I know…there already is an Independent party out there. And there is a rag tag collection of other third parties hanging out and getting their usual 1% of the vote. No one will vote for a third party because the two main parties dominate our political landscape…and it would simply be a ‘wasted vote’.
But…it seems to me that more and more folks are discouraged by BOTH parties. I hear it all the time…Dems bitching about their party, Pubs doing the same. And a lot more people are choosing to put Independent for their political affiliation instead of one of the big two.
Of course its a matter of funding. None of the smaller third parties have to cash to really compete with the big two. However…when they DO have adaquate funding it seems they don’t do all that badly. Remember Ross Perot? And he was, frankly, a crack pot.
What if both the Pubs and Dems run another bunch of uninspired boobs in the next presidential election? Would this be the time an Independent party to make a serious run for the White House? What would be the best platform for such a party to run on? Where would they get the funding to compete with the big two? Where would they find a promissing Independent candidate who could capture the national imagination, and have national recognition?
Say what you will about those boobs, some people manage(d) to be mighty passionate about them. It’s probably ‘been time’ for a third party in the US for a long time, but I still don’t see it happening. They’re really locked out of the system. Most people would need to be convinced that there was a point to voting for them, and I’m not sure how the party would sell that idea. People were frustrated or intrigued enough to vote for Perot in 1992, although he didn’t even get any electoral votes- are the candidates in three elections since then that much worse? Perhaps a third party would be better off starting small, focusing their attention on local races.
Meh. As much as I’d like another party to rise out of the current political mush, the probability is sooooooo low of that actually happening that I find it pointless even to speculate about it. And even if an independent candidate somehow got elected, he wouldn’t be able to get anything done in Congress. Let’s call it the JVE (Jesse Ventura Effect).
So no, it’s not time. The system is too rigged to make it time. People may talk a big talk about defecting to an independent party, but when it comes to actually voting, they end up being all hat and no cattle. Look at Perot. He got an impressive amount of votes (close to 20%) but didn’t carry a single state.
You have to ask? For myself I’d want it to be a fiscally conservative (or at least fiscally sane) party with socially moderate/liberal leanings. Sort of like an actual workable version of the Liberatarian party…without all the pie in the sky and unrealistic aspects. It would straddle the middle ground between the Dems and the Pubs…but with real, concrete programs and solutions. Blah blah blah.
Thats what I would want. However, I’m asking a more general question…if the time is right for ANY Independent party to make a serious play for the White House. I can’t think of a better time with the Dems still locked into the past and the Pubs on thin ice…and a growing number of folks self-identifying themselves as politically independent. There should be a way to capitalize on this and grab the center, stealing votes from both Dem and Pub alike.
And yet Perot was pretty much a crack pot (though I have to admit that I voted for him hangs head). He was realitively unknown as well prior to running for the President…and his choice of VP was appalling. Yet, he still managed to get 20% of the vote…and that with Bush I and Clinton running against him. I don’t think the apathy of those days compares to now…nor do I think the Dems had quite run out of gas (as they have now IMO), nor the Pubs shot themselves in the dick (as they have now).
Of course I agree that its going to be more than an uphill battle to break the lock the big two have on the country. But there is precident for it…after all there aren’t any Federalists or Wigs anymore…and there is a both a (liberal) Democrat and (democratic) Republican party now which weren’t always here.
(and as far as way out crack pot ideas mine is at least as probable as some others I’ve seen on this board. )
I think there’d be a possibility for a true Populist party in America, despite the fact it would be about the complete opposite of my political views. Both parties are losing touch with a lot of voters in most socioeconomic spheres, and a party that will go back to the visceral feelings toward isolationism, high taxes and regulations on the rich and corporations (while at the same time not soaking the poor, and supporting “lawsuit reform”), and good ol’ social responsibility would do well, perhaps better than any other ideology-oriented party out there.
A few years ago, I would have been in agreement, if the independent party in question were to fight for the individual and for the least among us. I had just read David Kay Johnston’s “Perfectly Legal,” which left me feeling that the IRS, and the government more generally, has been serving the interests of the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us for some time, and it’s only getting worse. I suspect that what I would want from an independent party would thus differ from the “fiscal conservatism” that xtisme would want. I like a progressive tax structure. I don’t like having to pay more in payroll taxes for Social Security so that all the trust fund can flow right out the back of the infamous filing cabinet.
In essence, if the independent party were to do the things the Democratic party was supposed to be doing, I would have been for it. However, I’ve been pleased enough with the way things have been developing within the Democratic party that I’m hopeful they are returning to the party they were supposed to be. I’m hopeful that they are throwing off the yoke of the DLC and kicking the deadweight to the curb. Thus, I am feeling less motivated to flee to some hypothetical independent party.
It will never be time for a third party to seriously contest the presidency until we eliminate the “spoiler” problem by switching to instant-runoff voting. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=261969 In principle, this would not require the abolition of the Electoral College or any constitutional amendment: Since each state sets its own procedures for choosing its electors – and every state has at least three – states could adopt IRV procedures on their own.
I think that if “moderate Republicans” in Congress really stood for anything, there might could be an opening for a third party if the Dems gain seats in Congress but don’t retake either house.
If the Dems were to come out of this fall’s elections with something like 212 House seats and 48 Senate seats, then a small group of GOP moderates in each house, if they were to unite and declare themselves a new party (maybe the “Bull Moose Party” for its history), would control the Congressional balance of power. Instead of being (unfairly, IMHO) disparaged as ‘RINOs’ within their own party, they could negotiate with each party to determine which party they’d caucus with, since they would effectively be choosing which party would be in the majority. Whichever party made the greater commitment to dance to their tune would run Congress, so both parties would move towards their positions.
The chances of this happening? Approximately zero, of course. It’s got a good chance of being a real opening, next January, but you’d need a group of people with the desire and the guts to take advantage of it. So forget it.
I don’t think it will ever happen. Firstly, you’ve got the issues question, and that’s going to be just as splitting of the voters as the current political parties. Secondly, and more importantly IMHO, they would need a fantastically popular leader - and unless you become embroiled in a significant war, from which a General/military leader in particular arises, that’s not going to happen.
This is totally off topic, but that book drove me nuts, so much so that I put it down about 1/3 of the way through. I kept waiting for him to provide some substantive cites, so I could see where his numbers came from. Did he ever do any of that - did I give up too soon? Because he was making some pretty damned serious claims, and his lack of substantiation made it hard for me to not just throw the book at the wall.
I’m going to argue that the trend is going the other way. 40-50 years ago (that’s as far back as I have any personal recollection) there were small-town good government Republicans (think Bob Dole) and big-city lassiez-faire Republicans (think Nelson Rockefeller); there were northern liberal pro-labor Democrats (think Hubert Humphrey) and southern conservative anti-civil rights Democrats (think George Wallace).
And every four years, they’d have their conventions and get into a big fight.
If thee had ever been a time when a new party was going to emerge, it would have been circa 1970, when no one could figure out how the Nixon, Rockefeller and Goldwater wings of the Republicans and the McGovern, Scoop Jackson and Mayor Daley wings of the Democrats could even stand to be in the same room.
Now you have mushy coalitions of somewhat right-of-center Republicans and somewhat left-of-center Democrats.
The incumbents have stacked the deck in many ways. Campaign Finance Reform and district gerrymandering, for example. Ihe the last congressional election, something like 96% of incumbents were re-elected, and most by more than 55% of the vote, despite the fact that polls showed substantial voter dissatisfaction with both parties. The game is rigged.
You mean Admiral Stockdale? The trivilization of him and the laughter at his expense over his hearing problems was one of the most disgraceful things about that election. Of course Perot was a nutbar, but Stockdale did not rate the treatment he got. In fact, he’s probably the best man to have been on a presidential ticket in decades. And that hearing problem? He received it from beatings while being held in a tiger cage in Vietnam.
Okay, so he was a hero. Well, he was a little more than that:
But he had that deer in the headlights look, so he couldn’t have been too bright, right? Wrong.
Truly one of the great Americans. It’s sad that he’s remembered as a joke simply because he wasn’t telegenic.
To be fair, he was viewed as (and is remembered as) a joke largely because he was ill-advised enough to sign up on a presidential ticket with a nutbar like Perot. Hard to take somebody seriously under such circumstances.
The problem is that there’s a substantial difference between a political party and a cult of personality. Many of the outfits masquerading as third parties in the United States are just organizations set up to get one individual elected to office. It’s notable that these third party candidates are always running for President of Governor; they want to be top dog, not one member of a legislative body.
If you wanted to have a real independant party you should base it around a platform not a candidate. Figure out what it is that distinguishs your political beliefs from those of the Democrats and Republicans. Then find a large group of people who support those beliefs. The run a whole slate of candidates in various state and national elections and start building a base. Once you’ve got some people in office you’ll be part of the real political landscape and your party will grow. Within an election cycle or two, leaders will emerge and you’ll be ready to field a credible Presidential nominee.
The best example of this is the Republicans who did this in the 1850s. Other parties that came close were the Populists and the State’s Rights parties. The closest existing example would be the Libertarians.
I can respect James Stockdale as a distinguished veteran and he certainly did not deserve abuse. But being a veteran doesn’t automatically qualify him to be President.
This is true. I’m not saying he would have been a good president, but he certainly didn’t rate the treatment he got in the media and popular culture. The man was ridiculed.
I don’t recall him showing any greater proclivity to citations at any point in the book, so in that sense, I suppose you wouldn’t have been happy had you pressed on. On the other hand, I didn’t think his claims were that outrageous to begin with They fit in more with what I understood of the various topics from other sources than they were discordant, so I took him at his word, more or less. Certainly, my knowledge of the issues are limited, but I did come away from the book wishing for a populist party that could effect changes in the way the tax system works, particularly the collection of taxes and enforcement of tax laws.
That said, without a doubt I would like to see whether a more comprehensive analysis would support the same arguments.
For myself I’d want it to be a fiscally conservative (or at least fiscally sane) party with socially moderate/liberal leanings. Sort of like an actual workable version of the Liberatarian party…without all the pie in the sky and unrealistic aspects. It would straddle the middle ground between the Dems and the Pubs…but with real, concrete programs and solutions. Blah blah blah.
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