The election’s over; should political parties be over, too? Is it time to junk the Ds and the Rs after politicians’ names, and all the baggage that comes with them? How meaningful and relevant are candidates’ political parties anymore?
When millions regard themselves as independents and occupy the takeout-menu middle on political issues, why do we need to belong to parties? Why red, why blue, why even purple, when there’s the big deluxe Crayola box to choose from?
Barack Obama is in the Democratic Party but in some ways seems not to be of it. He built his own political operation and fundraising mechanisms, and so — unlike Bill Clinton, who constructed his political machine within the party framework — owes less to the Democratic edifice than he does to the support of an even bigger tent full of Americans. The voters’ $10 or $20 donations gave them a much greater stake in Obama’s candidacy than that D after his name. They had actual skin in this game.
The same is true of John McCain, the self-styled maverick who would have done better, as he well knew, without that scarlet “R” on his chest. If we are postmodern and post-racial, is it time to be post-party, with a new candidate-by-candidate, issue-by-issue model that doesn’t reach across the aisle but gets rid of the aisle altogether?
