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Annual Senatorial By Peter Rather (Washington, D.C., May 24, 2011) -- All of the nation's capital is atwitter today in anticipation of tonight's sixth annual Senatorial Political Affiliation Ball. "As always, we have no idea what the party composition of the Senate will be after tonight's ball," noted E. Pluribus Unum, national political analyst and former Globe-Guardian political correspondent. "We do know for certain, though, that it's going to be a fun night." The ball is traditionally held on the anniversary of the historic defection of Vermont Sen. James Jeffords from the Republican Party back in 2001, which forever changed the two-faced American political party system. In his break with the GOP, Jeffords declared himself an "independent" and tipped the deadlocked Senate party membership to 50-49 in favor of the Democrats. Jeffords apparently opened an unsuspected floodgate for senators who believed themselves to be something other than Republicans and Democrats, but had chosen one of the two mainstream parties because they realized they had little hope of gaining public office under any other party label. With increasing frequency, other Senators began changing their party "loyalties," adopting new names which often reflected as much creativity as political meaning. "We've had some good ones," Unum said. Republican Sens. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and John McCain of Arizona started the ball rolling in that area on Dec. 7, 2001, a day which will "live in infamy" in Republican Party annals, when they jointly declared that they would henceforth be known as "Republicats." They defined this new label as "basically Republicans who find Democrats very attractive on certain issues. There followed the predictable "Democans," who were Democrats "occasionally getting in touch with their conservative sides." Others have since drawn from history, taking such names as Whig, Tory, Know-Nothing and Federalist. By far the most creative announcement came at last year's affiliation ball, when Sen. Ted Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, declared himself to be a member of the "Let's Party Hearty Party." "Up until then," Unum said, "my personal favorite had been the Tupperware Party." With few of the political affiliation changes carrying the significance attached to the Jeffords decision, the national press largely began ignoring most party label announcements. That all changed five years ago, when a major public relations firm suggested consolidating all such announcements in a single Senatorial Political Affiliation Ball and secured the durable Joan Rivers to emcee the event. "The amazing thing is that voters, for the most part, stick with their incumbent senators at the polls, regardless of what they're calling themselves," Unum noted. "I guess that proves most people are voting for the man, not the party, although it does pose a dilemma for those who vote straight party tickets." Analysts have differing opinions on the phenomenon triggered by the Jeffords decision, as well as the senator's motivation. Some believe that other senators were jealous of the attention Jeffords subsequently received from both the media and "A-list" party-throwers and wanted to get in on the action. Although Jeffords maintains that he had come to believe that the GOP was "too conservative" for his personal tastes, many have theorized that he simply did not want to be in the same party that would put George W. Bush in the White House. |
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