our next section.

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Counterproductive as it is, the parties continue to give us moderate candidates. What is the citizen's obligation in the process? Will we accept the lesser-of-two-evils theory, hold our nose, and vote? Are we helping to elect the other Party when we refuse to vote for someone too centrist for our tastes? To decide, we must look at the logical consequences of each action. For simplicity, we will take the point of the view of Republicans, but the same ideas can be applied on the other side of the aisle.

Let us say that the base of our Party remains loyal, not only continuing to vote, but voting for a Republican in every election. What will be the reaction of the Party to such an action? One of two things. The first option is that the Party may realize for itself what we discussed above and nominate a strong Conservative for the Presidency. Given the current direction of the Party, that seems unlikely. It happens on occasion, as with Reagan, but only once in fifty years or so. The second option is that the Republicans will continue to move to the left, trying to pick up more of the moderates and even Liberals. After all, they know that the base will remain loyal no matter what, so why campaign to them? If a Party can assume that a block of voters will remain loyal without encouragement, why promise that block of voters anything when it can instead appeal to other blocks?

For proof of this point — blacks vote 95% for Democrats. Can you think of something the Democrats have done for blacks? Ever? The Republican Party is the Party of Lincoln, and also the Party that saved Civil Rights legislation when southern Democrats refused to pass it. Those Confederate flags flying over certain state capitals were put there by Democrats. Jim Crow laws were passed by Democrats. Yet the black support of that Party is unparalleled in the United States by any other group.

Here we see the lesser-of-two-evils theory in action. Strange that the primary rationalization for this practice is that getting some of what we want is better than getting none of what we want. But eventually the Law of Diminishing Returns kicks in. The farther left the Republican Party moves, the less of what we want will be enacted until we are really voting for Liberals who call themselves Republicans (which has, in places, already happened in abundance).

So what would happen if we all voted our conscience? Well, if the Conservative base abandoned the Republican Party, a Democrat would be elected. After all, Republicans cannot win an election without the support of the base. That base is too great a percentage. What the lesser-of-two-evils supporters predict would come true, but only for four years.

That is the key.

The Party leaders are not stupid, and if they see such a drop in support, they will seek to reestablish that support, especially since there are countless independent candidates trying to get those votes. The only way to regain support from the base is to move dramatically right. In this way we can force the Party to give us that candidate the base really wants.

In other words, the Republicans would suffer an incredible defeat once, but then in four years they would make a concerted effort to find another Reagan instead of another Bob Dole.

So what about the idea that we would rather get some of what we want rather than nothing of what we want? That still applies, but a third element has been introduced. That third element is that we can get all of what we want, just not immediately. Given the diminishing returns of the lesser-of-two-evils theory, our new option is very attractive.

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There are two ways of achieving the desired effect. The first is to not vote. This is not the great political sin that some claim. After all, we have just seen what power we can have by not voting for a candidate. The important thing here is to have a voice in the process, and not voting in protest can be just as strong a statement as voting is. But when the returns come back, we do not simply wish it to seem a low turnout, but we want the Party to see clearly that the base does not approve of the candidate.

Which means a vote for a third Party. Some would have us believe that this would simply be throwing away our vote. It is not. After all, the goal here is to make the major Party change. Remember, our voice in the system is what counts in the end, and a protest voice simply screams. Let me say it another way. Which is more American: to cast a vote for someone with whom you do not agree simply to be a part of the majority, or to use your vote to cause change within the system for the better?

That is not to say that a Conservative should vote for a Socialist just out of protest. No, we must still vote our conscience, even more so because the Party will study our votes at length, deciphering our wishes by what we did in the ballot box.

Of course, the base could not then just blindly support the Party again. This process would likely have to be repeated every twenty years or so. But there need not be an organized revolt to achieve this goal. Each person only needs to vote his conscience, and the rest will fall into place.

The question must be asked: What if the Party does not respond? Without the base, they would find it very hard not to respond. But even if they did not, America's political parties have not always been the Republicans and the Democrats, and they need not always be those particular ones. Third parties can win — they have won many small elections and even a gubernatorial race or two. They are not totally without power, and perhaps, if we must, we can find a home with one of them.