From the Wall Street Journal

PEGGY NOONAN 

Third Time
America may be ready for a new political party.

Thursday, June 1, 2006 12:01 a.m.

Something's happening. I have a feeling we're at
some new beginning,
that a big breakup's coming, and that though it
isn't and will not be
immediately apparent, we'll someday look back on
this era as the time
when a shift began.
All my adult life, people have been saying that the
two-party system is
ending, that the Democrats' and Republicans' control
of political power
in America is winding down. According to the
traditional critique, the
two parties no longer offer the people the choice
they want and deserve.
Sometimes it's said they are too much
alike--Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
Sometimes it's said they're too polarizing--too red
and too blue for a
nation in which many see things through purple
glasses. 

In 1992 Ross Perot looked like the breakthrough, the
man who would make
third parties a reality. He destabilized the
Republicans and then
destabilized himself. By the end of his campaign he
seemed to be the
crazy old aunt in the attic.

The Perot experience seemed to put an end to
third-party fever. But I
think it's coming back, I think it's going to grow,
and I think the
force behind it is unique in our history.

This week there was a small boomlet of talk about a
new internet entity
called Unity '08--a small collection of party
veterans including
moderate Democrats (former Carter aide Hamilton
Jordan) and
liberal-leaning Republicans (former Ford hand Doug
Bailey) trying to
join together with college students and broaden the
options in the 2008
election. In terms of composition, Unity seems like
the Concord
Coalition, the bipartisan group (Warren Rudman, Bob
Kerrey) that warns
against high spending and deficits.
Unity seems to me to have America's growing desire
for more political
options right. But I think they've got the
description of the problem
wrong. 

Their idea is that the two parties are too polarized
to govern well. It
is certainly true that the level of partisanship in
Washington seems
high. (Such things, admittedly, ebb, flow and are
hard to judge. We look
back at the post-World War II years and see a
political climate of
relative amity and moderation. But Alger Hiss and
Dick Nixon didn't see
it that way.) Nancy Pelosi seems to be pretty much
in favor of anything
that hurts Republicans, and Ken Mehlman is in favor
of anything that
works against Democrats. They both want their teams
to win. Part of
winning is making sure the other guy loses, and part
of the fun of
politics, of any contest, of life, can be the dance
in the end zone.

But the dance has gotten dark.

Partisanship is fine when it's an expression of the
high animal spirits
produced by real political contention based on true
political belief.
But the current partisanship seems sour, not joyous.
The partisanship
has gotten deeper as less separates the governing
parties in Washington.
It is like what has been said of academic
infighting: that it's so
vicious because the stakes are so low. 

The problem is not that the two parties are
polarized. In many ways
they're closer than ever. The problem is that the
parties in Washington,
and the people on the ground in America, are
polarized. There is an
increasing and profound distance between the rulers
of both parties and
the people--between the elites and the grunts,
between those in power
and those who put them there. 
On the ground in America, people worry
terribly--really, there are
people who actually worry about it every day--about
endless, weird,
gushing government spending. But in Washington,
those in
power--Republicans and Democrats--stand arm in arm
as they spend and
spend. (Part of the reason is that they think they
can buy off your
unhappiness one way or another. After all, it's
worked in the past. A
hunch: It's not going to work forever or much
longer. They've really run
that trick into the ground.) 

On the ground in America, regular people worry about
the changes wrought
by the biggest wave of immigration in our history,
much of it illegal
and therefore wholly connected to the needs of the
immigrant and wholly
unconnected to the agreed-upon needs of our nation.
Americans worry
about the myriad implications of the collapse of the
American border.
But Washington doesn't. Democrat Ted Kennedy and
Republican George W.
Bush see things pretty much eye to eye. They are
going to educate the
American people out of their low concerns. 

There is a widespread sense in America--a
conviction, actually--that we
are not safe in the age of terror. That the port,
the local power plant,
even the local school, are not protected. Is
Washington worried about
this? Not so you'd notice. They're only worried
about seeming
unconcerned. 

More to the point, people see the Republicans as
incapable of managing
the monster they've helped create--this big Homeland
Security/Intelligence apparatus that is like some
huge buffed guy at the
gym who looks strong but can't even put on his
T-shirt without help
because he's so muscle-bound. As for the Democrats,
who co-created
Homeland Security, no one--no one--thinks they would
be more
managerially competent. Nor does anyone expect the
Democrats to be more
visionary as to what needs to be done. The best they
can hope is the
Democrats competently serve their interest groups
and let the benefits
trickle down.

Right now the Republicans and Democrats in
Washington seem, from the
outside, to be an elite colluding against the voter.
They're in
agreement: immigration should not be controlled but
increased, spending
will increase, etc. 
Are there some dramatic differences? Yes. But both
parties act as if
they see them not as important questions (gay
marriage, for instance)
but as wedge issues. Which is, actually, abusive of
people on both sides
of the question. If it's a serious issue, face it.
Don't play with it.

I don't see any potential party, or potential
candidate, on the scene
right now who can harness the disaffection of
growing portions of the
electorate. But a new group or entity that could
define the problem
correctly--that sees the big divide not as something
between the parties
but between America's ruling elite and its
people--would be making long
strides in putting third party ideas in play in
America again.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall
Street Journal and
author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a
Spiritual Father,"
(Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the
OpinionJournal bookstore.
Her column appears Thursdays. 

Copyright (c) 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All
Rights Reserved

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