Why the Third Party Bust in 2008?

Final returns are still weeks away, but it's not too early to acknowledge one of the big surprises of the presidential election of 2008: the disastrous decline of fringe party candidates in a year that once seemed ripe for their efforts.

As recently as November, 2007, CNN's Lou Dobbs flatly predicted that neither a Democrat nor a Republican could win the White House this time: the certain victor, he declared, would be an Independent or the representative of some newly emergent protest party. His book, "Independents Day: Reawakening the American Spirit," became a major bestseller.

On a similar note, Douglas E. Schoen, former campaign consultant to President Clinton, published "Declaring Independence: The Beginning of the End of the Two Party System" early in 2008, also heralding a breakthrough year for a third party contender who could plausibly capture the White House. Meanwhile, a group known as "Unity '08," comprised of former officeholders and prominent political operatives from both major parties, promised a "Re-United States of America" and promoted an independent fusion "ticket" that would feature a former Democrat and a former Republican as running mates. For several months, speculation surrounded New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg who talked of funding his own campaign to the tune of more than $500 million; before he rejected the idea, Bloomberg reportedly discussed running together with outgoing Senator Chuck Hagel from Nebraska.

Even after these dreams of some independent "unity ticket" began to fade, energized Third Party activists continued to proclaim 2008 as a potential breakthrough year. The Libertarian Party, which had fielded little-known ideologues (like 2004's nearly invisible Michael Badnarik) as its presidential candidates for more than two decades, finally secured a well-known former Congressman (Bob Barr of Georgia) to head their ticket. On the left, the Green Party welcomed the candidacy of another former House member from Georgia: the fiery and charismatic Cynthia McKinney. The Constitution Party, fanning conspiratorial fears of a "North American Union" and 9/11 as an inside job, selected radio preacher Chuck Baldwin. And two much-publicized perennial candidates – Ralph Nader on the left and Alan Keyes on the right – launched their own vigorous independent campaigns.

Amazingly, despite all the expectations and activity, these minor party contenders have made little headway. In major polls within two months of the election, none of them drew support from more than 2% of the electorate. Since third party candidates always perform better in polls than they do in the actual returns (because citizens feel more reluctant to waste their ballots once they're in the voting booth), most election experts expect that all five of the major-minors --- McKinney, Barr, Baldwin, Nader and Keyes – will draw less than 2% combined.

In this context, it's reasonable to ask what happened to "Independents Day" or "The Beginning of the End of the Two Party System"?

For one thing, both Republicans and Democrats nominated candidates with strong appeal to cantankerous independents: John McCain and Barack Obama each bucked their party establishments while deploying post- partisan rhetoric against the bickering and gridlock in Washington. Both major candidates claim credible credentials as reformers and promise to break with the painfully polarized politics of the recent past.

The exciting and free-wheeling primary season also served to undermine the familiar protest candidate charge that the major parties shut out dissenters and insurgents. For the first time in fifty-six years, neither a sitting President nor a sitting Vice President ran for the White House so that neither party turned to an obvious front-runner. Both McCain and Obama had been dismissed as hopeless long-shots months before the primaries actually began, and both claimed their nominations only after spirited and highly competitive primary campaigns.

At the same time, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel on the far left and Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo on the far right. ran energetic campaigns for major party nominations, earning considerable exposure on the dozens of nationally televised candidate debates. The combination of intense publicity and strictly limited success for these efforts may have sapped some of the ideological energy that otherwise might have coalesced around some of the fringe candidates in November.

Finally, there's evidence that despite all the premature obituaries for the long-established major parties, the public may have developed a more mature and realistic attitude toward quixotic minor party efforts. Ralph Nader's campaign in 2000 almost certainly represented a turning point: Nader won 2.73% of the final vote and his relative strength in several key states (famously including Florida) almost certainly tilted the unforgettably close election to George W. Bush. In the bitter aftermath of the disputed result and Al Gore's defeat, countless Americans learned the eternal lesson of third party efforts: these campaigns always do the most damage to the serious candidates closest to them ideologically. This message came across at a time when voters had already wearied of the disillusioning electoral antics of Ross Perot: he drew 18.9% and 8.4% in his quixotic campaigns of '92 and '96, respectively, but his "movement" promptly disappeared when the eccentric billionaire lost personal interest.

As a result, the votes for minor party candidates plunged precipitously in 2004. Four years earlier, the three major third-party contenders (Nader of the Green Party, Pat Buchanan of the Reform Party, and Harry Browne of the Libertarians) drew a grand total of 3,718,000 votes. But in 2004, despite 10 million more votes cast overall, the top minor party candidates (Nader, again, of the Greens, Michael Badnarik of the Libertarians, and Michael Peroutka of the Constitution Party) polled only 1,006,000 between them---barely one-fourth the total of just four years before.

In 2008, with another close contest in a national race universally hailed as deeply significant, the number of votes diverted to meaningless, frivolous minor party adventures will probably shrink even further. Along with the greater openness and unpredictability in the primary process, the embarrassments of recent fringe candidacies have helped convince the overwhelming majority of Americans that they can only make a real difference by exercising their precious franchise within the two party system.

America's Independent Party, which was just started a few months ago (by FReepers, by the way...I'm the chairman)

????

http://www.politics1.com/parties.htm

AMERICAN INDEPENDENT PARTY - Governor George C. Wallace Congressman John G. Schmitz (AIP) 1972 (D-AL) founded the AIP and ran as the its first Presidential nominee in 1968. Running on a fiery populist, right-wing, anti-Washington, anti-racial integration, anti-communist platform, Wallace carried nearly 10 million votes (14%) and won 5 Southern states. Although Wallace returned to the Democratic Party by 1970, the AIP continued to live on -- but moved even further to the right. The 1972 AIP nominee, John Birch Society leader and Congressman John G. Schmitz (R-CA), carried nearly 1.1 million votes (1.4%). The 1976 AIP Presidential nominee was former Georgia Governor Lester Maddox, an unrepentant segregationist -- but he fell far below Schmitz's vote total. The AIP last fielded its own national Presidential candidate in 1980, when they nominated white supremacist ex-Congressman John Rarick (D-LA) -- who carried only 41,000 votes nationwide. The AIP still fields local candidates in a few states -- mainly California -- but is now merely a state affiliate party of the national Constitution Party. For the past several presidential elections, the AIP simply co-nominated the Constitution Party's Presidential nominee.

From the America's Independent Party platform:

Sovereignty

We completely oppose any action that surrenders the moral, political or economic sovereignty of the United States and its people, and demand the immediate restoration of that sovereignty wherever it has been eroded.

We demand the immediate securing and continuous vigilant maintenance of our sovereign territory and borders. We oppose any private or governmental action that rewards illegal entry into the United States in any way, and demand speedy and full enforcement of our laws concerning all such activities.

Our nominee, Alan Keyes, signed the MCDC's pledge, which I'll include below.

I don't how you could make a much stronger statement than this.

Minuteman Civil Defense Corps Presidential Pledge for Border Security

Foreword

A fundamental responsibility of the federal government is to secure the nation's borders and enforce the law. Every government representative at the federal and state level swears an oath of office to ensure this fundamental responsibility of office.

Our Border Patrol agents are under violent attack. Drug dealers are armed and assault our territory and sovereignty like a well-trained military cadre. The daily invasion of our country continues. The threat of incursion by criminals, violent gang members and individuals who may be members of terrorist organizations is a clear and present danger to our national security and is undermining our public safety.

The American people have overwhelmingly and clearly demanded that we secure our borders immediately.

Securing the borders of this nation is an Executive imperative

Americans realize we cannot rely solely on Congress to secure the borders. The President, as Commander-in-Chief, has an equal or greater sworn duty and mandate to protect us from foreign invasion.

That is why we call upon all the Presidential candidates to make the following Pledge in order to warrant our support:

MCDC Presidential Pledge

I hereby Pledge that as President I will not reward those who have come to our country illegally with the precious gift of American citizenship, by granting them any form of amnesty.

I hereby Pledge that I will as President regard the ongoing invasion of our country by millions of foreign nationals as the clear and present danger to our nation’s security that it is, and that I will therefore take swift Executive action to confront and end it.

I hereby Pledge that as Commander-in-Chief I will make use of existing U.S. Military Services and National Guard manpower to bring a stop to the human tide that is flowing through our border areas, until such time as Congress makes further civilian manpower available to meet this threat. I will immediately act to deploy a minimum of 30,000 troops to bolster security measures around the entire perimeter of the contiguous territory of the United States. This will include the deployment of 20,000 Guardsmen to the southern border, 5,000 deployed along the northern border, and 5,000 to assist the Coast Guard and enhance coastal and port security. Guardsmen will be relieved of this duty only as they are replaced by newly-deployed Border Patrol agents.

I hereby Pledge that as Commander-in-Chief I will make use of existing U.S. Military Services and National Guard technological resources to bring a stop to the human tide that is flowing through our border areas, until such time as Congress makes further civilian resources available to meet this threat.

I hereby Pledge that as Commander-in-Chief I will make use of existing U.S. Military Services and National Guard physical resources to bring a stop to the human tide that is flowing through our border areas, until such time as Congress makes further civilian resources available to meet this threat. This includes the provision of all necessary materials and manpower to provide triple layer fencing along our entire southern border during my first year in office, wherever previous Congressionally-funded fence building efforts are not being carried out in a timely fashion.

I hereby Pledge that I will make full use of my Executive authority to implement the interior enforcement of all of our existing laws. This includes Executive action in opposition to any municipal or state so-called “sanctuary” policies that work to illicitly protect illegal aliens and criminals, and a mandate that all state and local domestic law enforcement personnel will in the course of their duties inquire of and as necessary investigate the immigration status of all persons with whom they come into law enforcement contact.

I hereby Pledge that I will make full use of the “Bully Pulpit” of the Presidency to build further public support for overwhelming action by the Congress to finally and completely solve the border security and illegal immigration crises. I will make it my goal to see that the federal authorities double the number of ICE agents handling interior enforcement, increase the Border Patrol to at least 40,000 agents, and increase detention space to incarcerate illegal aliens arrested, rather than letting them go with an empty and unenforceable promise to show up later for legal proceedings against them.

I Pledge that I will make full use of the diplomatic resources of the United States to work cooperatively with Mexico and Canada to smash the criminal drug cartels and human smuggling operations.

This pledge of action is what the American people want, need, and deserve.

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps encourages all Presidential candidates to sign this Pledge, and commit to do all in their power to see its implementation.

MCDC also calls upon every elected member of Congress, and every American citizen, to fully endorse the practical plan that is represented by this Presidential Pledge, and to fully support the deployment of every resource that is needed to provide true border security for the American people, protect our national sovereignty, and restore respect for the rule of law.

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