There must be something odd in the water today. It seems like everybody’s suddenly talking about whether this is a good time for America to finally get a third party onto the partisan playing field.
Dick Meyer at CBSNews.com writes:
I want a third party right now. I can’t take the Yankees and the Dodgers anymore. I’m not even that picky who the candidate is: Colin Powell, John McCain, Bill Bradley, Warren Buffett, Rudy Giuliani, Gary Hart, Lee Hamilton/Tom Kean, Oprah Winfrey, Russ Feingold, or Antonin Scalia. I’d support just about any one, provided they had money, buzz and a fighting chance.
Meyers goes on to make the interesting case that America, rather than being widely divided, is in fact only narrowly split — that the close races we’ve seen are because there are so many moderates who end up having to choose one or the other.
It’s a fascinating article, and I came across it via Joe Gandelman’s post about the actual viability of a third party, and where there are problems:
In fact, if you study third parties they have served mostly to (1) inspire major parties to co-opt some of their measures and eventually put them out of business, (2) serve as spoilers (sorry about that phrase Ralph Nader but it’s true, as you illustrated in 2000) that merely siphon votes away from one major party and help the other major party to win.
Yes, absolutely, that’s what third party candidates have historically done… and I might have stopped thinking about this subject with that, except then I came across this from Glenn Reynolds, in an immigration context:
The more I think about it, the more this looks like fertile ground for a third party to emerge. Who will it hurt more? The Republicans, or the Democrats? I’m not sure. Perhaps it will shake things up in general.
To Polimom, these are interesting thoughts all the way around — probably because I’ve been thinking along these lines also. However, I don’t know that I am interested in seeing another Ross Perot, or Ralph Nader – or any other unrecognizable-on-sight Independent.
Where I think we have a definable hole is smack dab in the middle. The Centrists? The Moderates? I’m ready for pretty much anybody that isn’t on the edges anymore.
Is it time for this? I’m not sure (there are some flaws in the way the system is set up), but the sudden chatter from unrelated points sure makes me wonder…