Zadekpedia“Common Sense” is the name of two subjects discussed on The Bob Zadek Show: the pamphlet by Thomas Paine and the California political party that takes its name from it.
Thomas Paine’s pamphlet
Harlow Unger, speaking with Bob Zadek, said Paine wrote two books, one at the end of his life and the other during his most productive years, the latter making him one of the most popular figures in the Western world among ordinary people. Unger described Paine as an ordinary fellow who grew up in the working class and, when he learned to write, wrote for everyman, literate or not, poor, rich, noble or ignoble. Unger contrasted Paine with John Locke in England and Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire in France, whose profound works had aroused intellectuals and literate political leaders during the Age of Enlightenment. Thomas Paine: Apostle of Liberty (2021)
Unger said the first bubble Paine tried to burst was the idea of divine right of kings, which Paine said dated from the time of William the Conqueror, whom Unger called nothing more than a thug from France who sailed over to England and browbeat a bunch of laborers along the shore and said he was going to be king. According to Unger, Paine asked why someone should rule over us simply because he is someone else’s child, called the notion absurd, and said it defied common sense. Unger said Common Sense became the title Paine used in his first widely read pamphlet, which firmed up in the minds of Americans, ordinary as well as more educated, why the Americans should seek independence from Britain. To the idea of divine right of kings Paine added what Unger called the subsequently absurd notion of why people on a little tiny island across an ocean should govern a huge continent. Thomas Paine: Apostle of Liberty (2021)
The Common Sense Party
Bob Zadek introduced the creation of a new political party in California, the Common Sense Party, thanking Thomas Paine for the name, and said the party starts with ideals rather than a single interest. He described Tom Campbell as one of the driving forces behind it and listed Campbell’s positions: Dean of the Fowler Law School at Chapman University from 2009 to 2016, previously Dean of the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, a professor at Stanford, holder of a PhD in economics, a former member of the United States Congress and of the California State Senate, and a veteran of the state’s executive branch. Restoring Common Sense to California (2021)
Campbell said economics teaches that monopoly is inefficient and results in less output and less opportunity, and that applied to government he finds a self-perpetuating monopoly in which people with good ideas have no place to express them. He said the dominant party in California insists that candidates adhere to an orthodoxy that does not admit of sensible other points of view, that the Republican Party has become largely irrelevant, and that the monopoly party holds 77.5% of the Assembly and 75% of the State Senate and every state office. He cited Public Policy Institute of California polling of registered voters in which 56% of Democrats said a third party was needed because they felt shut out even of their own party, along with 53% of Republicans and 75% of independents. Restoring Common Sense to California (2021)
Campbell said that before the top-two system, each party’s most active members — to the left in the Democratic Party and to the right in the Republican Party — won nominations, producing a legislature composed of those extremes. He said registration in California stands at 46% Democratic, 24.1% Republican and 23.7% independent, and that under the top-two primary a Common Sense Party candidate reaching the November runoff could pick up the support a Republican, Libertarian or other independent might have had. He set the goal at seven Assembly districts out of 80, which would bring the monopoly party below two-thirds; he said a two-thirds vote can raise taxes and can put a constitutional amendment on the ballot. Restoring Common Sense to California (2021)
Across episodes: the party’s alliance
In the 2023 episode, Campbell said the Common Sense Party had formed an alliance with the Forward Party, chaired by Andrew Yang and former Governor Christie Todd Whitman, and that the purpose of the joint venture is to get the Common Sense Party recognized in California because the two groups’ principles, particularly access to the political process, are close to identical if not identical. He gave the party’s website as cacommonsense.org and said Forward is nationwide while the Common Sense Party is in California. Zadek said he was then a registered Common Sense Party voter. Moving California Forward with the Common Sense Party (2023)