Can someone remind which group are the Purity Ponies again?
I am curious as to why you think this is a goal worthy of effort. Serious question, as with our current political setup, third parties are only good as spoilers, and generally hurt the party that they are closest to, ideologically. Now if your strategy was to harm the republicans by supporting the libertarians, that does make sense to me. Though that seems to be the long way around.
Sure, with our current political setup. Maybe some day in the future it won’t be set up like that.
As I said, my state - Maryland - was a lock for Clinton anyway. My vote for her would do nothing. At least voting the way I did might have a LITTLE effect on something.
As I also said, if somehow Maryland would have went to Trump, then I would of course admit my idiocy in voting the way I did.
Maybe, but that day won’t be 2020, which is when hypothetical matching funds, which back in the day at least, the Libertarians said they wouldn’t take anyway, would apply, so even if you were successful, it wouldn’t have helped anything.
All-in-all, it seems like a silly goal, all justified with a “But Clinton won Maryland anyway!” line of reasoning, which could justify anything. If you were in Michigan, you could just as easily point out that Trump would have won even if you’d changed your vote to Clinton. This analysis is garbage. There are three states: you do everything you can to stop Trump, which is voting for Clinton; you ‘do nothing in the face of evil’, which is not voting or voting 3rd party; or you go full-evil and vote for Trump. You chose the 2nd option, and your justifications for doing so are weak.
LOL, i’m not trying to justify anything. I don’t need to.
My voting for Clinton would have changed absolutely nothing, nothing at all. Perhaps my 1 vote would have placed the 3rd party over the 5% needed. Alas, it was not to be. Oh well. Maybe next time. I’ll take any bets that anyone wants to make on which way Maryland goes in 2020, with or without my vote.
Any takers??
If a third party getting 5% meant that things changed, I could see that.
But it would take a constitutional amendment in order to make third parties viable.
I am all for third parties, and would love to see some actual competition that is not the polarized system that we have now, but the path to that is not by supporting third parties for president.
Sure, support them locally, even statewide races, maybe that has an effect. But for the position of president, voting for a third party is the same as not voting.
Are we going to actually have elections in 2020?
No it isn’t. If the 3rd party fell 1 vote short of the amount necessary for matching funds, me voting would give them the votes needed. If I didn’t vote, they wouldn’t. Those two are not the same at all.
I will bet anything you want that we have elections in 2020.
And them having matching funds also does nothing. As long as the presidential race is first past the post, third parties only harm the party they are most aligned with.
How 'bout a country?
Seriously, even if I were very strongly convinced that we wouldn’t, what could we bet that would be worth anything were I to be right?
ETA: On second thought, we should bet. If we have elections, I’ll send you $10. If we don’t, you send me 4 cans of beans.
Can you see how those 2 sentences contradict each other? More funds would allow the 3rd party to harm the party they are most aligned with more. So, matching funds actually DOES do something.
Deal. Send the $10 to a charity. I’ll still send you the beans.
LOL yourself. Your first paragraph is completely disproven by the second.
No it isn’t.
we’ve been this way for all our time. We are not going to suddenly become a parliamentary system which is more friendly to multiple parties. It’s called Duverger’s Law. Try reading about it sometime. Your logic is dumb. You should feel bad.
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Indeed. Ross Perot’s Reform Party got matching funds for getting 8% of the vote in 1996. In 2000 that meant that Pat Buchanan got about 13 million dollars. He got .4% of the vote. And that was the last time a party got matching funds. The end.
It’s a useless goal because of duverger’s law. Also, third-party candidates suck balls. Specifically, libertarianism sucks balls.
It’s seriously the dumbest strategy with nothing good to come from it. Closing your eyes in the voting booth and holding out your finger to randomly hit a button makes as much sense.
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Yeah sure. Tell that to the people that think all of a sudden we are going to be a fascist dictatorship.
We’re a lot closer to that with Trump in office. Something others can claim to have done everything they could to stop from happening. You are not amongst them, snowflake.
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To be fair, if it were actually possible for them to win, they might run serious candidates.
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It’s seriously the dumbest strategy with nothing good to come from it. Closing your eyes in the voting booth and holding out your finger to randomly hit a button makes as much sense.
Even in a voting booth where there are no buttons. 
I’m all for encouragin third parties at the local level to get them to build to higher. The two parties we have are not ofrever, they have broken up and reformed. And I would be for changing to a system where multiple parties are viable.
But that is a completely different path than just voting for the third party on the presidential ticket.
Question for manson1972, did you support the third party in the smaller elections where your vote actually could make a difference, or just int he presidential where it wouldn’t?
There are a lot of things that aren’t going to happen that I don’t bother doing everything I can to prevent. America becoming fascist dictatorship is one of them.
You not acting like a dick is another.
Back to laughing at our shambles of a government!
Would supporting a third party in smaller elections allow that party a chance to receive matching Federal Funds?
And again, my vote would not have changed any outcome between Trump and Clinton in Maryland. Not sure how many times I can say the same thing.
Yes, John, both sides do it. :rolleyes:
That’s what you wanted to see, wasn’t it? It usually is. It must feel wonderful to be above all the hustle and bustle.
No, but it would bolster the third party, making it viable in such a way that people don’t need to waste their vote to try to get it to have matching funds.
Right, but your vote could have made a difference in getting some third party either elected, or at least better supported in your local election.