# Can a Third Party ever succees in US politics? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 17, 2005, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542 "2005-11-17T20:33:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/21 "2005-11-18T16:41:22Z")
How about a party with a strong focus on one region? One possibility would be a party that achieves a reputation of representing some region and its issues better than the mainstream parties. The socialists would be a German example: pretty insignificant in the west but very strong in parts of the east. Our conservatives are an example of a different possibility. The state of Bavaria has a conservative party of its own that runs only there. This party is (very) closely allied with its counterpart in the rest of the country but has a separate party infrastructure and platform. In the most recent election they got about 8% nationwide but won all districts except one in Bavaria. As long as they guarantee safe victories in their home state, the national party won’t challenge them. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/22 "2005-11-18T18:22:07Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > There will never be a successful third party. There doesn’t need to be. The system works because two parties tend to force each other towards the middle (“middle” being the average political views of most Americans). If either party strays to far from the middle, they will lose votes to the other. Why are you assuming that is a good thing? ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/23 "2005-11-18T18:30:07Z")
> [@John Corrado](#): > > 1948: Strom Thurmond attempting to uphold segregation and keep a non-Republican conservative party alive in the South. To some degree, he succeeded for a very long time. The Democratic Party was the **only** party in large swathes of the South for much of the 1950s-1970s, even if it was in name only. Most Southern Democrats were little more than Republicans who would never dare be attached to the party of Lincoln. VA, for instance, was (an is) a very conservative state that held onto segregation for much, much too long. It was also a solidly Democratic state (at the legislatve level) up into the 1980s. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/24 "2005-11-18T18:34:20Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Why are you assuming that is a good thing? Because a party whose policy platform converges to the preferences of the median voter under our current voting rules maximizes social welfare. Exactly as it should. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/25 "2005-11-18T18:42:14Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > Because a party whose policy platform converges to the preferences of the median voter under our current voting rules maximizes social welfare. Exactly as it should. Can you please explain the last presidential election then where both candidates were from the more extreme sides? Bush represented the Far Right and Kerry the Far Left. Where was a centrist? I think our party system is failing because both parties seemed to be controlled by their more extreme ends. I really want the Bull Moose Party to make a comeback. Jim ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/26 "2005-11-18T18:50:00Z")
> [@jrfranchi](#): > > \*\*Jim \*\* the Green Republican with libertarian and rational anarchist leanings Talk about your niche party! 🙂 Trudy Rubin thinks McCain could energize a 3rd party push. I do like McCain, but I just don’t get this gushing over him that journalists seem to do. Chris Matthews interviewed him on Hardball yesterday, and he did everything but suck the guy off. Jeez… > [@](#): > > [Americans need authenticity: Let’s call it `McCainism’](http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/13200176.htm) > > If a third-party candidate could be elected president, John McCain would win in a heartbeat. > > He would win even though many voters, especially Democrats and independents, disagree with some of his positions. Voters would still flock to McCain because he displays traits that are increasingly rare in the vicious atmosphere of Washington, and peculiar to the Republican senator from Arizona. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/27 "2005-11-18T19:04:36Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > Because a party whose policy platform converges to the preferences of the median voter under our current voting rules maximizes social welfare. That is an assumption not in evidence, and indeed contrary to the evidence (e.g. it’s hard to see how catering to the preferences “I want lots of government services” and “I don’t want to pay a lot of taxes” maximizes social welfare in the long run). ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/28 "2005-11-18T19:29:02Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Talk about your niche party! 🙂 > > Trudy Rubin thinks McCain could energize a 3rd party push. I do like McCain, but I just don’t get this gushing over him that journalists seem to do. Chris Matthews interviewed him on Hardball yesterday, and he did everything but suck the guy off. Jeez… I like my niche, there is probably only a few hundred of us in this country. 😃 McCain has many views that disagree with mine. He does however appear to have integrity and honor. This is refreshing enough to win over a lot of moderates I think. Jim ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/29 "2005-11-18T19:30:25Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > Because a party whose policy platform converges to the preferences of the median voter under our current voting rules maximizes social welfare. That’s as much as to say that the “median voter” is always right about what’s good for our society. Do you have even an argument to back that up? ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/30 "2005-11-18T20:13:04Z")
> [@](#): > > That is an assumption not in evidence, and indeed contrary to the evidence (e.g. it’s hard to see how catering to the preferences “I want lots of government services” and “I don’t want to pay a lot of taxes” maximizes social welfare in the long run). > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That’s as much as to say that the “median voter” is always right about what’s good for our society. Do you have even an argument to back that up? These sorts of remarks are incredibly patronizing, and, even more unfortunately, are the stock in trade of left wing political rhetoric. The underlying assumption is that people are incapable of determining what is in their own best interests, and that the preferences of the median voter are somehow not what maximizes his utility. The median voter doesn’t have some prescient knowledge of what is best for our society. Choosing a platform that maximizes his utility delivers the highest utility for everyone else in society _by definition_. These remarks are also very simplistic. We get administrations that stink not because they necessarily promise stupid or extreme things but because they fail to deliver on even halfway decent public goods. This is due mostly to the credible commitment problem. There is a massive conflict between a candidate’s own personal utility and the public goods he has to pay out to keep his job. We are supposed to develop institutions to solve the credibility problem. But right now, our institutions stink. That, in my opinion, is the most important lesson of the past five years. Not that Republicans lie or hate gay people, but that the institutions we set up to solve the credible commitment problem are _broken_ and that until we establish incentives for elected officials to fix them, our problems will not go away no matter whom we elect or for what office. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/31 "2005-11-18T20:16:45Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > The underlying assumption is that people are incapable of determining what is in their own best interests, and that the preferences of the median voter are somehow not what maximizes his utility. Huh? It is clear that getting a lot of services and not paying a lot of taxes maximizes the utility to any given individual. The catch is that it doesn’t scale up indefinitely. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/32 "2005-11-18T20:38:21Z")
> [@Steve MB](#): > > Huh? It is clear that getting a lot of services and not paying a lot of taxes maximizes the utility to any given individual. The catch is that it doesn’t scale up indefinitely. In the real world, people maximize their utility given constraints. Infinitely low taxes and infinitely high services are not admissible solutions given budget constraints. You further emphasize my argument about the importance of institutions. One of the most critical things an institution can do is to enforce these constraints. I’d gnaw off my right arm right now for a balanced budget amendment and an institution with teeth to implement it. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/33 "2005-11-18T20:53:31Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > Because a party whose policy platform converges to the preferences of the median voter under our current voting rules maximizes social welfare. Exactly as it should. Can I see a cite that it maximizes the social welfare? I can look out my front window and see a lot of people who might disagree with you that the social welfare has been maximized. Erek ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/34 "2005-11-18T21:00:20Z")
> [@jrfranchi](#): > > McCain has many views that disagree with mine. He does however appear to have integrity and honor. He’s got a great PR agent. The guy is as much a politician as the rest of 'em. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/35 "2005-11-18T21:04:34Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Can I see a cite that it maximizes the social welfare? I can look out my front window and see a lot of people who might disagree with you that the social welfare has been maximized. > > Erek There is a huge literature out there. A nice summary can be found [here](http://www.mobergpublications.se/arguments/ideology.htm). Next time you are up in the wood, I’ll lend you a book. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/36 "2005-11-18T21:07:58Z")
> [@jrfranchi](#): > > Can you please explain the last presidential election then where both candidates were from the more extreme sides? > Bush represented the Far Right and Kerry the Far Left. Where was a centrist? > I think our party system is failing because both parties seemed to be controlled by their more extreme ends. > I really want the Bull Moose Party to make a comeback. > > Jim Bush was far right and Kerry was moderate right. The extreme left felt disenfranchised by both candidates. The Democrats are trying too hard to be moderate, as even the term moderate has been framed by the right wing politics in this country. Both sides agree “Robust consumer economy good.”, and the extreme left actually don’t agree AT ALL that a robust consumer economy is good. The extreme left are communists and anarchists. I know, I hang out with them regularly, and they aren’t represented by any stretch of the imagination. I come across as a Republican when I hang out with most radical lefties I know. Hell the fact that I am pro-capitalism at all alienates some people from me, and I would classify Kerry as to the right of me. The traditional definition of conservative and liberal have to do with how one spends money. Do they think a healthy government is healthy because it spends less money? If so they are a conservative. Do they think health has to do with spending more money to keep the money flowing? Then they are liberal. By this token, Clinton is more conservative than Bush. One of the biggest problems with the current political system is that people don’t recognize that “Liberal” and “Conservative” and “Left” and “Right” have lost all meaning. Another problem is that the government is ruled too much by accountants like Maeglin who think that their statistics reflect reality more than they actually do, and don’t understand the human factor. The truth is that social welfare ISN’T maximized, but the system has done a very good job of disenfranchizing a large percentage of the population, rendering their ideas irrelevant, and telling them. “Well we’ll listen to you, if you can derive appropriate statistics that prove what you are saying.”, but what characterizes the disenfranchized is that they aren’t the statistical analysis folk. The Statistical analysis folk are the ones in power. A good friend of mine runs campaigns. He has offered to help us put together a campaign apparatus, and largely we have to be able to show statistically that we can pull some weight. It’s a challenge I am going to try and meet, but I don’t think like a statistical analyst, but I can rise to the occasion simply because I can understand the statistical analyst mindset more than the type of people that I would like to see better represented. Hell look how much trouble people on the “Smartest message board in the world.” have with understanding statistics. If I were so inclined I bet I could find at least 10 threads where Maeglin explains to people how they are misinterpreting the statistics. However, the thing the statistical analyst needs to understand is that the majority of the populace cannot read statistics properly, and are more influenced by the statistics than the statistics reflect their views. Add to that a government that has been perpetually lying to us and cultivating a culture of fear since the end of World War II, and we’ve got a pretty fucked up system. I seriously doubt that it maximizes social welfare. Not all social welfare can be measured by median incomes. Erek ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/37 "2005-11-18T21:11:00Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > He’s got a great PR agent. The guy is as much a politician as the rest of 'em. Is his anti-torture just PR? Was the unfair beating he took by Bushes pitbulls monster in 2000 PR? You have lost me. I see him on various shows and he has no spin doctors and he doesn’t talk like the normal politician. He has pushed hard for Campaign finance reform. He has bucked both parties. These are not the traits of an average politician. I am always open to being educated. I have an open mine but he definitely has done a good job of looking like he is a cut above. Jim ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/38 "2005-11-18T21:17:28Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Bush was far right and Kerry was moderate right. > …snip… The traditional definition of conservative and liberal have to do with how one spends money. Do they think a healthy government is healthy because it spends less money? If so they are a conservative. Do they think health has to do with spending more money to keep the money flowing? Then they are liberal. By this token, Clinton is more conservative than Bush. > …snip… > Erek I understand what you said. I agree Clinton was a moderate. I liked most of his policies. I had some problems with the man, but I liked his “moderate policies”. Kerry to me is an old fashion Ted Kennedy Dem, this = liberal or left for me. He was also a dishonest fob as opposed to Dean who by some standards is a liberal but I liked. To me Nixon was a moderate. Terrible example, but he was basically a moderate. Clinton and Bush Sr. were close to moderate. Bush is to the right socially and in LaLa land fiscally. Jim ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/39 "2005-11-18T21:33:19Z")
Here’s an example from a friend of mine on this subject. A person who I would classify as one of those people who the statistics oftentimes don’t accurately represent. I asked whether or not statistics reflect reality at all. > [@Andrew](#): > > yes and no > stats never do tell thewhole story > stats are basically a book cover > you wont get the whole story > itslike that with everything > baseball for example > you will see in the stats the dude hit 2 homers had 6 rbi’s > great game > but you wont see the errors andmisplayed balls > to where it cost his team a loss > get it? > like another example > back in the 70s there where no stats for stolen bases and runs scored > which made the difference between a win or a lose > thats as simple and to the point as you can get > and no saves > no saves until late 80’s > now you have guys makin millions justbecause of that stat So saying that the Republicans and Democrats “Maximize the social welfare” is like saying that the teams that play in the world series are the best players in the league. That’s not necessarily true, there could be better players all over the place, but they are distributed across the teams that didn’t make it to the world series. The winners of the world series is a rule by the most powerful mafias. I disagree that social welfare is maximized at all. **Maeglin** : I’d love to read your books, but I am extremely skeptical that social welfare is maximized with things like the drug war which is basically a modern day inquisition, and the tacit support it gets from an ignorant populace due to a successful propaganda campaign that has been going on since before I was born. It shattered the left, and created the right wing framing of the debate by turning the more conservative left against the more liberal left, and unfairly targets the poor. I think that to see the health of society you need to look at how it treats it’s lowest common denominator. Most of the things we do for the lowest common denominator are guilt oriented, we try to make up for their being shit upon, while at the same time we maintain policies that continue to hamstring them. It’s like we say “Sorry for hamstringing you, have some food stamps.”, when we could just stop hamstringing people. That’s what I see your “Maximized Social Welfare” as being. So you say it’s maximized social welfare, and you might be able to show me statistics, but I don’t see the reality on the street as being that. So to bring it back on topic. I think a third party can work and would work if it represented a more common sense approach and showed tangible results that affected people live’s immediately in a way that didn’t require a power point presentation to do it. That’s the challenge. Erek ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542/40 "2005-11-18T21:44:53Z")
> [@](#): > > I’d love to read your books, but I am extremely skeptical that social welfare is maximized with things like the drug war which is basically a modern day inquisition, and the tacit support it gets from an ignorant populace due to a successful propaganda campaign that has been going on since before I was born. Erek, you know I agree with you unreservedly, but it is beside my point. My argument is not that chosen policies actually maximize social welfare, but that _candidate platforms converge to the preferences of the median voter_. What they promise and what they deliver are very different things, due largely to the credible commitment problem. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-third-party-ever-succees-in-us-politics/331542.md?page=3)