FM,
Seems we’d be better off over sitting with a drink. I wrote my honors thesis on American Third Party movements (many years ago).
Gov. Palin was primed to lead a populist movement after 2008- but I suspect, she understood the real dangers. She tried to cozy up with the Establishment- but they have no respect for her.
Your history of the Derpression era Presidents is apt- and history may repeat itself. Europe is tanking big time- and clearly, the global ruling classes have become far removed from the people.
Of one thing I’m certain- if it’s Romney v. Obama— it will be brutal.
Big mistake for insurgent outsider candidates... never cozy up to the establishment. They’ll use you up and spit you out. Always bring your message straight to the people and the voters.
What’s sad is seeing a party I’ve been in for 26 years (since I was a teenager) becoming the enemy of my belief system, scarcely but an echo of the profoundly corrupt Democrat party (what Goldwater warned us about in 1964). One that claims to stand for “smaller government” and “Conservatism”, but in reality is anything but. The very wrong people are in charge of the GOP, and if that doesn’t change or they don’t change direction, this party can just as easily head the way of its predecessor, the Whigs. As I’ve said, it’s not that America needs a third party... we need a second. Break the back of the big-government Demopublican/Republicrat Combine.
If it’s Willard vs. Zero, we just don’t have a dog in that hunt.