I’m not finding much to like or be inspred by on either side of the spectrum. It all seems like a giant wallow of cynicism, ineffectiveness, and incompetence. Is the American two party system too entrenched for any third party to have a decent shot at the Presidency or is the disgust level high enough with the American public that an alternative party might have a chance?
I think so. The problem is that the third party that would be electable would be opposed by extremists on both sides, and would have a hard time creating a motivated ‘base’ that would get out out the vote. Also, a third party would have a real hard time raising money.
This old “third-party” mantra is just a waste of time. The two major parties have have lots of detracters, but they have been around together for over 150 years, and while third-parties have occasionally captured seats in Congress and on the state-wide level, they really haven’t come close to capturing the White House. A third party candidate hasn’t even won any electoral votes since Wallace in 1968, 37 years ago.
Some wit once said that no matter how cynical he became he could just not keep up.
Let me suggest that a third party effort is doomed simply because the people who hold the real power (big government, big finance, big business, big entertainment, big insurance and even diminished labor) are perfectly happy and content with the present parties and the present political arrangement. Only when the present system no longer meets the needs of the Bigs that be will there be a third party which can be a contender for power. Look at the last viable third party – George Wallace’s operation. It looked viable for a while but was quickly co-opted by the existing parties and by changing times. Before that it was Hughie Long’s operation. Before that it was TR Roosevelt’s Progressive Party (The Bull Moose). Before that it was the old decrepit Wig Party transformed into the Republican Party by free soil advocacy, abolition and saved by civil war. Before that it was the Know Nothings – whose nativist creed seems to have been reclaimed by some elements of the Congressional GOP.
The question is whether things as they are serves the interests of the power brokers. As long as the status quo does protect the vital interests of the Bigs there will be no viable third party, no matter how disenchanted you and I may be the choices we are offered on election day.
A related question that doesn’t deserve their all threads :
Did any candidate from the major parties who lost the primaries ever choose to nevertheless run for presidency?
And by the way, since when are there primaries?
In 1912, former president Teddy Roosevelt, dissatisfied with the performance in office of his hand-picked successor William Howard Taft, decided he wanted another shot at the White Housel; but the Republican nomination went to Taft (even though Roosevelt won the primaries in those nine states that had them at that time). Roosevelt ran instead as the candidate of the new United States Progressive Party, popularly known as the “Bull Moose” party. The result was to split the opposition to the Democrats and secure the presidency for Woodrow Wilson. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election%2C_1912
Primary elections (together with the ballot initiative, referendum, recall election, and women’s suffrage) were a political reform introduced by the American Progressive movement of the early 20th Century. Well into the '60s, however, most state party organizations (the Democratic and Republican parties are fundamentally organized at the state level, here) still chose their presidential nominees by state nominating conventions (of party activists and leaders) rather than direct primaries. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_primary; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_election.
And more recently, in 1980, John Anderson failed to get the Republican nomination and ran as an independent.
Hmmm…given the war screw-ups the last few President have been, could Military Intelligence divert funds to form/create/back a third party? They’re rumored to have done it in South America. I can’t think that, alienated enough, they wouldn’t even consider it here.
It would be nice to think so. I am rather middle of the road and am finding both parties to be more and more extreme.
Do you really think we need a political party tied to the military?
The Republicans have been getting more extreme. There is practically nothing “extreme” about the Democrats any more.
No.
But I wonder if there are senior people in the military intelligence community who do. 
The Republicans are jerks, Democrats are spineless losers and they’re all corrupt, as is required under the current campaign finance system. But they are so entrenched that no third party has a realistic chance.
I like Oprah Winfrey for president. Michael Moore has tried to get her interested, but so far she’s been unwilling to consider it.
She’s exceedingly smart, seems to care about the general public, and is already rich beyond the dreams of avarice so she couldn’t be bought. She answers only to Steadman (maybe).
The idea may seem ridiculous, but it’s time for bold moves.
I don’t think so. I’m a Democrat and there are several members of my party that I’d like to see run for President. So, I don’t think I’ll vote for a third party. I’m sure the Nader experience was enough to keep most Democrats from voting a 3rd party.
I’d love to see a viable third party, but the odds just seem astronomical. Maybe if someone with lots of name recognition and respect from across the political spectrum wanted to break out of the special interest stranglehold that both parties opperate under. Maybe. And then, if someone like that does get elected, how does he get the cooperation of Congress?
While there’s a fair amount of ideological room in between the Dems and the GOP these days, there’s less of a market for a third party in that space than you’d think.
Both major parties have been moving rightwards over the past 25 years - the GOP, because they wanted to do so and it’s worked for them; the Dems as well, initially in response to the excesses of the 1960s and 70s, and more recently out of fear of the GOP media machine. (To the extent that the Dems are perceived as having moved leftwards, it seems more a matter of the GOP noise machine making a big deal of the occasional Ward Churchill than anything else.)
But here’s what’s happened, as best as I can suss it out: the GOP has held onto all but a small fraction of its voters as it’s moved right, and the Dems haven’t really lost anyone either as they’ve done so. But though room in between has opened up as the GOP has moved further right than the Dems, there’s really very few voters in that space, since the voters who used to be there when that zone was smack in the GOP middle are mostly still solidly backing the GOP, even now that guys like Chuck Hagel are on the left edge of the party rather than somewhat right of its center.
Wow, no mention of Ross Perrot yet?
I think a third candidate has a chance if he has enough money backing him especially his own. He can hire plenty of advisors and PR people to help him along. Lord knows there’s plenty of blame he can cast on both parties for the past decades. The power of big business, the over powered lobbyists, career politicians who are so out of touch with real issues. Empty promises from all the past Reps and Dems that are simply dismissed year after year after year.
Even pretending it could ever happen (it’ll never happen), the US’s all-or-nothing brand of representation is not a good match for multiple parties. With a pariamentary system, maybe; but with the US system, a major third party will just lead to a greater likelihood that the “winner” of an election will have been voted *against *by a majority of voters. With the two-party system–when it works–the winner has been voted *for *by the majority. When the Republicans refrain from fraud, the two party system forces voters to make a hard choice and to choose their leaders. Now, of course, many people make that choice negatively: by elimination. So my point is probably a stupid one. But still.
Hah. I used to be Steadman’s doorman. Trust me; Oprah does NOT answer to Steadman.
What about him? His results seem impressive at first glance-- he got almost 20% of the vote. But how many states did he win? Zero. Not a one.