The Common Sense Party

America needs the Common Sense Party because our democracy is a sham and the two major parties are corrupt beyond repair.[1]

We believe that many if not most elections are won or lost at the margins, by voters who are not bound by their party affiliation.[2]  This means that our “third party” candidates stand a real chance of winning if voters know that we exist and appreciate what we offer them.  What the Common Sense Party promises is unprecedented in American political history.

Common Sense Party candidates for public office:

• Will never ask you to donate a dime to their campaigns;[3]
• Will never fill your email or your message Inbox with unwanted self-promotion;[4]
• Will never phone you more than twice or knock on your door more than twice in an election cycle, unless you invite them to;
• Will never ask for or accept Big Money donations to their campaigns;[5]
• Will never sponsor or pay for TV ads or any ads that cost real money;
• Will make themselves known to voters by retail politics,[6] live debates and low budget websites;
• Will never lie to voters, PERIOD!;[7]
• Will always prioritize listening to voters over preaching to them.[8] 

Wouldn’t you vote for such candidates, even without knowing their positions on issues?

If you want to see integrity on your ballot in November, please sign this petition.

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What do independent voters look for in their candidates?  They look for candidates whom they can trust.  With that in mind, the Common Sense Party will require that its candidates: 

• Be persons of good will, who would rather debate than fight;
• Esteem FACTS, and LOGIC, and HISTORY above all else;
• Believe that we are all equal before the law;[9]
• Believe in the Rule of Law;[10]
• Will be loyal to the U.S. Constitution, to their spoken ideals, to their constituents, in that order, and NEVER to a would-be ‘strong man’; 
• Understand that many political issues are slam dunks while some are worthy of debate;
• Will be fiscally responsible, not tax cutters;[11]
• With no advance warning and no last-minute prep, would ace the U.S. Citizenship test that legal immigrants must pass to become naturalized citizens, would ace the American History final exam that high school students must pass to graduate, and would ace a college-level test about the U.S. Constitution;
• Honor education – especially civic literacy – for themselves and their countrymen, above all else.  There is no surer path to a total takeover by Artificial Intelligence than an undereducated population.

Our Common Sense Party believes in a cardinal classical Republican principle, “the government that governs least governs best” (spoken by that great Republican, Thomas Jefferson), and believes, with that great Democrat Abraham Lincoln, that “The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but cannot do, at all, or cannot, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.”[12]  At the same time.  We will not be caricatures of what our major political parties used to be; we will be the Real Deal.  We believe that Rights belong to individuals not to groups.  But when a group’s Rights are abridged, we will fight to fix that wrong.

Good will, a demand for facts and logic, and a respect for what history tells us are what EVERY political philosopher has ever preached to us are essential to successful representative democracies.  Does this sound like a Debate Society?  Congress is SUPPOSED to act like a Debate Society, all else is chaos and the potential for chaos mongers.  Debate societies have rules!

What else must Common Sense practitioners (candidates for public office) believe?

• Our candidates will always have their own political principles, and they will reveal them to one and all.  They will always listen to anyone who engages with them (this means lots of lengthy Town Hall meetings);[13]
• Our candidates do not believe that money wins elections; they believe that personal integrity and good messaging earn voters’ trust that is rewarded with electoral success.[14]

Before we leave the subject of education, here are some unexpected factoids.  Most college graduates who enter, and graduate from, Med School are … women.  Most college graduates who enter, and graduate from, Law School are … women.  For 30 years, more women than men have entered and graduated from college, by 10% in 2023.[15]   What are men better at than women?  Aggression.  We encourage women to stand for public office as Common Sense candidates; they are smarter and more disciplined than men and less likely to go to war to settle disputes![16]

• Our candidates support the passage of the 28th or 29th (the ERA could be #28) Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, that will restore power to the people, by stripping corporations of their Oligarchic right to rule, for their own benefit, and by declaring that money is NOT protected speech under the 1st Amendment;[17]
• Our candidates agree that any public servant who does not step aside when there is a personal conflict of interest must be removed from office, with no second chances;
• Our candidates support Ranked Choice Voting in every state and municipality across the nation (rules of Voting belong to the states);[18]
• No candidates of ours want a culture war.[19]

68% of Californians want what they call a Common Sense party.[20]  They believe that the best approach to political division is … compromise (like Democrats).  Some conflicts have a right side and a wrong side, some do not.  No Common Sense Party candidate will ever be asked by his party to compromise his principles or his conscience.  But without good will from both sides of a conflict, no conflict will ever be resolved.  And conflicts will escalate until government turns into farce.

In a democracy differences of opinion are inevitable and healthy; but different facts – the lack of a shared reality or disrespecting established experts in their fields – is fatal to democracy.

Notes

[1]   Because of Big Money corruption, 90% of us have no impact on legislation, on governing.  https://represent.us/americas-corruption-problem/

[2]   “Far Left” independent Bernie Sanders beat his Republican opponent in Vermont’s 2024 senatorial election by 31.1% while moderate Republican Phil Scott beat his Democratic challenger in Vermont’s 2024 gubernatorial election by 49.4%.  50% of Vermont’s voters split their ticket.  This is just one example, but it does make the point that voters are not bound by their party affiliation.  Which means that non-partisan voters decide elections.

[3]   Does it make you feel wanted or does it just piss you off when your Inbox gets filled with requests for donations to someone’s campaign, especially when the candidate is out of state?

[4]   Do you read those things?  The first time, the fifth time?

[5]   Most career politicians sincerely believe that money spent on their campaigns will make the difference between winning and losing.  Your participation in this movement will prove them right or wrong.  The real problem is: Big Money tends to make the winner beholden to the Big Money; there goes democracy (the Will of the People).  The country needs a Constitutional amendment (https://www.movetoamend.org/amendment) that will build a wall of separation between money and governance.  In the meantime, the Common Sense Party won’t wait; we will act on our beliefs, we will not solicit, accept, or spend big money donations.

[6]   According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term retail politics is an informal noun that means a politician's practice of personally asking the public for votes. It can also mean "boots on the ground politics" or in person "campaigning."  Knocking on doors (canvassing), house parties, Town Hall meetings, rallies, live debates.

[7]   Politicians or at least elected officials ought not to lie.  In the meantime, our candidates are sworn never to lie.  See https://benpaine76.blogspot.com/2019/12/lying-is-legal.html

[8]   Nothing endears a voter to a candidate for public office more than feeling heard.

[9]   This includes women (we support ratification of the ERA, the 28th Amendment), people of color, non-Christians, LGBTQIA+, and even trans people (there is no compelling reason for a federal law when so few schools will ever have to face this non-crisis).

[10]  Which simply means that EVERYONE (no exceptions for Trump family members) charged with the same crime – with no extenuating circumstances – receives the same punishment.  That does NOT mean the same USD fine, as $10,000 means little to Bill Gates and quite a bit to most of us.  Rather, the same amount of inconvenience in our lives, like a year in the slammer.

[11]  Fiscal responsibility suggests running enough budget surpluses to pay down our out of control National Debt.  Tax cuts for billionaires have left us with a $35 Trillion National Debt, that is $100K/non-billionaire person.

[12]  Where these two immortal factions will meet will always be grist for our collective partisan mills.   A good example of both principles going terribly wrong at the same time is today’s Republicans’ disdain for government regulation except when it comes to a class of people who they figure were put on God’s good Earth to reproduce and give men sons.

[13]  A candidate who puts his finger to the wind will never be a Common Sense candidate.  Does this mean that our candidates will ignore the will of the people?   No, it means that they will have figured out who they are and what they stand for before putting their hats in the ring, and that voters will choose them or their opponents based on their principles and on whom they trust to tell them the truth.   And, yes, they will always listen to their constituents; and either change their minds for good reason or be able to defend their own beliefs.

[14]  This is why Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton; it is why AOC beat Joe Crowley (look it up).  Messaging means a) knowing what you stand for, b) knowing how to speak it, and c) speaking it loud and often.  Comfort with social media is a must.  Live Town Hall meetings are super important.  It is hard for a person to deny his vote for you when you have given him five minutes of your time, listening, and engaging with respect.  Invaluable.

[15]  https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/08/whats-behind-the-growing-gap-between-men-and-women-in-college-completion/

[16]  Ruth Bader Ginsburg: “When will there be enough women on the court? And my answer is when there are nine.”

[17]  “Overturning Citizens United” is a toothless idea for an amendment that would give Congress the authority to write a second McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill (would not happen in my lifetime and is not worthy of a Constitutional amendment).  https://benpaine76.blogspot.com/2014/04/corporate-what.html

[18]  Ranked Choice Voting will break the monopoly of the two major parties, destroy the unmandated Two-Party System, and realize the right of the people to choose whom they want to represent them.  https://represent.us/policy-platform/ranked-choice-voting/

[19]  If one of our own talks about culture wars too often, we will infer that he wants one; he is gone.  Same for a war on Christians.  Or a full-throated civil war between the Right and the Left (that the Right talks about all the time, and blames the Left for bringing up the subject, as though the Left could defend itself against the firepower of the Right).

[20]  https://www.cacommonsense.org/

Compromise is too damned EASY for Democrats and too damned impossible for Republicans (I’m talking about TODAY’s sorry lot of partisan politicians).  Remember King Solomon’s wisdom story: two women claimed to be the mother of an infant child, Solomon suggested that they split the difference (compromise) and award each woman half of the child (I guess right and left halves, not top and bottom halves).  The woman who said, “no, let the other woman have the child” was awarded the child, and you should know the rest of the story.  Nor was Thomas Paine, the author of the indispensable pamphlet Common Sense, an advocate of compromise, choosing independence and revolution instead.