There is a lot that politicians can learn by paying attention to Major League Baseball. Any team that wants to have future stars on their roster has to have a so-called “farm system,” where young players get a chance to sharpen their skills and hope to eventually be called up to play in the big leagues. The New York Yankees learned that lesson the hard way, relying on a bunch of old-timers to win baseball games, even if they were well past their prime.
Finally, late into the season, the Yankees got rid of some very expensive or non-productive players, and replaced them with a roster of young, aggressive and hungry substitutes.
In a few months, when the general election is over, the two political parties will have to look in the mirror and decide what their future will be like.
The Republican Party will have the toughest challenge because it will likely splinter into three groups. The survivors will be the Trump people, the ultra conservatives and the moderate wing. There is nothing that can force them to join together, as their agendas are completely different.
The way any one of those three groups can emerge as the consensus party, will be to introduce fresh faces and fresh ideas into the political dialogue. The Trump party is devoted to only Donald Trump and Trump has not groomed any new talent in his campaign, so there will be no one but Trump to keep his movement alive.
The arch-conservatives will roll out the same tired faces in their next effort to win the White House. Huckabee, Santorum, Carson, Paul or any other of the previous contenders do not excite the Republican base and none is capable of unifying the three factions. There are some very up-and-coming Republican politicians in various states, but the established political figures don’t want any competition as they look to 2020. It’s their party and no one can crash it. The moderates are like the dinosaurs and aren’t capable of producing fresh faces.
The Democratic Party has a similar challenge, but come November when the dust settles, there will be two wings, moderate and very liberal, who very often come together out of necessity. Bernie Sanders will attempt to become the voice of the party but the steam will have come out of his crusade during the next four years.
Deep down in some key states the Democrats have a number of bright and articulate elected officials, but oddly, very few of them will be visible this year. For the next two months, the surrogates will be President Obama, Vice President Biden, Michelle Obama and Bernie Sanders. However, the future for both parties is having the understudies that make baseball so successful and so far; neither party has followed that example.
Former State Assemblyman Jerry Kremer is a partner at Ruskin Moscou Faltischek in Uniondale. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the publisher or Anton Media Group.
