Drat. Well, all you can do is your best, so thanks for whatever you’re able to do.

I am the only one who’s politically oriented. They might support my political aspirations, but they can’t be counted to get involved themselves.

I did think about going to the ASP meeting in Ohio, but the timing was bad.

For now, I’ll keep an eye on ASP, while I try to see if it’s possible to save the Republican Party for now.

There *is* an ASP chapter in Ohio. https://www.facebook.com/OhioASP/ However, I cannot vouch for it, knowing nothing about it except what I read on that page I just found. (Which made me think of you and your difficulty.)

Do you have friends? Perhaps all it takes is a dozen or so friends to get a political party started.

So turns out there’s actually a story here. Half the people who showed up to the meeting wanted to know what the deal was with the stork, and it happened that one guy in the room was there when the national party chose it.

It’s actually a PELICAN, oddly enough. We were told that the pelican is a “traditional symbol of charity.” When we pressed, we learned that there are two stories to this: the sanitzed public story and the actual story.

The sanitized public story is that the pelican traditionally has a huge beak because she has to carry food not just for herself but for her children. Charity!

The actual story is a pre-Christian legend that told of a pelican who, in time of famine, attacked her own chest with her beak so that she would be able to feed her children with her own blood… and died in the process. This was something early Christians seized on, of course, so the pelican is a sneaky and very ancient code word for Jesus. (But DON’T TELL THE SECULARS. We don’t want to scare them off with our logo.)

So, after I heard that, I felt I couldn’t offer my planned motion to change the party animal to a T-Rex.

First, congrats!

Secondly, I note its a solidarity party affiliated with the ASP. Good move, I feel. I know that there were reservations about the ASP, but starting with some structure, no matter how weak, is better than starting with nothing at all.

Finally, maybe you can do something about the Solidarity, or rather the ASP’s, symbol. A stork? Nah, it should be the Hound of Distributism.

Which is not to say that you do not have a point. I’m not completely convinced, but I think you raise some issues that need to be considered. What I might add to the consideration (for the point of consideration) is that even though I agree that a top down new party is unlikely, and unlikely to succeed, some high level defections may be necessary, and some top down influence important, in our current environment as the two main parties are so incredibly entrenched. Without cracking them, they’ll just keep on keeping on.

One added thing I might note to this analysis is that the lots of parties concept probably more realistically reflects people’s actual political views, and therefore would be a good thing in and of itself. The Democratic Party is at least two parties, in reality, right now. So is the GOP. If the parties reflected actual political beliefs, there’d be no fewer than four main parties.

In order to really get there, however, I think a person has to take on the existing primary system, which is bizarre. Primaries are party elections and there’s no reason that the public should pay for them or assist them, but we do. People register with their local governments to run i primaries and as primaries are geared towards the main parties, that forces people into the two main parties. If we eliminated primaries, and relied upon the parties themselves to certify candidates, and if any party that could muster, say, more than a thousand signatures for an election to get on the ballot, we’d automatically field a lot more candidates.

Finally, one reason some top down aspect may be necessary is that even the large third parties often really fail in running any sort of acceptable candidate at the local level, thereby dooming their efforts in any election. Yesterday, for example, my town hosted a debate between the Republican, Democrat, Libertarian and Constitutional Party candidates running for Congress. The Libertarian was clueless and the Constitutional Party candidate came across. . . well. . . really badly. If that’s all the better these established third parties can do, well, its not a pretty picture.