So former Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson is running for President of the United States. I like his platform mostly. I used to boo Rocky at the Pioneer Days parade in Salt Lake City primarily over his lack of restraint in involving himself in Davis County matters while he was the sitting mayor of Salt Lake City. But he’s not mayor anymore, the Legacy Highway is built (and is very nice), and again like I say I like the gist of his platform.
And I like that he has chosen the name of the Justice Party as a party name. Hopefully he didn’t personally choose the name–a fatally top-down initial move that a genuine grassroots movement needs to have come from bottom up. The Justice Party name reminds me of a political cartoon I did about a year ago.
Bob Morris sent me this link to an article looking at Jon Huntsman and Rocky Anderson written by Matt Stoller.
The bottom line up front on Huntsman is that I like him as well. I personally have adopted a policy that I only vote for reformers, particularly candidates who support open primaries and independent redistricting. Jon Huntsman fits both criteria, but alas he’s still a Republican (one of the enemy). Furthermore, being a good candidate unfortunately seems to be an automatic disqualification in this climate of wingnut politics within the parties. Jon Huntsman will not be the Republican nominee for 2012 unless a meteor hits CONUS or something. I am surprised he doesn’t have more traction with independents in New Hampshire in light of his support for open primaries and fair redistricting. But perhaps we will see more of him as the uber-conservative tea party faction of the GOP seems hellbent to go the way of the Whigs just to drive home a point. And to that point briefly, if they don’t want to raise taxes, don’t fight decade long wars on 2 fronts.
Which brings us back to Rocky Anderson. His anti-imperialism, anti-military industrial complex stances beat with the pulse of America. We shall see how this plays out. The two party system is accustomed to putting on little puppet shows of propaganda to convince people that they are concerned about our issues just enough to stave off popular opposition, but the backlights are coming on more and more to expose their silly little game of smoke and mirrors.
I read last night briefly on The Hankster that when Perot made a viable shot across the bow, disapproval of Congress was at 39%. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that current disapproval of Congress is 81% and that “something is going to explode”. Perhaps that is why Congress has suspended habeus corpus in anticipation of a serious challenge to their 2 party arrangement, but that is conspiracy speculation for another post!
Matt Stoller also reports that “Anderson is already being attacked bitterly by local Utah Democrats. Stay tuned.” The Utah Democrats are pathetically unorganized anyway, and Rocky has repudiated them for good reason. They simply are not behind the voice of the people even in Utah. They will tell you they are. The parties all say that, but they never bother to ask the people first. The Utah Democratic Party has relegated itself to minor party status. Less than 9% of registered voters are registered as Democrats. Link
The larger point is that the Rocky moment may get some traction. On an initial glance, he is not saying things that are all that different from Smedley Butler. It is all just a matter of timing.
Reformers and establishment challengers all–just sayin’