The Purple Ticket
Demonstrating how to “Govern to the Middle”
Kamala Harris was a bold choice for running mate by Joe Biden in 2020. Should she secure her 2024 nomination, Kamala has a unique opportunity for her own bold, history making pick and to demonstrate beyond a doubt that she and her party leaders believe national unity and restoring the banished apparatus of “governing to the middle” is paramount for a Nation in dysfunction.
Choosing a principled moderate Republican can be among the surest methods to assure Donald Trump does not see the inside of the White House. The kind of candidates to consider include: Adam Kinzinger, Anthony Gonzalez, Todd Young, and there could be others. These principled Republicans have in some cases sacrificed their careers by challenging Boss Trump.
The repair and restoration of a Nation resulting from such a bold move would have at least three immediate, and lasting benefits.
1) Making Congress Work Again. Congress has become nearly unworkable in a trend started in large part by Newt Gingrich, reaching chokepoints during the Obama terms and bolstered by gerrymandering on steroids with the 2010 and 2020 census cycles. In designing three separate but equal branches of government, the Founding Fathers expected checks and balances. For Congress, what they could not envision would be one party refusing to do their elected work, halting governance, choosing not to bring bills to the floor for voting, refusing to confirm important judicial and other appointments and other derelictions of duty.
A Purple Ticket demonstrates from the top that a vice president with moderate Republican views can help Democratic leadership get things done. Governing to the middle has the promise to get congress working again, negotiating and hammering out solutions to issues such as immigration.
2) Purple States would embrace a Purple Ticket. 2024 voters have complained of bad choices at the presidential level. In Electoral College math, a Purple Ticket applies multiplication, not addition. A strong Democrat on the Harris ticket might strengthen the Electoral College math for say … PA, or AZ, or IL, or maybe MI. A Purple Ticket makes about 10 Electoral College states not just more competitive, but gives voters on both sides a spot inside the tent … an equal opportunity to shout: “We expect government to govern to the middle”.
3) Resuscitate the real Republican Party while diminishing the MAGA Party. A hallmark of Trumps’ public discourse is to denigrate others and their accomplishments rather than offer solutions or improvements. Destructive vs Constructive. The monikers and trash talk that spew from Trump’s middle school persona are increasingly an obvious and purposeful transference of his own failings. The convicted felon, rapist, cooker-of-the-books calls out Crooked Joe. Similarly, Trump labels a principled Republican as a RINO (Republican In Name Only) when that person disagrees with the MAGA cult. The true RINOS are of course the MAGA cult. A better term might be Lemonade Republicans, as they are either serving it or drinking it. For Democracy, MAGA leads to suicide.
Paraphrasing Harris in her Fort Liberty speech in NC on July 20, “Unity is not about simply saying the word!” For Unity to cross the Red — Blue chasm, a Purple Ticket goes a long way to give voters hope that actions follow intention.
A Purple Ticket acknowledges that there is a need and a want for a principled Republican Party in our two-party system of governance. It charts a course to Govern to the Middle. When and if Congress actually shows up and conducts duties as elected to do, then at least two of three branches conceived by the Founding Fathers — Congress and the Executive Branch — are working, moving the country forward, and collaboratively solving the great issues of our times.
