The Curmudgeon

Last year around this time, those of us in and around the Twin Cities metro area were entreated almost daily to stories speculative and pandering about landing a national political convention. We'd get stories about what a great thing it would be for the cities and the state; it was to be a financial windfall, and a prolonged PR campaign for the wonders of Urban Life, Minnesota-style. The sunshine and smoke competed for space in the media jet stream blown right up our collective butts.

As it unfolded, the GOP swooped in and chose St Paul, while the Democratic party was still hemming and hawing trying to make a decision. The initial news gave your Curmudgeon pause to grumble a bit. The subsequent news- that the convention will overlap with the State Fair, that the traffic congestion will be hellish, that an open-air detention center is coming to house protesters, that the funding outlay to host the convention is not exactly streaming in- all intensified the grumbling.

Imagine, if you will, the furrow on my brow deepening while reading news about another political convention possibly coming to town next summer- this time Minneapolis. Yeah, the Green Party is considering having their convention here. Minneapolis is in competition with Chicago and Detroit for hosting the Greens, with a decision expected by Aug 15.

To be frank- that furrow really isn't so deep. The major bugaboos with the GOP convention are not looking to surface with this convention. The Greens won't be the tens of thousands crush that the GOP convention will be. It is doubtful that the security for the Greens convention will require coordination with the National Guard. More importantly- no financial outlay will be needed to host the damn thing.

Would that there be more political parties like the Greens- or, for that matter, the Libertarians! Instead of the big two monoliths trying to encompass massive swaths of the political spectrum, with factions within each party struggling for dominance, why not several parties along the spectrum representing each faction? The progressives along the left could shake themselves free of the DLC, and the theocratic factions could get the representation they want without having to mitigate their platform with the corporatists. Old school Republicans could reclaim their own ground, rather than having to drag the albatross of the current criminal regime too much. The 'middle grounders' could found a Fence Sitting Party, and muddle about as they are wont.

With more, and smaller political parties, it seems to me that the national conversation would be no doubt more complex, but inherently more honest. Each party could establish actual, authentic platforms, rather than the nearly-irrelevant monstrosities that appease many but represent in the end very few. A greater number of parties would also mean that no one party could dominate the entire political process- and to make progress politically, authentic cooperation and compromise would need to be engaged.

The conventions of these parties, too, would stop being boondoggles like the GOP and Democratic conventions will be. Smaller parties would mean smaller conventions, and smaller conventions would be much easier for locations to absorb. Such a thing could also mean that the nation could be spared a three hour prime-time broadcast commercial for nights on end. No matter where one stands in the political spectrum, that would be a point of nearly universal approval.