Third Party & Independents Archives

I stayed up all election night in 2000 watching the news thinking, “what have I done?” Even though the state eventually went to Gore, I learned the lesson of the price you pay to vote your conscience. I think you are right when you say that those were less intense times. We had the luxury of thinking we COULD vote our conscience. While the system isn’t perfect it’s working. I don’t think Nader has a chance to influence the election in 2004 nearly as much - mainly because of people like me. In 2000 Nader drew over 7,000 people in a tiny theater here. We were crawling over ourselves to get a piece of the only available candidate with a backbone. Last week he drew barely more than 700 and didn’t meet his quota to get on the state ballot with one event. It may be a cliche by now, but the stakes ARE too high, and everyone sees it except Ralph. There is too much to lose. Our country cannot sustain the path it is on, at home or abroad. While I don’t like Kerry and I think he’s even less a man of substance than Gore, he has my vote. We need to learn to walk again before we can run, and I’m not staying up all night come November.

There’s a huge irony here in this top-down strategy, this attempt to limit voters’ options, coming from Dean, who once upon a time tried to get us all to believe that he was an outsider who wouldn’t bow to the agenda of the Democratic establishment.

Nader has an excellent point—it shows a massive disdain for the intelligence of voters when Democrats make a presumptive claim to the votes that might otherwise go to third part candidates. Can’t individual voters be trusted to make the decision themselves who they want to vote for, to take into account themselves if they’re splitting the vote? Is Dean saying that left-liberal voters are stupid and need to have others do their thinking for them? Aren’t you left-liberal voters gravely insulted?

What about Ross Perot?

Ross Perot? Talked funny, had a lot to say about “giant sucking sounds.” Came in second to Clinton in choosing the most comical VP. What would you like about old Ross?

Exit polls suggested that Perot helped Bush lose the election.

That didn’t bother you? Assuming you weren’t voting for Bill…

You’re right, Dan Quayle was not funny. Not one bit.

I see now. You’re reminding Democrats that they should take the high road and let people vote their consciences—that Clinton, their hero, was himself elected as a result of a third party candidacy.

Between you and me, DaveO, I hated Dan Quayle. I couldn’t even laugh at him, I hated him so much. If I’d been old enough to vote, I’d have probably voted Clinton in that election (but that was before my capacity for reason surpassed by cultural predelictions).

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

love those cliches.

Or those who won’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

Not enough emphasis is given to ideas these days. To the extent that ideas coming from Nader would be identical to the ideas coming from Kerry, then yes, Nader would be a “spoiler” candidate for those sharing THAT SET of ideas. But are they different?

Perhaps there needs to be, not three parties, but eight, to cover all “three dimensions” of political thinking:

1) Social Regulation
2) Economics
and
3) Foreign Policy

You could have:
a) Social libertarian, economic conservative, hawk (LCH)
b) Social libertarian, economic conservative, dove (LCD)
c) Social libertarian, economic liberal, hawk (LLH)
d) Social libertarian, economic liberal, dove (LLD —traditional “Democrat”)
e) Social conservative, economic conservative, hawk (CCH —traditional “Republican”)
f) Social conservative, economic conservative, dove (CCD)
g) Social conservative, economic liberal, hawk (CLH)
h) Social conservative, economic liberal, dove (CLD)

It may be necessary for all who are LCH, LCD, LLH, CCD, CLH and CLD, to band together in a temporary coalition to establish the concept of a third party and get it large enough to demolish the stranglehold of the LLD/CCH oligarchy; and then eventually split out into the distinctive parties.

Strictly speaking, no vote for any of the eight parties would “spoil” any votes for any of the other parties, because each party would have its own distinctive set of ideas across different classes of issues. There could be coalition votes from time to time, but only on specific Bills in Congress under consideration or major issues overshadowing all others at election time.

Not enough organization by independents. That is the reason why there are independents, we don’t like to work together. That being the case, it makes me sick to hear words like “spoiler” and “taking away votes”. Since when does the Dems or Repubs. deserve my vote? They need to earn our votes just like the 3rd parties. If the Dems. would produce a better candidate than Kerry or Gore, we would never have to worry about “spoilers”.

I share a belief that the two party system is steadily dragging us down. For the short term, viable alternative candidates could have an influence by garnishing support and then on the eve of the election giving that support (in the form of votes) to the two-party candidate in return for some influence. Be it a concession on a particular issue or seat on the cabinet.

I don’t think that the two party system is that bad for us, it’s just that two parties can not represent the entire political spectrum. To do that you would need Ciggy’s eight (or more) parties, and how unruly would our government be then?

Forcing the two parties to move away from their polar opposite bases to capture the large moderate/independent vote in the middle makes more sense to me then having multiple parties all trying to get their way.

As for Nader and Perot, I think the difference is that Perot took votes from the middle. I can’t remember what impact he had on the Electoral College, but both major candidates were hurt by his on again off again campain. Nader takes votes away from the Democrat’s base, and you can easily count his votes as going Democratic if he is not there.

Didn’t we elect Quayle in 2000? OOps, my bad, they just seem so much alike….

I want Bush gone enough to ignore the third party option this year, but look what Kerry has done as soon as he had the nomination tied up. Once again the Democratic front-runner is taking Progressive support for granted and sucking up to the imagined vast (and imaginary?) middle-of-the-road. The Democratic line then and now to Greens and other independents is, “how dare you not vote for us.” This is, um, inadequate.

The really ironic thing is that people who run third parties or vote for them are often attacked as impractical. Yet the hysterical public reaction of Democrats to Nader’s announcement that he would run was hardly smart politics. It showed how terrified the Democrats are of having to deal with Progressive challenges to their own stale status quo, and hardly inspired confidence. And if you want Nader supporters to vote for you, is it a good idea to try to shame him, or them? Is that practical? Some of the attacks on Nader I’ve seen have been so absurd and slanderous that they make me want to vote for him anyway, out of sheer annoyance. Do they try to get voters who have strayed to Republican candidates over the years through these - I wouldn’t even call them tactics, they’re so blatantly emotional. Please, Democrats and Democrat supporters, I want Bush gone too, so get a clue. Win our votes. Don’t try to order us to vote for you.

Extremely well put, Vic. Couldn’t have put it better if I had been paid, bribed, or blackmailed.

Vic, you can take “comfort” in knowing that both of the oligarch parties take their nominal “base” for granted from time to time and try to “reach out to the middle”. Rush Limbaugh criticized Bush for trying to outspend the Democrats over the past four years; Michael Savage criticized Bush for opening up borders and immigration, which is usually a Democrat platform item.

I really don’t think it would be “unruly” or “chaotic” to have eight distinct parties in America. In Europe what we see is that various parties join forces from time to time when a certain issue unites them, and they split back apart when that issue is no longer an issue.

It’s more democratically ACCURATE to have more parties. A “two” party system is not very far away at all from a “one” party system. Guess what form of government you have THEN.

Well, Ciggy, as long as you’re mentioning me, I
couldn’t care less whether Republicans on the extreme right continue to bitch and moan - the extreme right does set the agenda for that party in a way that Progressives do not for the Democrats. Thus when Democrats go for the “middle” it constitutes a major lurch rightward - Kerry’s big idea of the last few weeks is a corporate tax cut, I’m jumping for joy - this indeed is when the Democratic line to Progressives becomes “vote for us or you’ll get a Republican,” something I’ll admit works fairly often - it will work on ME this year, I think, but I’m hardly happy about it. By the way, your 8 party breakdown also doesn’t reflect the major political divisions in the country - it looks like a football playoff schedule. Americans don’t divide themselves up like this, they rather more importantly come from specific regional, racial and class backgrounds that help determine their political affiliations. Plus I can’t take seriously your designation of the category under “d” as traditional Democrat - they are hardly social libertarians or doves on some sort of consistent basis. Never mind; we can cook up imaginary political systems all day. If you are interested in actually influencing the government, now, you need to deal with the entrenched systems - change them if you can, but you can’t just wish them away.
I do, however, respect anyone who votes for the candidate who stands for what they believe in regardless of the consequences - just because I’m crying “Uncle!” this year doesn’t mean I think you have to.

I agree with much of what is being said, but all the rhetoric still accomplishes NOTHING. As long as the Republicrats have control, we can do nothing! Republicrats ensure that Republicrats get on the ballot, Republicrats choose their candidates, not the American people (who decides which candidates will make it to the primaries?), and Republicrats crush any attempts by minor parties to become more than a token party. (Pat Buchanan was an excellent example)

On the same token, Independents are at least now being included in polls? (So maybe there is hope)

Vic, your mention of regional and racial lines along which people tend to vote, is more than a little moot when that still translates to a particular degree of dovish/hawkish along a foreign policy continuum, liberal/conservative along an economic one, and libertarian/conservative along a social regulation one. For example, you may be thinking in terms of inner city blacks tending to vote Democrat because that party advocates programs to help the inner city. Fine. What that translates to is economic liberal in general, with some differences among them on the other dimensions of policy (probably social libertarian in the younger group, and more social conservative in the older group). These interests would still be represented, even if the parties in question are not specifically called “the black inner city party”.

As for Kerry lurching to the right to scoop up centrist voters and pick off the wavering members of the GOP, and taking progressives for granted, I do think that’s an astute observation, but I don’t think your analysis of the Republicans is anywhere near fair of a similar tactic they employ. Bush and other Republicans regularly increase spending and when economic conservatives complain, they say “it’s either this or you get a Democrat increasing it even more”. You think a billion dollars to look at rocks on Mars is economically conservative? You think immigration amnesty is socially conservative? You think runaway medicare increases are economically conservative? No, no, and no are the correct answers. But the far-demonized far-right get told the same thing that the far-demonized far-left does, by their respective “traditional parties”. If each disenfranchized group had their own parties where they could advocate as far-right or far-left as they want, in any of the three dimensions of policy platform, they would not be so disenfranchized. Each would have a voice, actual votes to be counted in the legislature (or even an actual veto if one of them puts a President in the White House).

When you talk about substantive change, all substantive change begins with conceptual change, with ideas, and guess what we’re doing right here? Have you ever attended a caucas?

I’m not “crying uncle” at all. I’m not throwing molotov cocktails, but I’m not crying “uncle”.

A vote for Ralph Nader is a waste.We need to get rid of GW Bush and company.