Posted on 11/03/2010 10:41:10 AM PDT by WebFocus
Off the top of my (very groggy) head, I cannot think of too many cases where a Democrat lost a winnable race because of too many left-of-center votes drifting to a liberal third party, other than Ralph Naders role in the 2000 presidential election.
Last night, a withdrawn third-party bid ended up costing Republicans at least one key victory. Im starting to think the New York 23rd district is cursed. Doug Hoffman, Conservative-party candidate, inspiring figure of 2009′s special election, made a remarkably mature decision to drop his Conservative bid this year and back the Republican, Matt Doheny. Last night, 6 percent of the district voted for Hoffman, even though he had withdrawn. Democrat Bill Owens is ahead by 2.4 percent.
In Oregon, Republican Chris Dudley is hanging on in the governors race; his 1.1 percent lead is less than the share of the vote that went to the Constitution-party candidate (1.4 percent) and the Libertarian-party candidate (1.3 percent).
Harry Reid will win reelection with 50.2 percent of the vote, but Sharron Angle only won 44.6 percent.
Tim Cahill cost Charlie Baker his shot at the Massachusetts governorship.
In Indiana, one of the cycles promising Republicans, Jackie Walorski, has fallen short by 1.4 percent while the Libertarian candidate took 5 percent.
Massachusetts Republicans are bummed this morning. In the 10th district, Democrat Bill Keating is going to win with a mere 46.9 percent of the vote.
In Rhode Islands 1st district, a lot of Democrats worried about their man David Ciciline; he won 50.6 percent of the vote but is six points ahead of John Loughlin.
In Colorados governors race, we saw a strange reversal: the surprising 11 percent who backed Republican Dan Maes probably cost conservative independent Tom Tancredo a victory, or at least a chance to take Democrat John Hickenlooper down to the wire.
Late in this cycle, we saw desperate Democrats doing everything they could to promote little-known third-party options. Sometimes it didnt work (Alan Grayson, Tom Perriello). But clearly the Democrats will go back to this option, time and again, until right-of-center voters realize that if you want to throw out an entrenched liberal Democrat incumbent, there is only one real option. Every vote has to be earned, but sometimes you have to be willing to take someone less than ideal if you want to throw a bum out.
I thought my statement about spiritual and cultural differences was self-evident.
Conservatism is built on Judeo-Christian religious principles.
Libertarianism is built on secular, man made principles.
Culturally, the the Libertarian-Conservative divide is also obvious.
Abortion, drugs, gay marriage, and American patriotism all instantly come to mind.
My point, before and now...
It is not realistic to believe that Conservatives and the GOP can craft a national platform that will appeal to large numbers of Libertarians.
“That is the first I have ever read that Taft would have lost to Wilson. Is there data that supports that?”
i had read a book last year about Teddy and they obviously mentioned this race. Apparently Taft was becoming deeply unpopular with the rank and file of his own party as well as the electorate at large. i dont know if there was actual polling done (cannot remember what the book referenced). they did mention that Taft being a former judge wasnt really into the whole “politicking” thing. Teddy needed little coaxing by certain party officials who tried during the convention to “draft” him to be the nominee but it was blocked. Anyhow do i konw for certain that Taft would have lost in a two man race? No however based on this source (albiet it is just one that i have read) it appears that he would have.
at any rate obviously its all water under the bridge and Teddy definitely didnt help by running as a Third Party that is for sure
The reason they voted for the Libertarian candidate is that they are probably registered as Libertarian voters.
You're expecting them to abandon their party for the good of your party.
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