Is it time for USA to have a 3rd party?

[Dauphin]

In Britain, for example, Labour can almost literally do anything it want.

Britain uses the first past the post system, atypical of most European countries and more like the US.

I think this contradicts your argument

[Transcend]

There are significant differences in how candidates are voted into the parliament in various countries.

One way is what the US and UK are doing: divide up the country in districts, winner of each district gets everything while the losers get none. This type of election system usually favors only 1 or 2 parties, and rejects smaller parties.

The other way is what Israel and German Weimarer Republic uses: the percentage of each party received in national election determines the make-up of the parliament. What you get here is that even the smallest party has a chance to show up in the national parliament. Both Israeli and Weimarer parliaments has or had over 30 parties.

Then there is the hybrid solution which is employed by Germany today: half of the parliament is made up from candidates from winners in districts, while the half depends on the votes parties received at the national level. If you want multiple parties and to avoid splintering of votes at same time, this is the way to go.


Almost every country except the US has a head of state and a head of government. The head of state is always a president or a
monarch, and the head of government is usually the prime minister(Germans call it Chancellor). The American President is the only person I know that performs both as the head of the state and the head of government. The "government" I mentioned here only refers to the executive branch.


The American Presidential Cabinet is also rather unusual compared to the rest of the world, because its members are directly selected by the President. The parliament(Congress) has very little to say about its composition other than denying the confirmation of ministers(Secretary). In every other democracies, cabinet members MUST be member of the parliaments and of the ruling parties.

The head of American government(executive) is also directly elected by the people and does not derive from the majority in the parliament. It's quite often than American executive and legislature are led by opposite parties, a pheneomen that's also very rare in other democracies.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yes a third party would be nice, but the way I'd do it was suggested by Stefu (I think) where you'd have a runoff election a week (or so) after the first election if no one got 50% of the vote. The ranking of people and STV in a Parliamentary system gets to be a bit too complicated (especially for House positions).

The reasoning for not combining House districts and then voting 2 or more Reps from a district using STV is because the House is supposed to represent local interests. Therefore, having one person per district represents those people much better.

I remember some time ago, I advanced the idea that the House should have 2000 members in it to fully represent localities (this would also increase the chances of 3rd parties... especially the Green Party in the West Coast). I believe that each Representative and Senator should be elected by 50% of the people. So a runoff election should be held (rather than a ranking system, which seeing the results of voting in Florida, I am unconvinced people could handle ).

[Shi Huangdi]

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin

In Britain, for example, Labour can almost literally do anything it want.

Britain uses the first past the post system, atypical of most European countries and more like the US.

I think this contradicts your argument

Right, but the reason Britain has the problem is that the way it is set up is that whichever party controls the House of Commons can do whatever it wants, and individual MPs have little power on their own.

[Ramo]

Support the Greens! Or the Libertarians!

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Ramo
Support the Greens! Or the Libertarians!

ugh

Jon Miller

[Bereta_Eder]

ooops wrong thread

[Wraith]

--"Would you like to see a third party?"

Er... I belong to a third party.
It's time for the press to start paying attention to it, is all.

--"Oh, and Pat Buchanan, from what I've seen, is a nut and a half."

Yes. Yes, he is.

--"the reform party almost made it in"

Well, they were able to scare the two major parties into (yet another) rule shift, but the Reform Party was never more than personality cult. Once Perot left it was doomed.

--"Then maybe the TWO tradional parties could shift a bit away from the center"

Okay, not the first time this has shown up in this thread. Since when are either of them "centrist" by US historical standards?

Wraith
Death or compliance - now that's not too much to ask for, is it?

[mactbone]

Hey, Wraith, if your party can't command more than 10% in national elections, it's not a party anyone cares about. We're talking about a VIABLE party.

What kind of name is the "Indepedent Party", I mean, we don't have an "Independent Conference" in NCAA, they're just independents.

[Wraith]

--"Hey, Wraith, if your party can't command more than 10% in national elections, it's not a party anyone cares about"

This is what's known as a catch-22. We need mainstream media recognition to get significant numbers in national elections, but until we get significant numbers in national elections the mainstream media will have an excuse not to cover us. We would have done well if we had recieved the same amount of attention Nader or even Buchanan recieved.

As far as viability, well, we aren't going anywhere. The Green Party will be dead in the water as soon as Nader stops running. The Reform Party is pretty much gone already, and none of the others comes close to the Libertarian Party is numbers, elected officials, or organization.

Wraith
"Democrats are... the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it."
-- P. J. O'Rourke

[faded glory]

If anything I think Enron will sort of Re-Energize the Reform and Green partys.


Finally I must conclude that I agree with Pat Buchannon. In that there are no Ultra-Conservatives to Challenge the Conservatives and there are no Social Democrats, to Challenge the Democrats. So both partys dont need to worry about there power, because people will always vote for the lesser of 2 evils.

On the electoral......its not entirely true. There was a time USA had 4 partys. And 3rd party candidates like Teddy Roosevelts Bull-Moose werent uncommon back in the day.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

The rules in the US are certainly stacked against 3rd parties, and there's no history of their success in the US except as either fringe groups (The Vegetarian Party ran candidates for president repeatedly in the 1st few decades of the 20th century) or cults of personality (Perot, Wallace, TR, maybe even Debs). But another problem here is that everyone is assuming that parties actually mean anything anymore. Once, party identification was a point of pride, and a party was an institution to which people beloged and for which they would work, like a church or a fraternal organization. That's what building a 3rd party requires; only after it is successful can it largely dispense with its constituency exept when assembling them every four years for Nuremberg-rally-like conventions. That's why, these days, when people say "there should be a third party," they don't mean that they want to dedicate themselves to a political organization; they just mean they want the store to start stocking Dr. Pepper along with Coke and Pepsi.

This is why, if a third party emerges, it won't be centrist; building a party requires a dedicated organization sustained by ideological fervor. The Greens and the Libertarians have the best start here, and the Greens are probably slightly better positioned to succeed (since the GOP can convincingly embrace economic libertarianism, even if they don't mean it, but the Dems are having a harder time remaining believable as environmentalists). But I honestly think that if a third party does emerge in the US, it'll emerge out of the Christian right: they've got the money, the grassroots network, and the committed membership already in place. And if that happens, I'll surely regret all those times I said such mean things about the Republocrats.

[Imran Siddiqui]

they've got the money, the grassroots network, and the committed membership already in place. And if that happens, I'll surely regret all those times I said such mean things about the Republocrats.

*shudder* So scary...

[Rex Little]

U.S. electoral rules definitely hurt third parties. Either of the changes Stefu suggested (runoffs if no one gets a majority, or preference votes) would really help; I'm sick to death of hearing the "wasted vote" excuse for not voting Libertarian, and the Nader votes really did have the unintended consquence of electing Bush last time.

Another change I'd like to see is to quit basing representative bodies on geography. Instead, people should be able to select a representative who really represents them, regardless of where they happen to live. Proportional representation (each party gets seats in proportion to their votes) would approximate that, but I'd like to see the system be even more flexible by getting away from party designations altogether. For instance, if enough people decided that promoting the space program was the most important issue, they should be able to seat a rep who promises to make that his primary concern.

Finally, I (unhappily) agree with Shi that the major parties have too much vested interest in the current system to ever allow changes like these to happen.

[Wraith]

--"If anything I think Enron will sort of Re-Energize the Reform and Green partys."

I don't really see that happening. If the Reform Party can get rid of Buchanan, maybe so, but the most likely replacement would be for Perot to come back. Not sure his oil/energy ties would exactly be helping him right now...
As for the Green Party being re-energized by Enron, well, not likely. Enron had too many ties to various green movements in the first place. They were one of the groups petitioning Bush to support Kyoto (emissions credit trading would have been big money for them). They were also one of the bigger industry global warming advocates, despite what their own scientists were telling them. If the Greens try to capitalize on this they're going to get discredited and lose a lot of ground.

--"because people will always vote for the lesser of 2 evils."

Yeah, that's pretty much the way it is. Exit polls anymore show that elections are more about who's got more votes against them than for them.

--"and there's no history of their success in the US except as either fringe groups"

Some of those fringe groups ended up very powerful. The Prohibition Party managed to get the Constitution changed (failed experiment that was, but still). The Socialist Party never really managed to gain a large following, but their entire platform is current policy thanks their influence.

And don't forget the Whigs being replaced by the Republicans. Third parties have had a lot of influence in the past.

--"since the GOP can convincingly embrace economic libertarianism, even if they don't mean it,"

You're probably right about the Dems, but the GOP can't claim economic libertarianims convincingly any more these days either. Republican budgets lately have been huge, and they certainly aren't above spreading the pork around (and being obvious about it).

--"I'm sick to death of hearing the "wasted vote" excuse for not voting Libertarian,"

That's one reason I'm looking forward to this next Presidential election. With an incumbent running this excuse loses a lot of force.

Wraith
I tried being reasonable once--I didn't like it