Posted on 01/11/2012 6:46:13 AM PST by elvis-lives
This is because they cannot work structurally in our system, which is not parliamentary or first-past-the-post.
Bingo. Without the ability to create coalitions, 3rd party's can't function. Once in a very great while a new party may replace an existing party, but then that new party would just become the 2nd leg of the 2 party system. Structurally, our system is build for 2 major party's and all the bluster and anger in the world isn't going to change that.
The Republican party is a broad coalition, and unfortunately solid conservatives like we are on FR are only one part of it. The only option is to continue taking the party over from within. The model for nominating a real conservative exists. Ronald Reagan and movement conservatives did it once before. Unfortunately, there are just no real compelling conservatives like that in the race most election cycles. When this situation exists, primary voters will default to the next in line or the safest option.
>>Actually, we need a second party.<<
Amen, the BOHICA Party rules America. The only way we are going to get attention in Versailles on the Potomac is to completely abandon the GOP. They do NOT want the Conservative vote, as evidenced by the rapid repudiation of Conservatives by Allen West, Nikki Haley and most of the other TEA Party candidates (Rand Paul being the exception).
They will not change. No amount of marches or phone calls or any action will make them listen. When we withhold our votes, THEN they will listen. Don’t hold your nose anymore.
The problem is that Conservatives can’t agree on which part of their agenda matters most, first, to them. So one guy is Conservative on abortion, but liberal on spending, another has a conservative budget policy, but is socially libertarian, but Conservatives say both are just RINO apostates. If conservatives could get together (as we did in 2010 on the budget issue by electing Tea Party candidates) and say “This year what matters to us is going to be issue X, and we’re all going to back the candidate who is pure on that issue”, then we’d have a chance. But when you have to get the populace to agree with you on each of 8 different metrics, and the public is sort of 50-50 or 60-40 on all 8,then you are segmenting yourself into irrelevance.
That image says it all, and like most battered women, conservatives keep coming back saying “He didn’t mean it, it’s really my fault”.
...”He’s a good provider”...”I’d be out on the streets without him”...
It’s the same mentality I see right now with many conservatives I know. They’ve already given up the fight, and are resigned that Romney will be it - because that’s what they are constantly told by the elites and the media.
When will we learn? If not now - when?
Completely and utterly false.
The GOP was the second party from the moment it was founded, and it was founded as a second party.
It was never a third party.
The claim that it was a third party is an oft-repeated myth, and the ones repeating it are usually third party boosters.
I’m pretty sure Sarah would not run this year, regardless of the party, but I have felt for some time this is the one year a 3rd party candidate could do it, especially of Sarah Palin. I know lots of women on the Democratic side would jump ship and vote for her. Never before has there been such a sense of abandonment of the party’s standards, not to say we don’t have some good candidates. It’s just that the debates have left them all wounded and bleeding along the roadside. America has no perfect people, never has had, never will. We conservatives are just as bad as any other constituency for listening to “news” and not having discernment, changing our minds. We need to (if there is any future elections) do our own homework and stick with the candidate of our choice. If people can be swayed by this report or that, then we are the deficient ones, not the candidates alone. It looks to me that it is not a small percentage that are the swing vote, but anybody who is not a Romney-bot or a Paul-bot. This does not end well. I realize that when candidates drop out, it changes things, but most people have a 2nd choice automatically, and this year, it seems that the debates have pushed us every which way but straight to the right candidate. This is why I have said for months that the debates should NOT choose our candidate. This election cycle, there are candidates’ records to look at. Anybody can say anything in a debate, look entirely awesome in a debate, but actually be very far from that personally. The couple candidates that have not veered too far from actuality are Rick Santorum and Rick Perry. Many won’t vote for one because he is a Catholic, and the other because he made too many gaffs. Both have stellar records, if we cared to look beyond the Soros accusations being dished out via Ron Paul. Ron Paul is now effectively controlled by Soros and we’d be putting another Soros puppet into the WH if he was elected. Have we not learned enough from this current puppet the evil intents of George Soros? To me, Palin is the only truly passionate conservative that can really kick butt and get the job done, but she’s not running. We must choose the one that is closest to her that is left.
If the Congress is conservative it won't matter who "occupies"the white house.
We already have the following parties:
Boston Tea Party
Green Party
Justice Party
Libertarian Party
Party of Socialism and Liberation
Prohibition Party
Reform Party USA
Socialist Party USA
Independent
So what will your proposed twelfth accomplish?
If it comes down to Obama vs Romney or (and this is a joke) Obama vs Paul, I will vote third party, write in or leave that box blank.
If the establishment GOP has not gotten the message after the negative message of the RINO McCain’s trouncing or the positive messages of the Tea Party Congressional conservative victories and the most successful Presidency in modern US history, Reagan, they may need an even bigger message.
I think it may be nearing time for a new “Tea Party”.
>>...If the Congress is conservative it won’t matter who “occupies”the white house...<<
Because we can rely on the steadfast, unwavering congressional leadership of the dynamic-duo, Boehner & McConnell?
I admire your optimism!
New Hampshire has shown that beyond a shadow of a doubt, that half of the possible repub. candidates are very appealing to democrats. Why? And what issues most clarify that?
Ron Paul is miles from Mitt, Huntsman on foreign affairs and spending. He would shrink gov’t to nothing if possible. Yet, liberals of every ilk love him. So, why would a wayward democrat disillusioned with Obama vote republican?
Issues. Ron Paul won’t tell anyone how to live their lives and Democrats figure they have the power to run over him on economic issues. After-all, he’s been playing ball with them for a while. Huntsman and Romney will be soft on abortion and gay marriage. In fact, they have to be soft on gay marriage to be able to bring the country to eventually accepting polygamy, which is a Mormon dream.
Democrats this election will leave Obama and base their vote on issues. They’ll vote for the guy that is less inclined to war, values the environment, and leaves an opening for abortion and gay marriage expansion. They are not worried about the economy, they know republicans and democrats alike will be reluctant to take away too many social programs, and they can ride out most anything else.
So, here is my plan. When Romney or Paul get put on the ballot, I will write in Santorum. He is the clearest representation of all things conservative. If every conservative did this, despite whether Newt or Perry was their man in the primary, it would send a clear message that we are leaving. Further, I believe, it would throw the election.
Why will I go this way? Because with a RINO ticket, my values are beaten anyway. I’m not going to violate my conscious and give my precious right to vote to someone I believe would tear this country down. Last election was the last time I compromised my conscious, and it won’t happen again.
I believe, and I wish all conservatives believed, that we are a majority in this country, but we are letting the media and the democrats bully us into thinking we are not. I’m done being bullied, nudged, polled, and propagandized.
I’ve moved on. I’m urging all conservatives to do the same.
You forgot “The Rent’s Too Damn High Party.
www.rentistoodamnhigh.org/
“Completely and utterly false.
The GOP was the second party from the moment it was founded, and it was founded as a second party.
It was never a third party.”
No offense, but I’d like to see some historical substantiation of that assertion, just for my own edification...
Did not Lincoln win in 1860 with something like 37% of the vote?
Certainly.
After the 1854 House elections there were 79 Democrats, 103 "Opposition" (basically former Whigs who no longer had a party) and 51 Know-Nothings in the House.
The collapse of the Whigs in the wake of the Kansas-Nebraska Act (March 21st, 1854) prompted the search for a new party organization, which was concluded with the first Republican convention of July 1854.
After the 1856 election - the first election with the Republicans as an organized party - there were 117 Democrats, 105 Republicans and 15 Know-Nothings.
There was no Republican Party, so no GOP candidate, in the 1852 Presidential elections. In the 1856 presidential election, the Democrat got 45%, the Republican 33% and the Know-Nothing 22%.
So from the very first elections that the GOP contested, the GOP was the second party.
The GOP has never been a third party.
In the 1860 presidential election Lincoln got 40%, the Democrat 30%, the Southern Democrat 18% and the Constitutional Unionist 12%.
So the GOP was the second party in its first presidential election and the first party in its second.
My bad.
I will not back the current crop of candidates.
I am also not looking at a 3rd party candidate so please don’t assume I am.
I am asking we choose and elect our own candidate. We did not choose the current candidates. I don’t really care if the libs will crash and burn if a conservative comes along. They DO NOT rule us as so many people want to believe for whatever stupid reason they have. They are pulling a big fat con on us and we better start doing our own thing. Find your voice and make it so.
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