“Another *party* will have to form...”? There are three parties in the game now: Dems and Repubs, who are virtually indistinguishable and despicable; and Marxists, who have quite a few of the Ds and Rs in hand, but who are *glaringly* different than Ds, Rs, Libertarians, and any other legitimate politicians.
You don’t vote revolutionaries down. They hang around and try, try again. When they succeed, you look back on “one person, one vote, once.” Our situation is getting worse by the day, but maybe, just maybe, our vision is improving.
Not since 1853, when the presidency of Millard Fillmore ended, have we had a President who has not been a Democrat or Republican. That is 156 years of two party dominance of the White House. Millard Fillmore was a Whig.
Duverger’s law explains the tendency of a plurality-centered electoral system for a two party system of election.
Since President Fillmore, the Democrats and Republicans have established themselves as the major two parties in accordance with the principles of Duverger’s law.
There are several third parties that exist today all of which try to establish themselves on the ballots in each state. Currently, their current ability is only to frustrate the major two parties by siphoning votes from them to the point that it could cause the opposite major party to win. With very few exceptions, third party candidates only suffice to bring attention of various issues to the major two parties.
If a third party candidate wants to win, there has to be a major fallout in either or both of the major two parties. Each party, major or minor, has a base voting block. These are groups of people that these parties cater to for their support so they will take on issues that are important to their base.
We will examine the 2004 and 2008 Presidential election results to find some trends in both major parties and minor parties.
2004
Republican: George W. Bush. Won.
Popular Vote: 62,040,610 votes. 30% Eligible Voter Turnout.
Democrat: John Kerry. Lost.
Popular Vote: 59,028,444 votes. 28.7% Eligible Voter Turnout.
Non Party: Ralph Nader. Lost.
Popular Vote. 465,650 votes.
Libertarian: Michael Badnarik. Lost.
Popular Vote. 397,265 votes.
2008
Republican: John McCain. Lost.
Popular Vote: 59,934,814 votes. 28.7% Eligible Voter Turnout.
Democrat: Barack Obama. Won.
Popular Vote: 69,456,897 votes. 31.6% Eligible Voter Turnout.
Independent: Ralph Nader. Lost.
Popular Vote: 738,475 votes.
Libertarian: Bob Barr. Lost.
Popular Vote: 523,686 votes.
In 2008, it is estimated that the Registered Voters was around 214,579,951 voters. In 2004, the estimate was 206,250,517 voters. This in an increase of 8,329,434 voters.
With a 52.9% Democrat versus a 45.7% Republican popular vote, we can take the 8,329,434 additional voters and average them out to 4,406,270 votes for the Democrat, 3,806,551 votes for the Republican, and 116,613 votes for the Third Party candidates.
We also see a small increase in votes for third party candidates from 2004 to 2008 but they have not amounted to anything significant to warrant any major claim of prominence.
The above data doesn’t fare well for third party candidates. If this trend continues, none of us will be alive at the time their candidates can get enough votes to win the White House...
http://forums.hannity.com/archive/index.php/t-1442791.html
I believe that this situation (NY-23) is further proof of my cynicism in regard to the Republican Party: I believe that they do not actually endorse their stated party-planks, but rather give them lip-service and then claim to us that they really, really ARE trying. {Fiscal responsibility, immigration, abortion, etc...}
Perhaps it’s not that the Republican party is dissolving, but that there is a war brewing as noted by some here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2364819/posts