What is a Coalition?

@SkyWhisperer - I believe that political coalitions are created for convenience, and ultimately their authenticity can be questioned on a number of fronts.

Take the Christian Coalition, for example, founded in the late 1980’s by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson. While its stated goal is voter education, there is no doubt that the group has a right leaning bias.

As a result it had a scuffle with the IRS which denied it a tax-exempt status for awhile, until the group agreed to sanitize its so-called voter education guides so as not to express any particular preference for one candidate over another.

These guides were distributed in churches too, which made the group’s claims to neutrality to be somewhat suspect. They now have their tax-exempt status back as a result of agreeing to IRS regulations, but I think the group still walks a fine when claiming neutrality.

@SkyWhisperer - I disagree. I believe that many of the member nations, especially England and Australia, wholeheartedly participated in the invasion of Iraq, because they believed that the terrorist threat posed by chemical and potentially nuclear weapons was a real one.

We should not forget too that the United States still bore the brunt of the responsibility in terms of numbers of troops deployed and assets on the ground.

What you call cajoling I call leadership, and I think we acted responsibly by assuming most of the burden.

@Charred - Political coalitions can be good, but that does not always mean that they represent deeply held convictions among member parties.

For example, the Iraq coalition that was assembled as part of America’s invasion of Iraq is often held up as proof that we had international cooperation.

I personally don’t believe, however, that many of these member nations would have chosen the war on their own. The United Nations certainly had some reservations about going into Iraq, and for that they received a rebuke from the United States.

Building an aggressive case for doing something, and then cajoling your partners to tag along, ever so reluctantly, is not my idea of building a coalition. It’s not consensus, in the truest sense of the term.

I think in an age where we sometimes see an increase in political rancor and divisiveness, coalitions can be useful organizations for people who may not agree eye to eye on every issue, but can at least focus on some shared, important concerns.

One of the most noted yet loosely knit groups in this regard is the blue dog coalition of Democrats in Congress. They banded together in the late 1990’s after a Republican sweep of Congress, mainly because the blue dogs shared a common belief with the Republicans in fiscal responsibility.

They don’t agree on all the social issues, but tend to come together in the conviction that unrestrained government spending is not good for America.

I believe we need more of these kinds of coalitions, which will put party affiliation and partisanship aside and focus on the big issues besetting the American people.