Kasich and Hickenlooper
As Parties Move Towards Extremes, Will There Be Space for Those in the Middle?
That Good You Need’s Lucas Quagliata and George Damian Dobbins come together to examine the possibility, and consequences, of a serious, split-ticket, independent presidential campaign.
Could it Happen?
George: Okay, so I think we both find the possibility of a joint Kasich-Hickenlooper 2020 ticket appealing (For our dearest readers: John Hickenlooper is the Democratic Governor of Colorado; John Kasich is the Republican Governor of Ohio and former candidate for the Republican nomination in 2016).
There have been several signs this indepedent run is a real possibility. Rumors have been spread for months; Governors Kasich and Hickenlooper recently released a bipartisan plan to address the healthcare crisis, and have traveled the country together to flaunt it; finally, the two genuinely seem to enjoy each other’s company.
The first question, then, is can it happen? My first thought is that there might not be enough momentum for moderation on the left. Republicans have dealt with Tea Party extremism for the better part of this decade; perhaps a significant portion of them would find a centrist independent appealing. But the left has not -yet- jerked so far to the extreme. That said, a recent article in Politico suggested that socialists may yet prove to be the Tea Party of the left in 2018.
In that case, there is probably not enough time. If Democrats are just now starting their big movement left, that would mean a split ticket on the right. What do you think — does a Kasich-Hickenlooper ticket inevitably mean Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren win it all in 2020?
Lucas: You’re right about one thing, we find the idea of a split ticket to be very appealing. This becomes particularly true when the ticket contains two moderate, independent thinkers. This isn’t necessarily the case here, Kasich and Hickenlooper aren’t slaves to their parties but they aren’t exactly centrists either. Still, the mere fact that two politicians from opposite sides of the aisle are even flirting with this idea provides some measure of excitement.
I want to push back on your idea that the left might not have enough momentum here. A quick look in the rear-view mirror, my friend, will remind you that Bernie Sanders was a serious presidential candidate, and that many are still clamoring for his brand of politics. The Democrats’ “Better Deal” plan moves the party to the left, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a high-ranking Democrat that hasn’t at least somewhat embraced a $15 minimum wage, the eventual support of single-payer, and something resembling free community college.
These policies are fine, but they’re definitely far left on the American spectrum. This probably won’t bother those who identify as Democrats, but losing their own voters isn’t a the Democrats problem. As the GOP showed in the 2016 most of a party’s members will vote their way regardless of who they run. But those in the middle, who don’t identify with either party? Well, the Obama-Trump voters showed how fickle they can be.
If Kasich and Hickenlooper can find a way to cut through the Democrats progression to the left and the Republicans inability to divorce themselves from Donald Trump, offering plans with sensible compromises, a political mix of policies, and a steady hand, they could certainly find some daylight in this election.
George: A plurality of Americans (~40%) do claim to be independent of either party. However, a closer look at those voters also will notice that they tend to consistently vote for one party or another, election after election. These “independents” are ususally not moderates, and may be more prone to the Bernie or Trump extremes than those who actually take the name Democrat or Republican!
There’s also the issue of funding the campaign. The Kasich-Hickenlooper ticket would be without the traditional party organization funding scheme that has long been the primary way to raise money in presidential elections. Luckily (for Kasich-Hickenlooper) we live in a post-Citizens United world, where unlimited donations can be given to a SuperPACs to support one candidate over others, so long as there is no coordination between the candidate and the SuperPAC.
In America today there are approximately 540 billionaires. Of those billionaires, we would only need a handful of centrist, reform-minded iconoclasts to give the governors a fighting chance. Do those billionaires exist? I’m not sure.
Setting aside the issue of if it could happen, let’s say it did. Kasich and Hickenlooper are on the ballot in all fifty states, with a funded ground game in the states where they have a shot. What does that election look like?
What Would the 2020 Election Look Like?
Lucas: ABSOLUTE CHAOS! No, I’m just kidding…mostly.
The most popular theory about how this might play out places Kasich at the top of the ticket. This makes sense because Republicans are most likely to be turned away from their presumptive candidate for someone a little more, uh, “traditional”.
That being said, one would imagine that the ticket wouldn’t be as top heavy as most. Hickenlooper would have much more pull and hold more importance than a usual Vice President, and the duo would presumably say as much on the campaign.
What would most likely unfold is a state by state contest. Kasich and Hickenlooper would ignore primary contests, going straight to the states they thought they could win in the general election. They would be laser focused not on earning 270 Electoral Votes, but on winning enough to prevent any other candidate from getting to 270. As the Twelfth Amendment tells us:
If no candidate receives a majority of Electoral votes, the House of Representatives elects the President from the 3 Presidential candidates who received the most Electoral votes. Each state delegation has one vote. The Senate would elect the Vice President from the 2 Vice Presidential candidates with the most Electoral votes. Each Senator would cast one vote for Vice President. If the House of Representatives fails to elect a President by Inauguration Day, the Vice-President Elect serves as acting President until the deadlock is resolved in the House.
Tell me, George, do you think Donald Trump stands a chance in this type of House-powered election, especially against Kasich?
George: That is a very good question. I think if the election goes to House of Representatives, the Republican nominee wins the whole thing. If that is Trump, that means Trump. Republicans control a majority of state governments, and so would win in a system where each state gets one vote.
Further, I’m not sure an independent ticket would have much power convincing a state delegation to vote for them. Members of the House are not the bravest of public servants. They are dependent on their national and state parties to raise money for their elections. Siding with an independent candidate during such a pivotal vote could spell their political suicide.
One possible detour from this dead end would be if Kasich-Hickenlooper promised to convert to the Republican or Democratic party after the House vote is complete. This promise might free up some House members on the fence. In order to work, however, the governors would have to choose one party with whom to make the promise — probably the party whose House members are least enthusiastic about their presidential candidate. That would be a difficult sell for a ticket whose purpose was to draw voters from the center of both parties.
Lucas: Totally on point. It would be difficult for a party in the middle to draw folks over from both sides. To remedy this, and to give them a chance in an election in the House, Kasich and Hickenlooper are going to have to go for it all.
They would need to run candidates with them, a la Emmanuel Macron in France. Maybe they wouldn’t need to form a formal party, but they would need to align on whatever platform the two candidates run on. By winning seats throughout government, Kasich and Hickenlooper could not only help their chances at winning, but could actually enact an agenda upon winning.
Obviously, this would be an enormous undertaking and, at the moment, they have virtually none of the infrastructure required to do something like this. It’s also not as if all the candidates they select would fall into perfect place geographically and agree with one another. In other words, it could be done, but it would be a difficult and messy process. There are a few who might be able to offer some measure of leadership in this kind of an effort, people like Evan McMullin and Mindy Finn have been hinting at the idea of creating a centrist, moderate party with their Stand Up Republic effort, but this would go far beyond even that effort.
Plainly said, they almost certainly wouldn’t be able to get this together and functioning for 2020.
Do we want it to happen?
Lucas: Part of me wants this to happen just to see how people would react to it. How would Americans react to a real, bonafide, third option? Would they embrace the idea of having more than two choices, throwing away their traditional party-line voting behaviors, or would they simply dismiss the effort as absurd and stick with the party they know?
Would any activists, who typically tend to be more liberal or conservative than most, support an effort in the middle? Would they be willing to sacrifice their whole agenda for part of their agenda?
It’s intriguing to think about, but realistically the only way you’d want this to happen is through a strong, third party structure. We wouldn’t simply want to see a Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidate with no support in Congress, we’d want to see an effort to get some more folks in the conversation. Watching Kasich and Hickenlooper, without a base, attempt to get enough electoral votes to block a majority and throw the election to Congress would be exciting, but it would also probably be without much purpose or positive outcome. A real movement, with candidates at every level of government, would be real progress. Perhaps these two, instead of taking the easy route and throwing their hats in the ring, should consider taking that approach.
George: If such a movement were to happen, I definitely would be on board. That said, perhaps it is worth taking a moment to break down what that movement might look like. For better or for worse, the structure of our government inevitably leads to a situation where two parties dominate the arena. Therefore, I am not so sure that a realignment would lead to one centrist party, and two parties on the left and right extremes.
Instead, I think what we might be thinking of as the “centrist” party would be one side of a completely new axis. Several prominent public figures and publications — including Tony Blair, David Brooks, Fareed Zakaria, and the Economist — have argued that the most significant political divide of the future will no longer between right and left, but between “open and closed.”
One example of an open-vesus-closed election would be Emmanuel Macron, mentioned earlier, against Marie LePen in France. Another example of this new divide can be found in the recent New Zealand election. While the center-right National Party won a plurality of seats in their parliament, they have hit a log jam in forming a governing coalition. This can primarily be attributed to a new-found affinity between New Zealand’s Labour Party on the left, and a minor party called New Zealand First, which is far-right. Labour and New Zealand First both favor severely restricting immigration to New Zealand, preventing foreigners from buying homes, and protective trade policies.
(Below I shamelessly plug my own article, where I describe the open-closed divide in more depth.)
New Zealand is a small country, but it remains to be seen what will happen if the far-left and far-right of larger countries begin to realize that they too share much in common. In another generation, will there be a difference between Bernie-bros and the MAGA-men? And could a Kasich-Hickenlooper party be the “open” to their “closed”? Let’s pick up this conversation in a few decades, and see!
