End of third parties?

[GreenInNC]

Nader, Barr and McKinney received 1% of the national vote combined, heck our candidate for Soil and Water Commissioner in Mecklenburg County, NC got almost twice as many votes as McKinney got nationally.

Do third parties have a chance here in the US or have they had their place in the sun and are fading away? I have a little history here: I was a national co-chair of the Green Party during the 2004 national elections so I know intimately what they are up against.

Even in states where they have few hurdles to leap to get on the ballot the results were not good for these three.

This thread is not a place to interject your personal feelings concerning the candidates but just simply a question about the viability of third parties in our electoral system.

[LWolf]

1. I hope not.

Breaking up the 2 party system is the change I want to see.

[ColbertWatcher]

2. I agree. One of the third parties will fill in the void left by the GOP. n/t

[ogneopasno]

3. Third-party candidates got enough to keep Michelle Bachmann in her seat,

and to send the Coleman-Franken race to a hand count, in Minnesota.

I think if they'd work from the bottom up, as they've done in Minnesota over the last 15 years, they'd have better luck.

[GreenInNC]

10. many states require them to run in the higher up races

For example here in NC for a party to retain it's ballot access it has to garner 2% of the vote in the Governor or Presidential race so they have to run candidates in these races, no other ones count.

[GreenInNC]

21. Candidates don't get votes

They earn them and no candidate should think they deserve a person's vote just because of the party they belonng to.

It is up to our Democratic Party to show that we have the best interests of a voter in mind. That is how we earn their vote.

[Sanity Claws]

4. No

The GOP is in decline and is becoming a regional party. Probably by the next election, another party will form and eventually it will become the second major party, replacing the GOP.
My guess is that the new party will probably be old line traditional Republican types, people who want small government, isolationist, and NOT the religious nuts. The GOP will be the party of the religious nuts.

[cobalt1999]

5. Without runoff thresholds there will be no viable 3rd parties.

Maybe if Teddy Roosevelt and the Bull Moose Party had won back then, things would be different now, but they didn't.

[Muttocracy]

6. Third parties can become the first or second party when there are realignments.

We didn't start out with the exact 2 parties we have now.

[1awake]

7. The problem with all the thrid parties we have

is they're not really third parties to begin with. They are reflections of the ones we already have. For a third party to really work, one would be needed that stands apart much more from the other two than what we have now.

[Greyhound]

8. One of the only issues that the Democrats and Republiks agree on.

Nobody else is allowed play.

I don't know, but if things are not greatly improved over the next 4 years, we may see a resurgence of interest in alternatives to these two.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. No, just that third parties should start doing what they used to do

RUN LOCALLY and build constituencies before going for broke

to the national level

The GRAND exception to this was the GOP, that was formed in 1854 and won the presidency in 1860

But third parties need to start running for local and state offices and prepare those people to run nationally, and get traction that way

This is the way it was done back in the 19th century and the third parties controlled the destiny of the nation by taking HOUSE seats where they became that important in the 188os and set the way for the New Deal, in fact (Read the history of the Granger party)

[GreenInNC]

11. states require them to run for up ballot races

For example here in NC for a party to retain it's ballot access it has to garner 2% of the vote in the Governor or Presidential race so they have to run candidates in these races, no other ones count.

There are other states that also require this so until these laws are changed, the third parties will run in these states.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Good point... and those laws were passed by both Rs and Ds

Because of the granger pary

[GreenInNC]

17. here in NC

Our tough laws were passed as a result of the Socialist Party getting on the ballot.

[cemaphonic]

12. Their place in the sun?

Wasn't that the 2 decades before the civil war?

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. No, read about the Grangers

read about the US Communist Party, WELL AFTER the CIvil War

[TroglodyteScholar]

14. Did third parties ever BEGIN? n/t

[GreenInNC]

19. not in Ga they didn't

Ga. is ranked #2 as the state that has the toughest ballot access laws in the US, just behind Oklahoma.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Yes, let me mention one that you are familiar with

the grand old party... remember them?

They replaced the WHIG party

which replaced the Tories.

Then there are the Farmers Democrats, which these days have been absorbed by the dems, you may even know one of their latest candidates, Al Franken.

There are days

[leftofthedial]

15. we need more than ever to abolish the two-corporate-party system

[ContinentalOp]

16. I don't like the idea of third parties anymore.

Imagine if this race had been between Obama, McCain, and Clinton running with a third party. No thanks.

It seems like this problem crops up all the time in other countries where the left will be split into different factions and the right will win even though they are in the minority.

[LWolf]

22. Or,

imagine an election in which people, not brain-washed to see only two of the choices on their ballots as viable, choose between four or five choices based on actual issues and record.

Where all candidates, of all parties, would be accountable for their record and their positions, and where elections would be decided based on that, and not based on the lesser of two evils.

Where people voted FOR the candidate of their choice, instead of AGAINST the enemy.

I wish I could live to see that happen, but I'm not optimistic.