IS GLENN BECK STARTING A THIRD PARTY?

The headline in the Orlando Sentinel this morning read: "Glenn Beck sets sights on political organizing."  Glenn Beck is best known, perhaps, for his political rants (mostly against the Obama administration) on Fox News television.  He is, to say the least, a little over the top sometimes.

He knows how to gather a crowd, which in this case means gather TV ratings.  That's what any respectable television personality, liberal, moderate, conservative, news reporter or otherwise, is after.  No ratings, no job.

Well now, according to the Sentinel, Beck hopes "to transform his personal celebrity into political action and has begun to assemble a movement to 'change America's course.'"  While in Florida recently promoting his new book, "Arguing with Idiots," Beck said "America, we cannot wait for a leader anymore.  The people must lead, and the leader will follow."

We know he has already discounted the president as a leader, but this statement suggests that he is admitting that the opposition party, the Republicans, lacks leadership as well.  That seems clear to most Americans since he, Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham seem to be the major spokespeople for the Republican Party these days.  Indeed, the Sentinel article states, "Beck's announcement is the latest in a series of attempts by well-known, right leaning figures to fill a leadership void in the Republican Party, which has no clear nationally popular standard-bearer and has seen a schism arise between moderates and the conservative flank."

Conscientious voters across the nation should be encouraging Beck's success.  Republicans made a big deal of Obama's lack of leadership experience and disparaged his community organization background.  But, they had to notice that that very background led to one of the most skillfully crafted and organized campaigns in recent history.  Beck seems to have taken notice, at least, and wants to organize Conservatives in a similar manner.  Regardless, any attempt by any person to get Americans off their duffs and actively participating in the process of nominating, electing and monitoring our government officials has to be a good thing.  We should all hope Beck succeeds.

Democrats will have another reason for hoping he succeeds.  If the Glenn Beck Conservatives become united and decide to split from the lackluster leadership of the Republican Party, they will by such action assure the Democrats control of Washington for the next several elections cycles.  Third-party movements invariably weaken the voting strength of one party.  (Do I need to mention Ralph Nadir or Ross Perot?)

There are rational, reasonable conservatives in both the Democratic and Republican Parties, albeit more of them have, in recent years, gravitated to the Republican Party.  The problem for Republican leaders is not the conservatives in their midst.  Hell, they are happy to have them as it adds to their voting strength.  The conservatives, however, give them a broader base to which they must appeal, and John McCain found it nearly impossible in the last presidential election to appeal to that very broad base and remain true to his own principals.

Why?  Because the conservatives represent such a broad range of expectations and ideologies, partly, I suspect, because of far right religious groups who have found a voting voice in the conservative movement.  They are not just social conservatives or financial conservatives or political conservatives, they are radical conservatives.  There is no middle ground on anything.  Their view is the only view.

Americans are by and large moderates.  We are a sort of live-and-let-live bunch of people.  Not so the religious conservatives.  They march to their own drummer and by god you will too -- if they have their way.

Glenn Beck may do the country a favor if he successfully gets more Americans to organize their block, their neighborhood, their town and state and become actively involved in our political process.  He should be wary about the tiger he is letting out of the bag, however.  He may find it hard to control that cat once it is let loose.