Political Parties are not the Answer

Political Parties are not the Answer

By Bob Branco

Since the founding of our country, we’ve always had political parties. For most of our history, our two main parties have been democrats and republicans. I am not going to explain my thoughts on what political parties are all about. My concern is that each one of these parties has become too territorial in recent years. It doesn’t appear as though much is being accomplished because each of the parties wants to stand its ground more than ever during legislative discussions and debates. This often creates an impasse which accomplishes absolutely nothing. When I vote for President, Governor, Senator or any other legislator, I want that individual to do the best job possible for the consumers. I don’t want to hear about how one party blames the other for everything. To me, this type of behavior wastes our time. We want service, not bickering.

I have been a registered voter since 1981. When I started voting, I made an immediate decision to vote independent. However, when I vote in a primary election, it doesn’t seem to matter that I am independent. The voting process requires that I pick either a republican ballot or a democratic ballot. I have a problem with this. As an independent voter, I’d like to think I can decide on some republicans, some democrats, or people from other parties. If I am forced to choose a ballot from one of the major parties during a primary election, someone that I want in office may not get my vote. Independent voters should be given the option to pick and choose from all of the candidates running in a primary election. I don’t know. Maybe the election office can produce a separate list of candidates and make them available for independent voters. So it may cost a little more money. That’s okay. We pay taxes.

Here is the other problem with the party system. Let’s assume that a republican presidential candidate spends millions of dollars advertising his way into office. In order for another candidate in that party to keep up, he has to spend millions, or even more. I believe there are lots of qualified presidential candidates with very little money who are not affiliated with a major party. All we need to do is allow all of these candidates to run on their own platforms without causing a financial bidding war for advertising. With some exceptions, you will have more honesty and less greed. The citizens will be happier. There would be less voter apathy and more faith in the political process. Doesn’t this sound refreshing?

Furthermore, I don’t believe that the United States would be so divided if we didn’t have two strong parties right now who are hanging on for dear life. Don’t forget that each party goes out of its way to convince people of its philosophy. If both parties do this aggressively, then we have two major groups of people with strong opposing viewpoints. Is this healthy for our country? While we are all entitled to our own opinions about every issue in the world, we all know the added tension that society is experiencing lately. There is a lot of name calling, violence and other forms of aggressive behavior because disagreements are escalating without people trying to work together toward a compromise.

I will guarantee you that I don’t agree with everyone about everything, yet I would like to think that I conduct myself as a respectable person. We are all individuals with different viewpoints. If everyone works together in close harmony with one another, this will be a better world. There would be less territorialism, and more constructive compromise resulting from all of our different ideas.