Reply #9: Con: You're ignoring history.

[CBHagman]

Exhibit A: The Bull Moose Party. Exhibit B: John Anderson in 1980. Exhibit C: Ralph Nader in 2000.

Con: I don't think it's possible to speak for Al Gore, Russ Feingold, or any other Dem you admire. Have they actually said they were going to jump ship?

Con: You can purity-test your candidates to death. If every group on DU, for example, had veto power over every winning Democratic candidate of the last 70-some-odd years, we'd never have countenanced Harry Truman, JFK, LBJ, FDR, Jimmy Carter, or Bill Clinton.

Con: Self-identified liberals and progressives make up a relatively small percentage of the voting population. Until that changes, anyone who wins a seat in the House or Senate, or in executive branch offices, will need a coalition of moderates and progressives in order to be elected.

Con: The Democratic Party has long had a mixture of people focused on different issues and ideologies.

The only pro I can think of is the possibility of running a progressive with such amazingly broad appeal (to say nothing of charisma and public confidence) that party is no longer an issue and personality takes over. The type I'm thinking of is someone like Oprah Winfrey, who commands a great deal of attention and wields a fair amount of influence. But maybe even an Oprah type wouldn't do it.

Think long and hard about this. American voting patterns simply do not bode well for third party candidates.

On edit: I live in a fairly liberal area, and third party candidates can't even win local office here, for the most part.

If you really want to influence policy, you have to put candidates into offices where they can do some good, and you can't pick up your toys and go home every time someone departs from your stance on some issue. How many times have I seen people proclaim their adoration for Russ Feingold or Robert Byrd, and then seen an orgy of hostility to the same when they say something unexpected? Confess! You know you've seen it.