The Problem with Third Party Candidates

[Fletch]

And how again was voting for Bob Barr a big leap for freedom? The guy has a record, and from what most of you big L types say you want, Barr doesn't fill the role much more than McCain. So, how exactly is that a principled vote or much of an alternative? In other words, how is voting for LINOs working out for you?

Yeah, the legitimacy of Bob Barr's "conversion" was hotly debated in a lot of libertarian spots on the intertubes, the most notable of which was over at Reason.

 

[hornadylnl]

Not a big L member here either. Mine was a protest vote. Do you guys pay your children rewards for D- effort?

 

[JDonhardt]

Third party candidates dont stand a chance because nobody is voting for them. Nobody is voting for them because they dont stand a chance. They dont stand a chance because nobody is voting for them. Nobody is voting for them because they dont stand a chance. They dont stand a chance because nobody is voting for them. Nobody is voting for them because they dont stand a chance. They dont stand a chance because nobody is voting for them. Nobody is voting for them because they dont stand a chance....


If you want third party candidates to win elections you have to vote for them.

 

[CarmelHP]

Third party candidates dont stand a chance because nobody is voting for them. .....

If you want third party candidates to win elections you have to vote for them.

Except it's not that simple. Most third party candidates represent political margins. Most voters are not at the margins. You either have to make your candidate more mainstream or shift the political mainstream toward the margins. Shifting the political mainstream means convincing lots of voters which is very hard. In 40 years, the LP has not convinced any significant voter base to shift allegiance. Third party candidates that have captured up to a fifth of the vote in presidential elections have not translated into any staying power. It's not like it hasn't been tried, but this is not a parliamentary democracy and you don't get a proportional share of the seats for getting a minority chunk of the vote. If you can't win the election, you get nothing, and the party that is the most extremely antithetical to your interests gets elected again.

 

[Paco Bedejo]

If you can't win the election, you get nothing, and the party that is the most extremely antithetical to your interests gets elected again.

And our ongoing point of contention here is that not all of us agree that R is less extremely antithetical to our interests...

If we're talking particularly about my own personal, self-interests...with the Ds in control, I at least get a lot of free things...which I like to simply pretend are my "Social Security Tax Refund". At 32, I was basically born into a corrupt system & I won't feel ashamed for taking what's mine back from it whenever the opportunity arises.

For the long-term, I'll keep voting in a vain attempt to create a viable 3rd party...regardless of their particular politics...simply because I believe that adding a 3rd choice will get more people more involved in the process...which will end with greater awareness about just what liberty really is. A man can dream...

 

[dburkhead]

Third party candidates dont stand a chance because nobody is voting for them. Nobody is voting for them because they dont stand a chance. They dont stand a chance because nobody is voting for them. Nobody is voting for them because they dont stand a chance. They dont stand a chance because nobody is voting for them. Nobody is voting for them because they dont stand a chance. They dont stand a chance because nobody is voting for them. Nobody is voting for them because they dont stand a chance....


If you want third party candidates to win elections you have to vote for them.

Do you know when the last time a third party candidate got even a single electoral vote for President? How about the last time a third party captured control of the house or senate (let alone both)?

OTOH, Texas didn't have any difficulty electing a "libertarian" Congressman--he just does so as a Republican. Perhaps you've heard about the one I'm thinking of. He goes by the name of Ron Paul.

Unless you can actually capture control of the House or Senate, any third party candidate is going to have to caucus with one of the major parties to avoid being completely shut out. And if he's going to caucus with them, why not go ahead and run under their name anyway? While the Democrats enforce "party discipline" pretty strongly the Republicans have been weak in that area for quite some time (a legacy of misconstruing the "big tent" concept). There's nothing stopping a person with, say, Libertarian values from running as a Republican. Every vote one would need to get to win as an "L" would also be necessary to win as an "R". Oh, sure, you may have to beat a "hand picked" Republican candidate in the primaries, but you'll have to beat that candidate anyway with a third party candidate, just in the general rather than the primary. And if you can't beat him in May, with the usual much smaller turnout (and thus where the "get out your vote" effect* plays much larger), then how can you hope to beat him in November?

I'm not saying don't run libertarian candidates. I'm simply suggesting that they'd be more successful running as Republicans.

The democratic party has not always been so far-left leaning. The far left, the socialists, the greens, and the reds have taken it over. There's no reason in the world why Libertarians, Constitutionalists, et al could not take over the Republican party the same way. And, it really looks like it would be easier to do that than it would be to try and build a politically viable third party.

And that is what I was suggesting with the OP.

*Elections are generally won not so much by the number of people supporting one candidate or the other but by whichever side is better able to "get out the vote." Usually there are more than enough people eligible to vote, who didn't vote but who support the "losing" side that, had a significant portion of those people actually voted they could have turned the election around. As one example, there were almost certainly, by a factor of about 3, enough people who, had they voted, would have voted for Campo rather than Carson in the the US House race for Indiana District 7. Getting that one in three otherwise unmotivated voter out to the polls is hard enough to do in the General election, but it can be done. The Democrats managed it quite well which is a large part of what gave us President Obama. It can be harder for a Primary (fewer people are motivated to vote in the primaries) but the number you need to get to win the primary is smaller so it may well be easier on net.

 

[antsi]

Most third party candidates represent political margins. Most voters are not at the margins. You either have to make your candidate more mainstream or shift the political mainstream toward the margins.

Bingo.

Related issue - a lot of people say they would like a multiparty system. That way, we could vote for the Full Auto Liberty Militia Party candidate, who no doubt would represent INGO values very closely.

If you look at what happens in multiparty systems, though, the Full Auto Liberty Militia Party never generates enough votes to take the government all by themselves. What they wind up having to do is form a coalition with other parties that are willing to tolerate most of their agenda. So the Full Auto Liberty Militia Party winds up cutting a deal with the Big Business Conservative Party, the Law and Order Enforcement Party, and the Christian Constitution Party. They have to do this in order to get enough representation to form a government.

Once they start making deals, everyone has to give up some on their agenda. The deal that gets struck between these parties is going to be somewhat dissatisfying to every party involved, because nobody is getting 100% of what they want.

The net result winds up being basically the same as a two-party system. Instead of having a right-wing coalition composed of the Liberty Militia Gun Nuts, the Christian Conservatives, the Big Business Conservatives, and the Law and Order Enforcement types, you get a single right-wing party with liberty, gun nut, Christian, big business, and law and order elements in it.

Same thing on the Left: the envirogreen whackos don't get 100% of what they want, because some of what they want conflicts with the labor unions. The abortion rights people don't get all of what they want, because they're in conflict with the "Jesus was a Socialist" brand of left-leaning Catholics. Whether it's a two party system and these groups all make their deals before the election, or it's a multi party system where these groups make their deals in Parliament, it's pretty much the same in the end.

 

[smoking357]

From my Livejournal page.
These are the main reasons that I believe that, in general, supporters of third party candidates such as the Libertarian party, while well meaning, are mistaken and in many cases, doing more harm than good to the cause of liberty. Yes, they may keep Ronnie Rino out of office but not by putting Leo Libertarian in instead. Nope, they just ensure that Donald Democrat gets the office instead. It’s like giving someone with a headache (Republican politicians) and a bleeding ulcer (Democrat politicians) aspirin (conservative-libertarian third party candidates). It may help with the headache but at the cost of making the bleeding ulcer worse.

The floor is open.

The Republicans are evil, and the Democrats are evil. Both parties have fixed the laws and rules to preserve the rule of these two parties.

Voting for either party, unless it's for Ron Paul, is committing an immoral act. The lesser of two evils is still evil. It's up to you whether it's necessary to commit a little evil.

 

[dom1104]

The thing is, it is simply too late to do anything other than personally prepare for the second depression.

No president, even Ron Paul can do anything in 4 years to fix a 100 year old spending problem.

We are going down, and its time to pay the piper.

Maybe AFTER the depression, we can vote some good people in, but it will be the status quo till then.

I would spend more time getting ready, than trying to figure out which loser who thinks Guam can capsize to vote into office.

 

[jsgolfman]

So, explain the reaction to Ron Paul. Apparently, America likes the nanny state or listened too much to his villifiers. You can cite differences with his foreign policy as a reason for not voting for him, but that's not what the polls say was the most important issue.

 

[Rizzo]

The Problem with Third Party Candidates is the ruling tyrannical establishment made up of republicans and democrats will not allow them to succeed nor break their monopoly on power.

And just because a third party has not won in a while doesn't mean it can't nor that it shouldn't. There is a ground swell of discontent in the US that is unprecedented. It is important for those who love the constitution to capitalize on this sentiment and wake people up from the lie that republicans like Romney are the answer to Pinko Obamaism.

Who was the greatest critic of candidates true to the constitution? Faux News!

Who was most critical of Ron Paul in 08? CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC ???? NO! It was Glen Beck on Fox!

And all the conservatives listened to the commands of their "conservative news" and who did they nominate????? JOHN McCain?!?!?!? Betrayal!

And who crushed Medina in the polls for the Texas governor race? CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NO!!!! It was Glen Beck the supposed "libertarian" commentator of Fox News.

I used to listen to Beck and liked him. But then one day I realized he gave lip service to my convictions but in action did everything to oppose them from being implemented by betraying true constitutionalist candidates.

All the miss guided becker-heads need to wake up. Party affiliation should be irrelevant. Vote for people who will follow the constitution.

 

[libertybear]

The Problem with Third Party Candidates is the ruling tyrannical establishment made up of republicans and democrats will not allow them to succeed nor break their monopoly on power.

And just because a third party has not won in a while doesn't mean it can't nor that it shouldn't. There is a ground swell of discontent in the US that is unprecedented. It is important for those who love the constitution to capitalize on this sentiment and wake people up from the lie that republicans like Romney are the answer to Pinko Obamaism.

Who was the greatest critic of candidates true to the constitution? Faux News!

Who was most critical of Ron Paul in 08? CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC ???? NO! It was Glen Beck on Fox!

And all the conservatives listened to the commands of their "conservative news" and who did they nominate????? JOHN McCain?!?!?!? Betrayal!

And who crushed Medina in the polls for the Texas governor race? CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NO!!!! It was Glen Beck the supposed "libertarian" commentator of Fox News.

I used to listen to Beck and liked him. But then one day I realized he gave lip service to my convictions but in action did everything to oppose them from being implemented by betraying true constitutionalist candidates.

All the miss guided becker-heads need to wake up. Party affiliation should be irrelevant. Vote for people who will follow the constitution.

I agree with everything you just said. Glen Beck made my ignore list when he publicly called me a "homegrown terrorist"