In order to differentiate themselves enough from the other two third party candidates are essentially a one issue stump speech throughout a ‘their all insider crooks’ montage.
I seriously doubt a third party, once in power, would remain honest long enough to risk my vote being meaningless in the current election.
CTHULU 2008!
Why vote for the lesser evil?
This.
It is a property of our electoral rules. The presence of third parties makes insincere voting a requirement because most people prefer a second best outcome to a worst outcome when they know their most favorite outcome will not come to pass. As a result, you have a finding called Duverger’s Law:
Personally, the reason I’ve never really considered a third party is they’re almost always too extreme. Third parties tend to be either far to the left (Green, Socialist Worker) or right. (I’m not sure what the Libertarians would be, but they’re pretty extreme in their own unique way.) If there was an American equivalent of the British Liberal Democrats or German Free Democrats, I’d surely give them consideration. Until them, you have a bunch of parties that are even more out of touch with the mainstream–on the outside chance they’d win, you’d only put out of control people in power.
If my side (the Democrats) was bound to win or lose regardless of my vote, I might then vote Green to make a statement.
Without that, this election is just too critical. The likelihood of the Supreme Court taking a much more conservative direction, if a Republican becomes president, will have a profound impact on our lives, not just for four or eight years, but for generations.
Usually third party candidates are single issue (usually one I don’t care too much about) or propose a highly improbable solution to a multi-set of issues, e.g. let’s all live like cave men, communism back then didn’t work because they didn’t have the technological advancements of today, or the candidates running are pretty much assholes of one type or another.
My biggest gripe with third party candidates is that they think they can reform the Washington machine. Politics is an art and it is a business. If these people think that they can get anything done without using the machine, they are sadly, sadly mistaken. Such leadership will cause a lot of heartache and a lot of chaos, which is probably what those in the anarchy party want anyway.
I’m very lower case l libertarian. As such I tend to lean more toward Republicans. Even though both major parties have things only about half correct to my way of thinking, the Rs have more of my major points on their side.
I have voted for the Libertarian Party candidate on a few occasions for various offices, including president. I could not bring myself to do it in 2004 and I won’t be doing it this time either, for the same reason.
That reason being that I find the Democratic candidate so incredibly awful that I feel more compelled to keep him out and take my lumps with the R issues I disagree with than to give him an indirect vote by supporting a third-party candidate who will only serve to take votes away from McCain.
George Bush has been awful, but I remain convinced he did a better job than either of the guys the Ds ran against him. I believe McCain will be far better than Bush, given his bi-partisan track record, and that Obama would do so badly as to make people remember Jimmy Carter fondly.
In a nutshell, it’s the old lesser of two evils argument.
Another reason for me to give the Libertarian Party less credence is the incredibly poor way the party is run. I was a card carrying member for a few years, and while I agree with about 90 percent of their platform, I oppose the fact that they won’t even try to run an effective campaign or raise money intelligently.
Back in the mid-late 90s I got a solicitation from them that was basically a 3-part “plan” to move into national prominence.
I looked at my wife and said, “I’m resigning my Libertarian Party membership. Their campaign finance strategy was created by the Underpants Gnomes.”
Exactly. While I don’t often vote for small parties locally ( often they are no closer to my politics than the big two ), I will consider it locally, just not at the ( large )state or federal level.
No, I’m sorry, but I believe you’re incorrect. At the ( large ) state and federal level it is a waste, because they will never, ever accomplish anything of substance with those resources. This is down to the system being what it is, but I think it is close to an absolute truth that a Third Party is perpetually inviable at the national level.
I find third parties to be on the extremist fringe.
They aren’t directly competeing with other groups and so don’t have any reason to compromise.
So they stay on the fringe and don’t appeal to moderates like me.
Most third parties are single-issue parties. I don’t care enough about their issue to vote for a sure loser when my vote might make a difference in a close race.
I feel the same way. I think they almost have to be just to get any attention or to justify running as an independent, otherwise why not just go Democrat or Republican. I thought Ron Paul injected plenty of sound ideas into this campaign, but he had some nutty ones that ultimately turned me off (and as someone else said, symbolic third party votes backfire more than they send messages).
I’m not sure that’s true. On the ‘left’ the Greens and SWP have more than one drum and on the ‘right’ I think the libertarians do as well. It’s your electoral system that really marginalises them
I’m not sure if libertarians should be classified as “right”. They tend to be left on most social issues and only right on economic issues.
Anyone with any illusions that voting third-party at the national level is going to help their cause is deluding himself. If you vote third-party, that means you are not voting for the candidate you like more out of the two major parties. That means the conservatives voting Perot caused Clinton to be elected, and the liberals voting Nader caused Bush to be elected. The plurality system not only makes these kinds of votes a waste, but directly against your own interests. (Unless, of course, you really do hate both major parties equally, which I doubt.)
What you are not doing is making a statement; no one cares who you voted for. The only thing that matters is who gets to live in the White House.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris