I disagree with Chris' reading of this issue.

Chris says, "voters did not just give up on Republicans, as the low performance of third parties shows they actually turned to Democrats."

I don't believe this is true. I would put it this way:

Many, many people recognized that, in the very short term, the only way to derail the GOP's play for hegemony was to vote for Democrats.

However, if people across the nation are like the many people I know, their loyalty to the Democratic Party is very, very fragile and wholly dependent on results.

There is no way in hell that the Democratic Party will hold on to the doubters who held their noses to vote it if they fail to deliver meaningful results.

I also disagree with this: "our current political age is far more polarized than in the 1990's when several third parties were able to make an impact on the national landscape."

The GOP is showing signs of significant fractures in its base.

The Democratic Party is about to face a major war over what to do with the '06-'08 Congress. Lots and lots of Progressives will be inclined to wander off if the Party doesn't represent them and the Good Old Boy network will resist them to the death.

Both parties stand in danger of fracture. All sorts of widely divergent viewpoints are clamoring for attention: libertarians, fiscal conservatives, religious right, corporatists, organized labor, Latinos,  anti-immigration activists, African Americans, environmentalists, education advocates, health care activists, etc. etc.

And the internet provides the first opportunity since the 1920s for these groups to develop their own publications and means of communication.

I don't think the American people are polarized at all. I think they are confused about what political labels mean and they tend to be dissatisfied with both parties.

I believe that the near future will provide the best opportunity in many, many decades for a third party to emerge as a major force.

There is one way to prevent this: the Democratic Party must begin to deliver the goods. If it does that, then it has the opportunity to enlist many groups under its banner.

But if the Democratic Congress entering the Capitol in January FAILS to make meaningful progress, then I think the parties will splinter quite remarkably.

In 2006, a vote for a Dem was a vote against the terrifyingly corrupt and inept GOP machine.

The Democratic Party misunderstands this as a widespread endorsement of its institutionalized lethargy at its peril.

Interesting that the article left out the Reform Party.  In CO-04, their candidate (Eric Eidsness) picked up 11% of the vote and almost certainly threw the race to Marilyn Musgrave.  This was a major improvement over third party performance in CO-04 in 2004, when the Green Party candidate picked up 4% and there was no Reform candidate in the race.  I don't know how Reform Party candidates did elsewhere, in fact I'm not sure they ran anybody else.

I think this could change dramatically over the next two years. The Religious Right have been hinting at running a third candidate for president in '08, and Bob Barr has suggested that he might run as a Libertarian. Either (or both) of these developments will help the Dems, imo.

Then there's the possibility that a charismatic, right-wing demagogue could emerge and win the presidency with a slim plurality -- something like thirty-five percent of the vote. Not likely, certainly; but I think most of us would agree that there hasn't been a better opportunity for just such a demagogue to emerge. Obviously, there is no one on the radar screen just yet, except for Roy Moore.

Crazy things can happen when you start carving up the electorate in to multipartisan factions. This is why I prefer the parliamentary system.

This is going to be one hell of an interesting election-cycle, no?

Cohen, I think, is almost certain to get a primary challenge in two years.  It's really sad, because Cohen is a genuine progressive who will likely vote as such, while any primary challenger would probably be a black machine politician from Memphis (and probably a Ford.)  Cohen won the primary with 33 percent of the vote because he was the only white candidate in a 15-candidate primary (I think.)

The issue here is that for all the talk of Ford's campaign and how there are people out there who still will not vote for a black candidate, shouldn't we be worried as much about those who won't vote for a white candidate (at least, not when they have the option not to) and the racial overtones that came into play in that campaign?  Jake (not Newton) Ford's campaign was based almost solely on the premise that as a black majority district, the 9th should have a black representative and virtually no substance.  That campaign also featured anti-Semitism (Cohen is Jewish) and homophobia (several Memphis politicos implied that Cohen, who is 57 and single, is gay.)  If we're not going to tolerate racism directed against candidates like Harold Ford, Jr., why would we tolerate blatant racial appeals when they're made by minority candidates?

The

notion of a right-ward shift among House Democrats

It is so difficult to categorize the ideologies of MCs (as you pointed out in your piece on Dem caucuses a few days ago) that bold statements either way are impossible to make.

Failing much more convincing work on shifting ideologies, I'd cleave to the null hypothesis: that the ideology (its average and dispersion) of the 110th House and Senate Dems will be the same as that of the 109th.

But - my suspicion is, based on that hypothesis, that ideological differences between groups (formal and informal) of Dem MCs will be felt more acutely in the 110th: this is the first Congress under Dem control in 12 years (leading to a spoils battle), there are generational and racial conflicts to exacerbate ideological ones, and the tabloid value of the most senior woman in US politics ever.

If, say, the Blue Dogs bark more loudly in the 110th than in the 109th, that will not necessarily be because there are more of them (which is true), or that they represent a larger proportion of the Dem House party (which is not, as I believe): it will be because the quantity of red meat to be tussled over is so much greater, and their share (sez them) is too small.

Were there conservative options that disaffected Republicans knew anything about though? I'd bet not very often.

Some of the higher percentages for third-party candidates tend to come from races where one of the major parties does not field a candidate.  In those cases, you'll generally see the third party get 15-20% of the vote because that's the only option other than voting for the incumbent.  There simply weren't a lot of Congressmen who drew no major party opposition in 2006.

I'm not convinced Chris' interpretation of 3rd party politics follows. Let's assume for a second that no individual's political preferences have changed (obviously untrue, but that doesn't matter). If the parties have become more polarized, then the Greens and Constitution Party, which are further to the extremes than the Dems or the GOP, will get fewer votes.

As much as I despise Unity08, showing that the Greens are struggling doesn't mean that voters might not want to be at some imaginary center.

None of these third parties are in the middle. Constitution is on the far-right, Greens are on the far-left, and Libertarians are out in Libertarian land. A middle, centrist ticket or party could still do very well, we don't really know based on these results. In fact if anything, it shows America's political dissatisfaction isn't driving them to the extremes, but perhaps towards the center.

The biggest voting bloc in play is moderate libertarians, which make up to 15% of the electorate.  Reagan drew them into an alliance with social conservatives by talking strongly about smaller government.

President Bush has driven them out with war, record spending, and record deficits.  They may well turn to the Democratic Party, but not if the war continues to drag out and Democrats raise taxes to trim the deficit.

There is plenty of room in the federal budget for Democrats to cut spending, balance the books, and win the moderate libertarian vote.  The current budget is more than 40% greater than it was when Clinton was president.  

If the Democrats promise a 5-10% budget cut, they will become the dominant party for a long time.