If only I had a dollar for every newspaper story and editorial column I’ve read over the years that predicted the demise of one of our two major political parties unless it made “major changes.”
My home address would be on Easy Street.
This November, it’s the Republicans who are ticketed for “endangered spices” status by the pundits. America, they warn, might well become a nation of one-party rule.
Horse hockey. At my age, I take all of that commentary with several grains of Metamucil.
I’m old enough to remember when the GOP survived Tom Dewey, Barry Goldwater, and Dick Nixon. Likewise, scores of grim obituaries were written for the Dems in the wakes of Adlai Stevenson (twice), George McGovern, Jimmy Carter and Mike Dukakis.
The main point with most of this post-election hand-wringing and chin-stroking has been that the losers had to move “toward the center” and become more like the victors.
Our two-party system is not in danger, and never has been, for several reasons.
Obviously, when general elections come around every two years, the issues of the day and the public mood often changes faster than that. Demographics change, too. Dems once counted on the “solid South” and the New England states were a GOP stronghold. Texas was blue and California red.
And, since we have only two major parties, it is impossible for either of them to embrace the myriad of “constituencies” among 120 million voters for any great length of time. As the great sage A. Non once pointed out, “Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.”
No, we don’t need a third party, either. That is just a tactic used by political observers who would love to split the opposition. I must admit I voted for Perot because I wasn’t fond of Bush I and I wound up getting Clinton. The 19 pct. of us who made that mistake won’t repeat it.
The media euphoria over the recent election needs to be put in perspective, too. Our new president received 53 pct. of the vote-a comfortable margin but hardly a landslide. And, if you can believe the polls, the final outcome may have been determined only in the final month.
The winner’s big edge was in the electoral vote, which is good, in one sense. We won’t hear the liberals threaten to try to eliminate the Electoral College-for at least another four years.
In the aftermath of defeat, the GOP need not run for the lifeboats. It needs to find better candidates, bolster its campaign apparatus and quit trying to out-promise the opposition.
And, it needs to remember the wisdom of Neil Goldschmidt: “Editorial writers are people who enter the battlefield after the battle and shoot the wounded.”
Dick Hilker (dhilker529@q.com) of Loveland is a retired suburban Denver newspaper editor and columnist.
