How many people would in fact leave the Republican party? We already have a lot of splinter parties; i.e. the Greens, Libertarians, Constitutional Party, Natural Law party etc. etc. Would we become yet another splinter party?
Think of that little prick Ross Perot. He was well on his way to winning that election, and then he realized it and had to put on the brakes.
In a three party race, it only takes 34% to win, if it’s a dead heat.
Could we get 35-45% of the electorate to buy into renewing America? My take is hell yes.
I will say this though, the first person who tries to pass sensible immigration reform from the new party that includes, instant legalization, a pathway to citizenship, and the right to stay here and take jobs U. S. Citizens should have, should be jettisoned out of the party immediately.
I would like a code of conduct. You start pulling the McCain, Graham, Rubio routine and you’re history.
Agreed. This would only only ONLY work - if we could peel off numerous disenchanted Democrats to join such a third party.
The Rats are gleeful and in fact directly PROMOTING a Republican-Conservative (two weak small parties) split, as we type. That’s why they LOVE Rubio’s duplicity
Yes, no doubt.Sad to say. If the Libertarians can’t get a third party going, that’s tough.
54 posted on 6/29/2013 2:10:42 PM by PapaNew: "The GOP was founded as a third party about seven years before the Civil War. How much worse does it have to get before a third party flies? They’ve tried unsuccessfully so many times."
149 posted on 6/29/2013 2:51:22 PM by 4Liberty: "The Rats are gleeful and in fact directly PROMOTING a Republican-Conservative (two weak small parties) split, as we type. That’s why they LOVE Rubio’s duplicity."
Several comments.
First, thank you Jim Robinson, for bringing this to our attention. We need to know about things like this.
Second -- and this is not to Jim Robinson but to everyone -- please count the cost. This sounds good in many ways, but Palin will get one chance as a third-party candidate. If she wins, she will become a major disruptor of the Republican's moderate wing. That would be a wonderful outcome, and for the reasons I cite below, it might just work if Palin runs for the US Senate from Alaska, or returns to the governorship.
But if she loses -- worst of all, if she loses in a way that hands a solid Republican seat over to a Democrat -- she will get viewed as a vote-splitter who is useful only to Democrats.
There's both positives and negatives in what 4Liberty said about liberals promoting this "conservative Third Party" agenda. It is not irrelevant that Politico, an internet news operation run by former Washington Post reporters, are the ones who reported this. However, that's a two-way street. Today, news like this can get communicated via the internet via both liberal and conservative operations which just a couple of decades ago would have been buried. Free Republic was a major part of derailing Bill Clinton's presidency and saving Bush's election against Dan Rather's attacks; in an earlier era, what Clinton did would have been effectively covered up and what Rather tried to do might very well have succeeded.
I know I'm going to be accused of throwing water on the fire, but the cold hard facts are that trying to create a third party is not a simple project. As PapaNew pointed out, it has been successfully done only one time in American history, and that was a century and a half ago when the Republicans replaced the dying remnants of the Whig Party.
In principle, just as ideologically committed liberal Democrats are willing to leave the Democrats if they abandon their principles, ideologically committed conservative Republicans must be willing to leave the Republicans. But let's count the cost first and not run off half-cocked.
Third, and perhaps most important, anyone who is seriously advocating a third party needs to look at what the Republicans did to replace the Whigs in the 1850s, as well as recent successful third-party campaigns.
While there are a small number of Libertarian and Constitution party elected officials at the local level, we have very few recent examples of third-party candidates running and winning statewide office, and none at the national level. Basically, those examples in recent history are limited to four:
* Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who won a write-in general election campaign to retain her Senate seat after she lost the Republican primary to a more conservative Sarah Palin supporter.
* Sen. Joe Lieberman, who won as a third-party candidate to retain his Senate seat after he lost the Democratic primary to a more liberal candidate.
* Sen. Bernie Sanders, who after multiple successful terms as mayor of Vermont's largest city leading a coalition of third-party city council members which effectively ran the city as a minority by having enough votes to prevent an override of Sanders' vetoes, ran for and won a US House seat and then a US Senate seat as an independent.
* Gov. Jesse Ventura, a former city mayor who won the Minnesota governor's race more or less out-of-the-blue as the candidate of the Reform Party, and had a seriously troubled administration since he didn't have a base of support from either political party.
An argument could be made that for a third party candidate to win, some or all of the following must be true:
* The candidate is very well-known, either due to incumbency or celebrity status.
* The candidate is in a small state where relatively low-budget one-on-one campaigns actually work.
* If the candidate doesn't have a prior record of elected office as a Republican or Democrat, he has served in a significant local office to get prior experience before running for a statewide post.
As of today, I have very serious doubts about whether a third party effort is viable. However, it's hard to dispute that Sarah Palin fits all of the criteria I've listed -- she's very well known, she is a longtime resident of a small state, she has significant prior service at the local level, and she's held multiple prior elected positions in the Republican Party.
I think there's a realistic chance that Sarah Palin could win a statewide race as a third-party candidate for the Senate, the House, or the governorship, would immediately get major national attention for doing so, and might be able to form the nucleus of a new party.
Would it work? I don't know.
What I do know is that if Palin won, the Republican Party would see its agenda forced rightward to avoid losing more races, either to members of her new third party, or to Democrats when moderate Republicans lost safe seats to Democrats after a third-party challenge handed the seat to Democrats.
I also think it's obvious that if Palin runs as a third-party candidate in Alaska, many people on Free Republic would become a major cheerleader for her. That could turn out to be a very good thing.
To hell with the Republican party. They ask everything and give nothing.