Written by Common Tator
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/589263/posts?page=24#24
The two parties have been in control since 1860. They have made every rule in such a way that third parties are always counter productive. Third party efforts, if effective, always elect the cadidate they like least.
The direction of our nation and its laws can be changed. But the only way that works is to take over one of the two major parties. The Republican party of Teddy Roosevelt was pretty liberal and the Democratic party of that time was pretty conservative. The Deomcrats were dominated by the South where states rights, low taxes, and very limited federal goverment was quite popular. It was the Roosevelt type liberals of the north that dominated the Republican party in the first two decades of this century. But by the mid 1920’s conservatives had taken over the Republican party too. As someone said their was not a dimes worth of difference between the two parties.
But the left under the mantle of FDR took over the Democratic party. Using party loyalty they got FDR elected president. Twenty years of FDR made the conservative Democratic party into the liberal Democratic party.
In the South the consrvative Democrats started to move to the Republican party and in new England the liberal Republicans started to move to the Democratic party.
For the first 30 years of the last century the Progressive party tried to make an impact. It Failed. It tried to move the nation to the left and it failed. FDR figured out how to do it and made the Democrats a Leftist party.
But third party people for the most part are afraid to try to move into control a major party. They don’t think they could succeed. But the fact is no movement goes from a party with one or two percent support to a party with over 50 percent support in an instant. What they do is take votes from the major party most like them, thus electing the major party least like them. The third party never gets enough votes to win. If the party least like them fails, that results in the dominance of the party most like them and it takes their voters back. That takes them out of the game completely.
But the splinter parties never learn. They keep thinking that they can go from next to nothing to over 50 percent in one election cycle. It has never happened. It never will.
What does a major party do when a splinter party takes a few million votes from them? They look at the few million the splinter party got and say we need all those plus some of the other party to win. Geting the splinter party votes will make some of our voters move to the other party. So that is not a solution. They conclude that the thing to do is to move closer to the other major parties positions. What would happens in real life if the libertarians ever get enough votes to take down a Republican, the Republicans will just move to the left as a result. They will figure getting 6 percent of the Democrat votes would be enought for a Republican victory while getting 100 percent of the libertarian votes would not.
The solution to change is what it has been for 140 years. Get in one of the existing party and change it to your liking.
Barry Goldwater tried it in the Republican party and failed. Reagan did it in the Republican party and succeeded. Back when the Demcocratic party was still dominated by Conservatives, Reagan was a Democrat. But he saw the liberals were well on theway to total control of the Democrats, so he became a Republican and took that party away from the Jerry Fords and other left leaning Republicans.
Will libertarians be astute enough to try a wining approach? Not likely. Third parties just never seem to learn.
He was so right.. it disgusts me when I see Republicans trying to ruin the GOP..and im also disgusted that there are no “traditional democrats” trying to save their party
I miss Common Tator
ATRW thread I used to visit in the mornings.
Hate to burst your bubble, but Romney is no Reagan. Romney despises Reagan.
“I’m not going back to Reagan-Bush. I was an independent during Reagan-Bush (spit!)” —Mitt Romney
Romney is not the one!! No Romney on my watch!!