posted
Eh, the main problem with third-party parties in the United States is that they see themselves as protest votes. The Libertarians, for instance, could easily get local seats left and right throughout most the 'heartland' area, but never really try for them.
Likewise, the Greens could carry seats on the West Coast if they pushed.
But the parties really only push when they're upset at their 'main' party, and then only to wound that party in some way. That's why there's really no desire to vote for them.
WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
I choose to exercise my option to succeed from the Union.
Well....IIRC, Texas still has it in it's state constitution that it can choose to remove itself from the United States. Heck, I figure give it about 25 years and the whole southwestern states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California will become the country of "Northern Mexico".
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Screw that- I'm voting like twelve times for Obama. The republicans and their churchy psycho evangelicals can fuck themselves, repent, be born again and fuck themselves all over again.
Even if half of what Obama says is bullshit, he'll be a better president than McCain and his cronies.
Hell, Georgie Boy has lowered the standards for being President so much, that I'm sure I could be a better President even if all I did was take blow in the Oval Office all day.
Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Eh, the main problem with third-party parties in the United States is that they see themselves as protest votes. The Libertarians, for instance, could easily get local seats left and right throughout most the 'heartland' area, but never really try for them.
That's not true. Both those parties hold hundreds of local seats across the country.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Not nearly as many as they could get, to be sure, and not enough to be an influence apart from their 'host' parties. A Green candidate, for instance, is still a Democrat in voting blocks. And a Libertarian is still a Republican in much the same way.
posted
Well, if you think there need to be more Libertarian/Green/whatever local candidates and that they have a chance of winning, you could always run. I might.
One of the problems is that the two major parties have done a heck of a job of keeping other parties off the ballots. In Tennessee, it is effectively impossible for a third party to be identified as a party on the ballots; they'd have to have won 15% of the popular vote in the last gubernatorial election or something ridiculous like that. Those laws are being challenged, but until then everyone on a lot of ballots is either (R), (D), or (I), regardless of actual party affiliation. Makes it require much more effort to be an unformed party voter.
As for "host" parties, that's nothing unusual in any form of politics. If you had four parties, say, of approximately equal size, they'd gang up with each other on a lot of issues. But not all, otherwise there'd be no point in having a separate party to begin with.
The reason there's no desire to vote for third parties is because most people don't know about them. Over half of voters from all parties want Bob Barr and Ralph Nader included in the debates, but the major parties and media never mention them at all. Why else would that be except that they're scared? They did the same thing to Ron Paul. Any candidate that's outside their world, they shut out of the information flow, and nobody hears about how popular they are, what they stand for, or frequently even their existence.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I actually thought about a local position, due to some issues Colorado Springs is having, but seeing how nasty even the politics locally was, I decided against it. (I've got three daughters, and I just don't want to subject the family to that.)
I think the real problem with third parties is that most voters are pretty much conditioned to their own party and won't, no matter what happens, even consider looking down or across the aisle. How many voters do you know who say "I voted Democrat all my life, and won't stop now!"
To realy vote for a third party, you do have to pay some attention to the facts behind the politics, and most people will NEVER do that. But they'll will bitch endlessly about what they get because of it.
quote:Originally posted by Omega: Then VOTE FOR SOMEONE ELSE! That's the point of this thread, you have options! Bob Barr is running over 6% in national polls, 11% in some states, and that's with the media and major parties doing everything they can to get him ignored and disqualified. Nader's not doing badly either, and if you don't like them, there's Chuck Baldwin for the Constitution Party and Cynthia McKinney for the Green Party. All of them are on enough state ballots that they can mathematically win, and if that doesn't matter to you, there are probably countless local parties and independents to vote for. If your teen pregnancy comment was serious, I suspect you might like the Constitution party. But look at them all!
If you can't support one of the major candidates, you can still vote! Do it!
Last time I voted for a third-party presidential candidate, Bush won his first term. I'm not doing it again soon, especially with a Republican incumbent in place, but in any case I'm pretty happy with Obama.
Have you studied how Britain went from a two-party to a three-party system? I haven't but that'll probably be helpful in understanding how to bring it about.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
If it makes any difference to you, that argument very much depends on what state you're in. In the present system the electoral college marginalizes the voters for the losing candidate in each state. In many states, you may be in such a minority that your vote for your preferred Big Dumb Unaccountable Government candidate has no effect at all. In that case, you might consider voting for your preferred third party candidate anyway.
For example, take Alabama. McCain is virtually guaranteed to win Alabama. If you vote for Obama in Alabama, your vote has no effect, at all. If you vote for McKinney in Alabama, your vote helps the Green party have an easier time getting on the ballot next election cycle, which is a worthy and achievable goal.
The risk you're worried about is that your third party vote could swing the state's electoral votes away from your preferred BDUG candidate. There's no risk of that if you're effectively guaranteed to lose the state anyway, and the risk is small if you're guaranteed to win. It's really only substantial in states like Florida and Ohio that tend to decide elections.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Well, the UK didn't so much change from two-party to three-party, as go from two-party to two-different-party (and one of them was the same as before, anyway). Historically you had the Tories and the Whigs, which started off less as parties than tendencies, ways of thinking, leanings in policies, whatever. The Tories became the Conservatives, the Whigs became the Liberals. Then, over the course of the 20th century, the Liberal party began to decline in membership, influence and support while the newly-formed Labour party gained in those areas.
Come the 1970s, Labour had many internal problems (so what else is new?) which led to a split after they lost the General Election in 1979, with many of their senior figures leaving to form the Social Democrats, the SDP. That party was effectively stillborn when the Conservatives won their 1983 landslide, and they ended up having to form a coalition with the remnants of the Liberals, the Lib-Dem alliance (jokingly referred to at the time as the LSD party) with two joint leaders. Eventually they merged for real as the Liberal Democrats.
Electorally, for a long time they muddled along with about 20 MPs. This started to rise as John Major's bare majority of about 20 after the 1992 election was whittled down over time in lost by-elections. Then, come the 1997 Labour landslide they came out of it with about 60 MPs.
There are positives though. Vince Cable, deputy leader who stood in after Ming resigned, is an excellent parliamentarian who knows he's not the man to lead the party; I would have preferred Chris Huhne as leader but he lost out to Clegg because, although a long-time Lib Dem financial supporter, he was only elected to Parliament in 2005 so was viewed as inexperienced. . .
quote:Originally posted by Omega: If it makes any difference to you, that argument very much depends on what state you're in. In the present system the electoral college marginalizes the voters for the losing candidate in each state. In many states, you may be in such a minority that your vote for your preferred Big Dumb Unaccountable Government candidate has no effect at all. In that case, you might consider voting for your preferred third party candidate anyway.
That makes sense, but in this case I actually like Obama, so I haven't really taken the time to look at other candidates. I do often vote for 3rd party candidates in regional elections though.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I'm sure I'm going to hate asking this, Diane, but I really would like an answer - I've YET to recieve one that wasn't snark, and I really would like to get a straight answer from an Obama supporter.
With Iraq effectively taken off the table, what about Obama's policies are making you vote for him? (Please, no comments about Bush, 'change', 'hope', or 'hating being an American' or what I usually hear.) Please, I beg you, just a comment on his actual policies!
(And, to sweeten the deal, I won't even debate what you answer. I sincerely just want to know.)
Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
Member # 1689
posted
Dunno about other Obamanites, but I'm going to vote for Obama because I don't want McCain in. It isn't so much about Obama's politics as McCain's, in other words.
Registered: Jul 2005
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