Katrina vanden Heuvel: The UK Now Has a Credible Third Party
[Katrina vanden Heuvel is editor and publisher of the Nation. She also writes a weekly column for The Post.]
What happens when a credible third party gets a real chance to appeal to voters? With 10 campaigning days left, we are seeing the results in the British election, in which the surge of Liberal Democrat leader Nicholas Clegg is driving ideas and policies usually excluded from Britain's hidebound politics into the campaign debate -- and, possibly, into real-world actions. Americans locked into our two-party system could learn a thing or two.
Given the opportunity to be heard by a national TV audience in Britain's first-ever televised prime ministerial debates, Clegg turned in a stellar performance, mining widespread discontent with the establishment Labor and Conservative parties and emerging as a political superstar.
Even after a second debate in which Labor's Gordon Brown and the Conservatives' David Cameron engaged Clegg more aggressively in an effort to stop what some have dubbed "Cleggmania," the dynamics of the campaign -- which have the Liberal Democrat emerging as a powerful, possibly king-making force in the election -- have not fundamentally changed, and they probably won't following the third debate on Thursday.
Clegg's rise is inspiring for those of us on this side of the ocean who regularly rail against the ironclad consensus of excluded alternatives and managed expectations that are so familiar in America. Take, for example, Clegg's campaign to scrap Britain's Trident nuclear submarines, to challenge the dysfunctional U.S.-British "special relationship," and to propose far-reaching reforms to the calcified electoral system....
But whatever happens, in these past few days we've witnessed an alternative and affirmative channeling of the anti-politics wave that is such a powerful force in Britain right now -- and in the United States. And while Clegg's personal appeal is clearly a major factor in his astonishingly fast political rise -- not to mention the experience he gained as a Nation intern in 1990 -- he and the Lib Dems are also playing a valuable role by focusing the full glare of public attention on issues that Britain's two mainstream parties have ignored for too long.
Some other political systems I can think of should be so fortunate.
Read entire article at WaPo
What happens when a credible third party gets a real chance to appeal to voters? With 10 campaigning days left, we are seeing the results in the British election, in which the surge of Liberal Democrat leader Nicholas Clegg is driving ideas and policies usually excluded from Britain's hidebound politics into the campaign debate -- and, possibly, into real-world actions. Americans locked into our two-party system could learn a thing or two.
Given the opportunity to be heard by a national TV audience in Britain's first-ever televised prime ministerial debates, Clegg turned in a stellar performance, mining widespread discontent with the establishment Labor and Conservative parties and emerging as a political superstar.
Even after a second debate in which Labor's Gordon Brown and the Conservatives' David Cameron engaged Clegg more aggressively in an effort to stop what some have dubbed "Cleggmania," the dynamics of the campaign -- which have the Liberal Democrat emerging as a powerful, possibly king-making force in the election -- have not fundamentally changed, and they probably won't following the third debate on Thursday.
Clegg's rise is inspiring for those of us on this side of the ocean who regularly rail against the ironclad consensus of excluded alternatives and managed expectations that are so familiar in America. Take, for example, Clegg's campaign to scrap Britain's Trident nuclear submarines, to challenge the dysfunctional U.S.-British "special relationship," and to propose far-reaching reforms to the calcified electoral system....
But whatever happens, in these past few days we've witnessed an alternative and affirmative channeling of the anti-politics wave that is such a powerful force in Britain right now -- and in the United States. And while Clegg's personal appeal is clearly a major factor in his astonishingly fast political rise -- not to mention the experience he gained as a Nation intern in 1990 -- he and the Lib Dems are also playing a valuable role by focusing the full glare of public attention on issues that Britain's two mainstream parties have ignored for too long.
Some other political systems I can think of should be so fortunate.