What would a functional American Third Party look like?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Re: Re: What would a functional American Third Party look like?

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
1. Why does everyone assume the purpose of running in an election is to get elected? The reason these parties run presidential campaigns is that people will come out to listen to the Communist candidate for President, but not the Communist candidate for water reclamation district 5. Running a Presidential candidate is a way to get people to listen to their views.

Because for those who want to actually do something more substantive than hearing their own voice, winning elections is a bit of a prerequisite.

2. The Greens spend most of their energy running in local campaigns, and, IIRC, have more than 75 elected officials in the U.S. Granted, it's not a lot, but they are a small party running in a system where people are scared to vote outside thei main parties for fear of handing the election to the "wrong" candidate.

Out of more than 100,000 elected officials?

3. These parties are very small and don't have the resources to spend on multiple campaigns. One "big" campaign is easier than multiple small ones.

They're small because they have no appeal to the vast majority, and never will unless they start addressing issues of concern to a significant number of people, in a way supported by a significant number of people. As long as they want to be loonies on the fringe who use politics as a form of social circle-jerk among their in crowd, they're never going to be anything but small. If that's what they want, ok, but why should anyone consider them a real political party or take them seriously?

4. Sometimes they do get press coverage. Workers World was getting lots of coverage in '96 relative to their small size.

On slow news days when there was a need for comic relief. There's meaningful press coverage and there's filler.

[Edan]

In order for it to be a functional third party, it would need to draw support from Democrats and Republicans (otherwise, it'll just cripple one to the other's advantage. Likeliest it would be fiscally conservate (at least, compared to the other two parties) and socially moderate to liberal. It would probably need big names or spenders (ie, Perot, Schwartzenager, etc) to grab attention.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

the libertarians draw support from both crowds.

sorry, no PLS or PRD links in english.

http://www.liberal.ch/index_fr.html thats in french
http://www.liberal.ch/index_de.html thats in german (swiss german most likely)

[St Leo]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
or of [Democrats] appearing to have a credible, strong policy on national defense

Do the Republicans have one? What is it?

[Vince278]

Originally posted by St Leo

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
or of [Democrats] appearing to have a credible, strong policy on national defense

Do the Republicans have one? What is it?

[Conan]
Crush all enemies, drive them before you, ...
[/Conan]

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by St Leo

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
or of [Democrats] appearing to have a credible, strong policy on national defense

Do the Republicans have one? What is it?

Not really, but they fool enough of the electorate that the perception still works against the Dems, many of whom do suck far worse on national security issues.

[Edan]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
the libertarians draw support from both crowds.

They're probably too fiscally conservative for most Americans. They also need someone whose not a "lets blow up the UN" kook as their candidate,

[Edan]

Originally posted by St Leo

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
or of [Democrats] appearing to have a credible, strong policy on national defense

Do the Republicans have one? What is it?

Apparently, it's promoting democracy:

U.S. policies pay off in global security, says think tank

Wednesday, May 25, 2005 at 07:21 JST
LONDON — Washington's policies of promoting democracy in Iraq and elsewhere look "increasingly effective," and even the threat from terrorism abated slightly during 2004, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said in an annual report released Tuesday.

The London-based think tank noted, however, that the situation in Iraq was also creating a recruitment effect for terrorist groups, an aspect which remained "the proverbial elephant in the living room" of U.S. foreign policy.

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