# How would I go about starting my own political party?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-i-go-about-starting-my-own-political-party/130863
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 4, 2002, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-i-go-about-starting-my-own-political-party/130863 "2002-10-04T17:06:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@DRRJP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DRRJP)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2002, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-i-go-about-starting-my-own-political-party/130863/1 "2002-10-04T17:06:56Z")
Do I fill out a form or what? Can I even START my own political party and run for president?
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2002, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-i-go-about-starting-my-own-political-party/130863/2 "2002-10-04T17:54:21Z")
If in the USA, print up posters, knock on doors, & collect enough signatures on petitions to get on the ballot.
My Dad has run for a number of offices as an independent. It’s easy.
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### Author:  [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2002, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-i-go-about-starting-my-own-political-party/130863/3 "2002-10-04T21:03:10Z")
Assuming that you are posting from the United States–yes, you can start your own party. It’s a free country!
If you want other people to know and care that your party exists, however, you have to get candidates on the ballot to run for office. That’s the hard part. Ballot access laws are a crazy quilt with tremendous variation from state to state and from office to office (depending on what you want to run for) within a state. Be prepared to spend a LOT of time gathering petition signatures.
The Libertarian Party was founded by eight guys meeting in a living room in 1971 and now regularly runs candidates in all fifty states, so it can be done.
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### Author:  [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2002, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-i-go-about-starting-my-own-political-party/130863/4 "2002-10-04T23:24:10Z")
Over at alt.fan.cecil-adams, they’ve started the Continuous Party
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### Author:  [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2002, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-i-go-about-starting-my-own-political-party/130863/5 "2002-10-05T00:20:44Z")
It’s easier to join an existing party.
Having signed up, you gradually realise that achieving power will be impossible unless you change the fundamental ideals and policies which people have associated with your party for decades.
So you modernise. You examine each and every one of your principles and decide whether or not it is marketable. If there is no market for it, out it goes.
You give evidence of your intentions to the electorate by putting _New_ in front of the party name, as you might with a detergent or a toothpaste you want to sell to an unsuspecting public. _New Persil._ _New Ariel._ _New Colgate._
The beauty of this plan is that when you achieve power, the transition from previous government to New Government is practically seamless because your ideals and policies are now the same as theirs were.
I wouldn’t bother if I were you.
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### Author:  [@DRRJP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DRRJP)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2002, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-i-go-about-starting-my-own-political-party/130863/6 "2002-10-05T05:00:43Z")
Oh, I don’t want to, I was just wondering for curiosity’s sake. I’m going to be 20 in a month, and politics aren’t my thing, but I was thinking about it the other day and asked my mom, she didn’t know. So, being a fan of this column and website ever since I saw it on [bored.com](http://bored.com), I asked the teeming millions and wasn’t dissapointed. 🙂