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Assuming she is the 'Rat nominee (which looks likely), Hillary has the most to gain from a third party candidate--just as Perot in 1992 helped Bill Clinton more than Bush.

A third party candidate tipped the election of 1844 to the 'Rats and the result was the Mexican War. A third party candidate in 1912 tipped the election to the 'Rats and we wound up being dragged into WWI.

A third party candidate (Pat Buchanan) almost tipped the 2000 election to Gore. Instead of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and a War on Terror, we would have had national self-flagellation after 9/11, efforts to apologize to the Muslim world, a war on global warming, and perhaps a war on Christian "intolerance" of Islam.

So third party candidates can make a big difference even when they draw paltry numbers of votes.