John Morgan had a lot of ideas for naming his new party. Now he needs a mascot
Will 'The Common Ground Party'--and Grounders-- resonate with voters?
By J.C. Bruce
Florida’s richest lawyer, John Morgan, has launched his new political party, an alternative for those who are tired of being whipsawed to the left and right by Democrats and Republicans.
At least, that’s what he says it’s for. Beyond that, it’s still a work in progress.
Morgan has been teasing a so-called “third party” for what seems like forever, even hinting at his own run for governor under a new political banner. The time for that has slipped by for this election cycle, but it seems his notion of an alternative major party centered on “compromise” is now being birthed.
How “major” it becomes remains to be seen.
It starts with a name—The Common Ground Party—whose members will be known as “Grounders,” he announced on social media this week.
Grounders?
Yep, just like in baseball, or the children’s game of tag, or perhaps even the fierce Earth-born survivors of a nuclear holocaust in the TV series The 100.
Not sure if the team at Morgan & Morgan stress-tested that name in focus groups thoroughly enough. But perhaps they’ll adopt a groundhog as a mascot to help it make some sense, and we’ll get to see how it gets along with the donkeys and elephants.
Why is Morgan doing this?
“I’ve learned that once we drop the ‘D’ and the ‘R’, most of us agree on most issues,” Morgan said in a press release last month. “The two-party system — the extremes to the right and the extremes to the left — is freezing us up. What we need is a third political party that can compromise with the left and the right to provide real solutions to the people.”
There are, of course, no shortage of political parties (although classified as minor ones) beyond the big two that define what we lovingly call our “two-party system”—which, it is crucial to note, is an idea entirely manufactured and reinforced by the Democrats and Republicans and appears nowhere in our nation’s founding documents.
We’re Americans. We can have as many political parties as we like. (We have 17 in Florida. See the list below.)
The trick is to persuade enough people join so you can get candidates on the ballot with meaningful chances of success.
And that’s no mean trick. Especially in a state like Florida where we have closed primary elections, meaning that only voters registered to a political party can vote in that party’s candidate selection process.
This excludes millions of voters who have chosen not to join any parties—called NPAs or No Party Affiliations—representing about a quarter of all Florida voters, as you can see from this chart from the Florida Secretary of State:
Morgan knows this. He’s a registered NPA himself.
Suggestion: John, want to do something meaningful right away with your new movement? Launch one of your famous crusades to overturn the state’s closed primary system. You got us medical marijuana and a higher minimum wage with previous ballot initiatives. You could do this!
Back to the party’s new name: At one point last year, Morgan hinted at calling it The Capitalist Party (although there already is an American Capitalist Party), but ultimately decided to create a naming contest with a top prize of $100,000.
More than 35,000 people offered suggestions, he said, noting that “some were very, very good, and some were very, very crazy.”
Among those not given the final nod that I found on social media included:
The I’m Rich and Bored Party
The Dank Party
The Siphonist Party
The Weed and Feed Party
The Morganophytes
The More Gain Party
The Bronzers
The Justice League
The Slip and Fall Party
It goes on. You can catch some of the comments here.
Morgan told his social media followers that the contest ”showed me that many of you, like me, believe our political system is broken. That we agree on more than we disagree on, yet nothing ever gets done. So, this is step one. Going forward, we will try to start registering people for the party.”
Where will those voters come from? Certainly, from among the ranks of NPAs, but also disaffected Republicans and moderate Democrats who find the Grounders’ centrist message appealing.
So far, there’s been no comment from the Democrats. Earlier, when Morgan began teasing his new third-party plans, Evan Power, the Florida Republican chair, said:
If it quacks like a duck, it’s still a duck—and you’re still a Democrat. Florida doesn’t want what you’re selling.”
Despite his fowl language, that remains to be seen.
Florida’s minor political parties
Boricua Party (BPP)
Ecology Party of Florida (ECO)
Florida Forward Party (FFP)
Green Party of Florida (GRE)
MGTOW Party (MGT)
We the People Florida (WPF)
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It’s easy to feel overwhelmed if you are a rational person living in the Free State of Florida, but there are plenty of smart, reasonable people just like you here. The purpose of this newsletter and the Tropic Press website is to provide a source of news and commentary that shines a light through this irrational fog.
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J.C. Bruce
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