Please don’t take this as trying to talk down to anyone, it mostly background information.
A little known fact…. there has been a third party that won the White House. In 1864, Abraham Lincoln was not very popular and wasn’t predicted to win a second term. Charles C. Fremont, a radical Republican rival of Lincoln, was nominated to represent the Republicans in the 1864 elections. Republicans that were loyal to Lincoln held a second convention under the banner of the National Union(Unity) Party. This third party was an attempt to draw war-hawk Democrats to Lincoln. They chose a pro-war Democrat, Andrew Johnson, to run as Lincoln’s Vice President. By the time of the election, the war was turning around to favor the North, Lincoln’s chances were improving, and Fremont was pressured into leaving the race to keep General McClellan, the Democratic Presidential candidate, from winning.
As for the idea that all third party candidates are fringe candidates; that is debatable. Without going into a long political history here, FDR is credited with starting the modern Democratic party. Since FDR, the Democratic Party as a whole is generally left of political center, the Republican Party, the right of center. In 1948, Henry Wallace was on the liberal left of the Democratic Party, but Strom Thurmond was on the conservative right of the Democratic Party. This would put Thurmond as close to the political center as Truman and Dewey. George Wallace in 1968 was also a conservative Democrat, before he ran on the American Independent Party ticket. Several books have reported that in 1972, Nixon was relieved when his staff reported that Wallace had been shot, because he was the only candidate that could possibly beat him. Nixon and his staff concluded that even if Wallace didn’t get the Democratic nomination, Wallace would run again as an independent and not only get Democrats and independents, but unhappy Republicans.
The list of modern major third party candidates is full of center candidates. John Anderson was by far closer to the political center than Reagan or Carter. In the election of 1992, the Bush-Clinton-Perot competition was all about who could control the center.
There are several reasons why third parties don’t do better nationally, and especially in Presidential elections. One of the reasons is the system is controlled by the two major parties. Half of the money collected by my party (the Libertarian Party) is spent just getting on the ballot. Neither of the two major parties ever have to fight to get on the ballot. The two major parties also collected taxpayer money to use to campaign with, while the smaller parties only receive federal money after the election. And the threshold is set so high that most third party candidates never receiver anything…and when they do they only receive a fraction of the money of the major candidates. The Libertarian Party refuses to take taxpayer money, but if I had ran in the 2004 election as a National Independent Party candidate and had one the every one of the popular vote, Bush/Republican Party and Kerry/Democratic Party would have spent $500 million of federal money while I received zero. In 2008 the Republicans and Democrats would split $550 million and I would get just $50 for my party.
Anyway my point is that to win the Presidency it takes money. None of the present third parties have the ability to raise the money needed to win the White House. Some people think that a big name person could win, but I doubt name recognition alone can get you very far. Perot was a billionaire that got a lot of free press, but he never amount to a serious change. Months before the election he was polling neck and neck with Clinton and Bush but if the election had been three months earlier or even six months earlier he still wouldn’t have had won even a single electoral vote. An AP story earlier this year stated that Ralph Nader’s 2004 campaign spend more money that Perot did in 1992. Why? One can wonder what would have happen if Perot had spent some of his wealth on his campaign.
Perot was the most successful of the modern third party candidates, but Wallace’s 68 campaign is considered a more serious threat. History makes him out to be just a southern bigot( as an Alabamian I would say this stereotype is wrong), but at the time he was very popular nationwide. Both the Humphrey’s and Nixon’s camps knew that Wallace was satisfied with just collecting electoral votes to “sell” the election to whomever gave him the most. If he succeeded then he might have created a whole new political party around himself. Because of Wallace’s threat, early in the campaign season both major candidates attacked Wallace’s position without even mentioning the other major candidate. While Wallace ran on the “State’s Right” platform, the Democrats played up his controversial racial policies and the Republican’s claimed he was a war-hawk. Early in the campaign Wallace did quite well but as the campaign progressed he lacked money to fight of negative press. And like all modern campaigns his critics were quick to jump on every problem in his campaign and he was without the means to defend himself. Using the Alabama state plane to campaign, doing more campaigning than governing, etc….all made national stories. The final straw was when Wallace’s running mate, Curtis LeMay, stated to the press that one way to handle Vietnam was to “Nuke North Vietnam”. Wallace had no funds to fight damage control and so with that one event so went Wallace’s 68 election. Earlier in the campaign he polled in the low 20s and was gaining… and he finished the race with just 13% (9,900,000 votes). If he had just a little more money for damage control and campaigning he might have won the 500,000 votes needed to play “spoiler.”
So if you want to be a third party President then I would say you need around $250 million in your checking account…or place $1 on craps and “let it ride” 29 times in a row. But if you can win 29 times in a row in craps, Murphy’s Law says that a meteorite will strike you dead as you exit the casino; so running for President may be out of the question.
As for the two party system, the problem isn’t with the parties’ platforms but the number of parties themselves. Two parties don’t allow for differences in ideas. As a Libertarian I share values with both major parties, but I disagree with them on just as many. If the Democrat party today accepted the platform of the Libertarian Party where would the Environmental element of party go? They surely wouldn’t find a home in the Republican Party. If the Republican Party adopted the Libertarian platform where would the Religious Right? With the Democrats’ pro-choice platform I don’t think they would be welcome there. I disagree with most of the Green Party platform but I hope they succeed. I don’t agree with the Constitution/ Patriot Party platform but I hope to see them succeed as well. Natural Law, American Independent, Socialist, Communist, Worker’s World, etc…I want them all. I would love to see the day when most Americans can vote for the person they believe in, not the lesser of two evils.