September 11, 1974

Third Party Mood Growing

The voting natives are restless, and they are not likely to calm down until some one is boiled in the pot.

Right now it is a toss up as to whether the victim will be the Republican or the Democratic Party.

The post-Watergate mood of the electorate is anti-GOP, anti-Dem, anti-Congress, anti-president and anti-court.  Strangely, the political instinct survives.

What worries the professional politicians is the distinct possibility that a new and lasting third party might emerge from this dissatisfaction.

Senator Jesse Helms, an ultra-conservative Republican from North Carolina, last May proposed the creation of a Conservative Party as a third force in politics.

"Both of our major political parties are in a state of confusion," said Helms, a Democrat until 1972 when he switched and was elected on the Republican ticket.

"Our party leaders are thrashing around without vision," he said.  "The people have lost confidence in both parties ... which have failed to articulate the philosophy of our people and to give them a choice of leadership."

Inasmuch as Helms has not attempted to launch a third party himself, and no other conservative leader has publicly endorsed the idea, the proposal has been dismissed lightly.

Now comes a Gallup public opinion poll, however, that prompts second thoughts.

The survey disclosed that while Republican Party affiliation is at an all-time low, the number of voters who describe themselves as "conservative" is at an all-time high.

Conservatives today comprise the largest single political bloc in the nation.  The polls report that 59 percent of Americans would join a conservative party if they had a choice!

In a newspaper interview last week, Lawrence O'Brien, former Democratic Party national chairman, declared that conditions are right for creation of a third party.

"Millions of Americans are no longer persuaded the two-party system is operating in their interests," he said.  "I've noticed a serious fallout of citizen participation in the parties."

The nucleus of a Conservative Party already exists in the state of New York where Senator James Buckley was elected on that ticket.  Ostensibly, that organization could be expanded nationally if the demand was great enough.

A recent study of the New York City electorate shows that the conservative tide is running strong in that liberal strong hold.  The conservative constituency expanded there 6 percent - entirely at the expense of the liberals.

Significantly, liberals everywhere are giving ground.  A massive reexamination of philosophy is now going on among all political elements.  But nowhere is this more apparent than with liberals.

Ever since Franklin D. Roosevelt the liberals have sought centralization of political power - generally in Washington, D.C., and specifically in the president.

It was litany that if enough power and money was concentrated in the hands of a small, dedicated group the problems of society could be solved quickly and efficiently.

The Democratic Party - then the minority party - was chosen as the vehicle for the Great Transformation.  An unlikely coalition of "intellectuals" and "laborers" - the first supplying theory and the latter money - tried valiantly for 40 years to bring about the Millennium.

In the end, human nature thwarted any major break-through in social progress.  No one wants to work harder than is necessary.  Everyone wants an economic edge over the other guy.

So a vast bureaucracy assumed the power meant for the dedicated few.  And enormous sums of money were dissipated on social projects premised on life as it should be rather than as it really is.

When the realists - otherwise known as conservatives - warned of the dangers of centralized power and profligate spending they were shouted down as flint-hearted reactionaries.

The concentration of power in presidents Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson seemed, necessary and desirable to the liberals.  It wasn't until they saw the same concentration in a Republican president, Richard Nixon, that the euphoria of four decades faded.

Daniel Moynihan, the Harvard professor, who served with both Democratic and Republican administrations, began his' flight from liberal principles early.  As I noted in this space two years ago, he was the first bona fide liberal with the intellectual honesty to admit he was wrong.

He concluded that everything can't and shouldn't be run from Washington.  "The federal government is good at collecting taxes but not very good at dispensing services," he said.

Moynihan has been joined by scores of other liberals, most recently by Haynes Johnson a Pulitzer Prize laureate correspondent of the Washington Post.  In a recent article titled "Odyssey of a New Conservative," he recounts his political conversion.

I discover far more areas of intellectual agreement than disagreement.  

"I want to limit the powers of the state, to preserve the delicate checks and balances so carefully crafted into our Constitution and to protect the individual against the tyranny of the mob.

"I am a new conservative with no place to go politically," says Johnson.  "I long ago, cast off any allegiance to the Democrats as a party.  I am not sure any more what either they or the Republicans represent."

The political restlessness now prevailing represents both a challenge and a danger to the two major parties.

That party which correctly gauges the American mood and restructures itself to represent that mood may well go on to dominate politics for another generation.

If neither Republicans nor Democrats adapt to the changing political outlook, a third party may arise to destroy one of them or to establish a three-party system with as yet unfathomed consequences.

Author: Lindsey Williams