I have a crazy theory.... [Rick Santorum and Republican leadership]

[Bouncer]

@Measure_for_Measure

The Tea Party is simply a modern incarnation of the Birchers. There is nothing implausible about a party’s extreme wing primarying a bunch of representatives. Nothing.

But it does signal a fundamental difference between the Tea Party and the Grand Old Party. There is a crack in the foundation, and it may be widening.

Third parties swiftly run into the US’s Winner-take-all voting system though. They are apt to be spoilers, which mean that those who support them end up propping those on the other side of the aisle.

Absolutely agree. But the thing is, with Idealists… they don’t care. They’re not really about the “big picture”. They want what they want, and that is all that matters. What I guess I’m saying is that they are not pragmatists, and so may be perfectly willing to suffer the loss as long as they fight the good fight. More to the point though, the pragmatists in the party DO also realize what would happen with a third party, and might be willing to give up a lot of control to prevent that from occurring, figuring they can at least try to manage the troubled kids.

Any third party efforts will be along the lines of Lieberman (CT), Sanders (VT) and King (Maine). I would give 2:1 odds that any third party effort in 2014 or 2016 would elect fewer than 4 members to Washington. More than likely, nothing will come of it.

I play poker, better odds. Seriously though, this is a time will tell thing. I suspect you may be right, but I also suspect that there may be a bloodbath within the party after the election. The TP types are sure as hell going to point fingers at the GOP old guard and lay all the losses at their feet. Or try to, anyways.

If you want to support 3rd parties, join Brainglutton (and I suppose myself) and make your way to Fairvote.org .

I’ll have to check the site out. If you and brainglutton seem to think it worth looking at, then I’m certainly willing to do so.

ETA: The Republican Party is already a caricature of itself. The old guard has already lost. Liberals were drummed out in the 1970s and moderates were wholly squelched last decade. What remains in Washington are crazies and those afraid of being primaried by crazies. The loons and the neutered.

“The loons and the neutered.” Great line. And I agree the GOP is not what it was. The question to me is whether it can ever be what it was again. To be honest, I hope so. I’d rather have two non-crazy parties than one “praise babeh jebus!” whack job party and one “I (heart) granola nut” party. I’m not really into granola nuts, but neither am I a babeh jebus freak.

I believe that extreme nuttiness is going to be rejected at the polls this time, and continue to be rejected at the polls, and that is going to help the Democrats. Which is fine in the short run, but again, gives the moderates less voice in the process, as now they’re sort of forced into the D camp and have to put up with all of the left fringe stuff.

So maybe my desperate hope is that the Republican party WILL fracture in order for it to purge itself of the religious extremists, and the democrat party could continue to muzzle their loonies (or purge them too), and then we could actually have a choice in this country worth making.

Regards,
-Bouncer-

[BigAppleBucky]

@Enkel

There was the Americans Elect effort. I thought they were getting listed on ballots, but now their site is down until 2013. If a couple of the new young ‘whipper-snapper’ billionaires jumped behind something like this, they might get to a point of pulling reasonable numbers.

I carefully filled out the Americans Elect on-line questionnaire. I was extremely disappointed they didn’t even mention environmental issues. I ignored their e-mails after that and they stopped sending them several months ago.

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I said in the hypothetical Romney loses by 60 electoral vote thread that based on the apparent GOP seniority system, Santorum would be in line to get the nomination.