Posted on 10/31/2007 1:23:31 PM PDT by neverdem
The persistent American fascination with third parties and fringe candidates defies every lesson of history, logic, human nature and common sense. No minor party candidate has ever won the presidency or, for that matter, even come close. For the most part, these ego-driven “independent” adventures in electoral narcissism push the political process further away from their professed goals, rather than advancing their agendas or ideas.
Nevertheless, a clear majority of Americans (58%) in September, 2007, told the Gallup Poll that the two major parties “do such a poor job that a third major party is needed”, while only 39% agree with a statement that the established parties “do an adequate job of representing the American people.” A Rasmussen Survey (May, 2007) produced similar results, with 58% agreeing with the statement that “it would be good for the United States if there were a truly competitive third party,” and only 23% disagreeing. Among religious conservatives, prominent leaders talk openly of backing a kamikaze candidate if Rudy Giuliani becomes the GOP nominee, and a Rasmussen telephone survey shows a striking 27% of Republicans willing to back a “Pro Life Third Party” in the event that the former New York Mayor heads the ticket. In his illiterate and all-but-unreadable new book “Independents Day,” CNN’s fatuous fraud Lou Dobbs expresses similar eagerness to abandon the traditional two-party system. “Now I don’t know about you,” he harrumphs, “but fundamentally I don’t see much of a difference between Republicans and Democrats…The creation of a third, independent choice, one that has the concerns of American working people as its basis, is the way we must proceed.”
This unquenchable enthusiasm for new parties and marginal, ego-driven candidacies rests on a foundation of profound ignorance and unassailable historical illiteracy. Even a nodding acquaintance with the American past reveals uncomfortable...
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Stuff happens. We will not be supporting a liberal abortionist for president nor will we support a liberal abortionist Republican party.
I did not leave the party, it left me. — Ronald Reagan
That may or may not be true. With no one receiving more than 50%, I think they may divide up delegates proportionately.
I'm referring to states that let registered Independent voters vote in the primaries. According to this story, only 24 states have closed or semi-closed primaries. Independent voters can get a ballot to vote in semi-closed primaries. The other states are apparently even less restrictive.
bump
Teddy Roosevelt ran for the Bull Moose party in 1912, and thus threw the victory to the democrat, Woodrow Wilson.
In 1992 and 1996, Clinton did not receive a majority vote. If these had been two-party races instead of three, he would not have won. Democrats never can muster a true majority of the vote.
If a third party emerges in 2008, Hillary will be President.
Stuff happens. Hopefully the Republican party will not betray its conservative base and all this messy b/s can be avoided.
The exception that proves the rule is 1980: the democrat lost in a three party race, primarily because Jimmuh was (is!) so profoundly detestable.
Sorry, pal, but without our unalienable right to life, none of our other rights stand a chance. This is a line we do not cross.
Your lips to God’s ear (and those in the voting booth.)
lol. That’s about right. Anderson only got six million votes.
I'd agree that third parties are generally a bad idea, but Medved oversells his case.
Wikipedia tells us that in the 1854 elections the most seats were won by the "Opposition Party," which wasn't really a party at all. They were all the candidates opposed to the Democrats. Although they won the most seats, they didn't control Congress because they weren't organized. The Republicans probably were a third party at that time after the Democrats and the American (or "Know Nothing") Party.
I don't know what kind of a lesson you can draw from that, but far from discrediting ideas, third parties helped to make them respectable. Those ideas, from abolition of slavery to prohibition to direct election of Senators to women's suffrage to deficit reduction may not always have been good ideas in themselves, but third parties didn't hurt such causes.
Medved does have a point, though: if your ideas already are up for discussion, it probably isn't a good idea to form a break-away party. You only lessen your influence.
You failed to mention Thompson. Did you look at the link in comment# 10?
Medved's argument about illegal aliens has nothing to do with the results of third party histories and their effects.
I used to be a member of NY's Conservative Party. I just changed my registration to vote in the GOP primary. I had only voted on the Conservative line with rare exception. If someone from this forum stays home or votes third party, and they think they doing anything except enabling the neoCOM, they are fooling themselves.
We are still paying for the damage caused by Perot's enabling of Clinton in 1992. Argue against and vote against Rudy in the primary. Say your prayers that he doesn't win the nomination. Whoever wins the other nomination will give you governance by moonbats.
That's 27% of the Republicans, about 10% of the electorate.
. . . By the time of the first Republican County Convention (in Ripon, Wisconsin, on March 20, 1854) the Whig Party had already collapsed and shattered, hopelessly divided between its Northern anti-slavery branch and the Southern “Cotton Whigs.” Refugees (including numerous Congresmen, Senators and others) from the Whig debacle determined to fill the vacuum and, joined by a few anti-slavery Democrats and former Free Soilers, they launched their new national organization. The first time candidates ever appeared on ballots with the designation of the new Republican Party came with the Congressional elections of 1854 and the fresh organization won stunning success from the very beginning. That very first year the Republicans won the largest share of the House of Representatives (108 seats, compared to 83 for the Democrats, along with fifteen Senate seats (including the majority of those contested in that election). In other words, the Republicans began their existence not as a third party, or even a second party, but as the instantly dominant party on the ballot.The real problem we face is that we have only one "legitimate" party. That is not a "Republicrat" party but the "objective journalism" party. Journalism is just talk, and the people who try to earn "credit" by being "in the arena" actually trying to accomplish things (in corporations, obviously, but also soldiers and policemen) are the natural targets of the second guessing of journalists (and plaintiff lawyers, union leaders, and academics).. . . the election of 1860 hardly offers proof of the positive value of third (and fourth) parties, but rather illustrates their dangers. The four-way competition in the Presidential race contributed to the splitting of the union and the explosion of the national party consensus that had previously kept a divided assemblage of very different states from flying apart.
"Objective" journalists promote the conceit of their own moral superiority, and that of their fellow travelers whom they call "liberals" or "progressives" even tho they are nothing of the sort. And "objective" journalists denigrate the morals and intelligence of the actually liberal, progressive people whom they style "conservative." We are "conservative" only of the freedom to do things differently than our fathers did them. Which freedom our fathers themselves also worked to conserve.
We become unhappy with Republicans because they do not charge headlong into the mouth of the PR cannon of the "objective journalism" party.
IMO, anyone who would vote for a third party candidate and encourage others to do so (or stay home and not vote at all), has completely abandoned our troops by placing their chosen social issue on a pedestal above all else. We are still at war and our military men and women desperately need our support and a Commander In Chief who supports them and their missions too. I find it sickening and downright treasonous that anyone would abandon our troops, their missions and the WOT by helping a Democrat candidate gain the office of President of the United States. And yes, throwing a vote away by voting third party or not voting at all, is the same as voting FOR the Democrat candidate, IMHO.
Is it time to tell our military men and women that this forum has abandoned them because certain people on this forum have decided that they would rather make the abortion issue the litmus test in this next election? I am pro-life on the abortion issue too, but I am also pro-life when it comes to our troops and the rest of the good people in this world who are already born and living on this earth.
Can you even imagine someone trying to convince fellow Americans that they should make a social issue like taxes, or health care, or abortion, the most important issue to judge a candidate on when we were fighting WWII?
Don’t abandon our troops! Vote Republican!!
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