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The corollary of that is that we don't need more conservative/libertarian parties. One is enough if we hope to win elections. Folks who don't win elections (regardless of ideology) are losers.

Of course you are assuming a REAL, focused, third party would be a failure. That assumption has never been tested since no such party has existed.

So just remember, "if you always do what you've always done, you will always get what you always got."

"Of course you are assuming a REAL, focused, third party would be a failure. That assumption has never been tested since no such party has existed."

American history is littered with single issue (or small number of issue) parties that lasted one or two elections, but which don't usually rate even a footnote in the standard US histories. Unfortunately, your proposal has been tried a huge number of times, and the results have been (almost uniformly) abysmal. The Reform Party helped elect Bill Clinton. The Dixiecrat Party failed to stop Truman. The Henry George Single Tax Party (only tax real estate) went no where, though it threw some real scares into local politicians for a time. T. Coleman Andrews ran in 1956 on a platform to abolish the income tax (Independent Party?).

The most recent third party to survive in the US is the Republican Party. It began with a smaller number of issues, but has expanded its issues over time to try to achieve and maintain a large enough coalition to win elections-- the necessary precondition to accomplishing anything.