[VerySadAmerican]

Yep, and some of us have been screaming for one for at least 14 years.

[lentulusgracchus]

The last time a third party did well enough to carry the WH was when Lincoln was the candidate and he had all the Yankee bank and railroad money in the world to back him. They had a war to fight, after all, and he was the man who'd do it.

The Republican convention that year was in Chicago, btw. Funny thing about that.

[lentulusgracchus]

Third parties just don't work in the American political system, IOW. They can't. It took the dissolution of the Whig Party to make the Republican Party at all feasible.

Lincoln himself, in the interlude between his last Whig campaign and his first Republican one, left a lot of correspondence about his plans and why he didn't think an "independent" stab at public service would work. He stated his case in plain words, that a politician needs a party to act through, a major party. He sized up the political landscape and decided to back the new Republican Party, whose interests tied Prairie Freesoilers and development interests with the formerly Whig (and ex-Federalist) business and banking interests, which gave him the bones of a potentially successful regional combination to work with.

If the GOP-E "steal" the GOP for good, everyone who isn't a Communist and doesn't have $50 million, won't have a political party, either.