Non-Partisan Political Parties: Already Exist or Logically Impossible?

[Boojatta]

Suppose that somebody who has been elected in the past as a Republican is considering ending association with the Republican Party. Maybe that person is not yet comfortable with the idea of running under the Democratic Party, or maybe that person has not yet earned the trust of influential people within the Democratic Party or ordinary people who usually vote for the Democratic Party.

Jumping ship from the Republican Party would in many cases mean almost certain failure to win an election if there are any opponents who are either personally wealthy or connected with a political party.

A non-partisan political party could have the following purposes:

1. Help members get elected.
2. Provide information to people who are contemplating pursuing a political career.
3. Set minimum standards for clarity of communications about policy, and for validity of reasoning relied upon in communications, while not otherwise getting involved in controversies about policy. In other words, there would be communication policies, but otherwise the organization itself wouldn't be at risk of any kind of ideological conflict with any of its members, because the organization wouldn't itself have political policy stances.
4. Maintain a database of questions from the general public that were sent to the non-partisan party for it to pose to members, and pose a past question again if the member to whom the question was directed hasn't replied within the member's own chosen time limits.

[backscatter712]

1. Political parties are partisan by definition. n/t

[Boojatta]

2. Political parties serve more than one purpose.

I'm interested in the idea of an organization that serves some of those purposes and not others.

Of the purposes that are usually served by a political party, which are stuck to the concept of a "political party" by definition?

[Skinner]

5. But a party that has no ideological orientation will not attract any members.

It might attract a few people who want to run for office. But think about it. The purpose of political parties is for like-minded people to work together to elect people to office. If you take away the broadly similar ideological outlook of the members, then there is no reason for a political party to exist.

Let's say some guy creates a party and says "I want to run for office, please join my party to help me get elected."

The first question anyone is going to ask is, "Uh, why would I want to spend my time and money helping to get YOU elected?"

Which answer is going to get the desired response?

OPTION 1: "I just want to get elected. You should help me, because that's the nice thing to do. My political ideology shouldn't matter."

OPTION 2: "You should help me get elected because I am going to fight for the issues you care about."

[Boojatta]

6. OPTION 2 motivates me to ask a question.

How general are the issues that you care about? (I mean "you" as in the participant in your hypothetical dialog.)

Within a given political ideology, there might be a variety of possible strategies for helping people who are represented by a given politician. The more specific and concrete the problem is, the more likely that the problem can be solved.

[Boojatta]

7. This sounds too rigid to me ...

The purpose of political parties is for like-minded people to work together to elect people to office. If you take away the broadly similar ideological outlook of the members, then there is no reason for a political party to exist.

Consider science. A dedication to scientific methodology doesn't require automatic disagreement with every hypothesis that's in conflict with prevailing scientific theories.

The problem with ideology is that ideas in logical harmony with each other might be in practice ideologically incompatible because every ideology might exclude at least one of them, and ideas that logically contradict each other might be ideologically compatible with each other.

[longship]

3. By defn, it's oxymoronic

I don't know to go with this post. I think my brain hurts.

[Boojatta]

8. What definition are you relying upon?

A key part of the meaning of "partisan" (according to one dictionary that I consulted) is:

devoted to a cause or party

There's a big difference between a cause and a party because a party is a specific institution.

There are rules of methodology in science, and they usually aren't very controversial, but violations of scientific methodology often play a role in generating events reported in the media as being scientific controversies. Thus, it seems to be possible to be devoted to scientific methodology in general, with no need to specify any particular ideological flavor of scientific methodology.

In litigation, there's a distinction between the laws of procedure and whatever substantive area of law is involved in a particular courtroom proceeding.

I find it hard to believe that in politics there's nothing like those things that can go wrong. There's really nothing to consider when it comes to methodology or procedure when we are talking about political issues?

[longship]

9. Sorry, I was merely commenting on the etymology

It should be obvious that both party and partisan (in the political sense) have the same etymological origin. The OED agrees.

But I won't quibble rhetoric here, your point is well taken as partisan may be interpreted in a less literally etymological sense.

I was merely making a play on words here.

[Old and In the Way]

4. If our electoral process allowed for instant run-offs, I'd be OK with multiple parties

but until that happens, I think the system will be used against Progressives/liberals. Look at America Selects...a creation of Wall Street, pushing Buddy Roehmer (a former Republican) as an alternate to the current 2 Party choices. Yeah, right. Maine ended up with a Teabagger Governor who got elected on 38% of the vote because an Indie/Democrat split the other 62%.

[Boojatta]

10. In the near future ...

Republicans might split their party in an effort to salvage something that can get candidates elected. Republican voters will likely not reach a consensus for some time about which of the pieces to support.

There are already people who run as independents. They could form a party, a party that is designed to remain welcoming to future independents.