Posted on 07/14/2015 3:02:58 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
‘My sole focus is to run as a Republican,” Donald Trump told my Washington Examiner colleague Byron York last week, “because of the fact that I believe that this is the best way we can defeat the Democrats.” He went on, “Having a two-party race gives us a much better chance of beating Hillary and bringing our country back than having a third-party candidate.”
But when York asked if he would definitively rule out running as a third-party candidate, Trump said, “It’s not something I’m thinking about right now.” And as John Fund pointed out in National Review, it is something Trump has thought about in the past.
He made a feint at getting Ross Perot’s Reform-party nomination back in 1999. And while Trump recently called Clinton “the worst secretary of state in the history of our nation,” somehow overlooking James Buchanan’s feckless stint in the Polk administration, he also contributed to her Senate campaigns and has called her “a terrific woman.”
The fact is that Trump, as a national celebrity and a non-politician often at odds with both parties, has the capacity to launch an independent candidacy scoring double digits in polls, just as Perot did in 1992 and Colin Powell could have done in 1995.
That should scare not only Republicans but also Democrats. History tells us that third-party candidacies have reshuffled the political deck and disrupted seemingly stable political alignments in unanticipated ways.
Consider the Populist movement of the 1890s that came during a 25-year period when partisan competition was as close as today and divided government as much the norm, though with Republicans usually holding the presidency and Democrats usually with congressional majorities.
The Populists supported inflationary silver currency and aid to farmers, and the 1892 Populist nominee carried most electoral votes in the plains and mountain states (all admitted to the Union by Republicans).
As a national celebrity and a non-politician often at odds with both parties, Trump has the capacity to launch an independent candidacy scoring double digits in polls. In 1896, Democrats nominated the pro-silver, pro-farmer William Jennings Bryan, but in reaction the Northeast and industrial Midwest swung to the pro-gold-standard Republican William McKinley. Republicans won seven of the nine next presidential elections.
Half a century later, in 1948, Strom Thurmond’s States’ Rights Democratic candidacy destabilized the national Democratic party’s majority coalition. Thurmond’s 39 electoral votes didn’t defeat Harry Truman, but Thurmond helped to detach the South from its traditional Democratic allegiance. Democratic nominees carried all the Confederate states 17 times before 1948. None ever has again.
George Wallace’s third-party candidacy in 1968 advanced that process at the presidential level. But his 1964, 1972, and 1976 campaigns in the Democratic primaries provided a template for conservative Democrats to win congressional and state races in places that tilted Republican presidentially. That delayed Republicans’ capture of majorities in the U.S. House until 1994.
Ross Perot’s candidacy in 1992 came after Republicans won five of the six previous presidential elections, and after George W. Bush carried 40 states in 1988. But Perot’s spring campaign “de-partisanized the critique of Bush,” as deputy Democratic chairman Paul Tully told me at the time, in a way no Democrat, certainly not a little-known young governor of Arkansas, could have done.
But when Perot abruptly withdrew from the race, on the Wednesday of the Democratic National Convention, Bill Clinton’s standing in the polls rose 25 points in one day — surely a record that will never be beaten. Democrats won four of the next six presidential elections.
But their leftish policies, in Clinton’s first two years and Barack Obama’s two terms, have helped produce Republican majorities in nine of the next House elections and have resulted in the polarization of the electorate that so many pundits lament — and which is the last thing Perot promised.
What could be the consequences of a third-party Trump candidacy? Immediate speculation is that it would cost Republicans the votes of many conservatives disgruntled with the party’s officeholders and angry about immigration, trade, and Common Core. That’s certainly plausible.
But Trump might also siphon votes of non-college whites from Democrats in states where their support was high enough to produce Obama victories. Examples include Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. All voted 54 percent or less for Obama in 2012, and altogether they have 84 electoral votes.
The present close partisan balance and polarization will not last forever. And Donald Trump seems like just the kind of guy who could disrupt it — in ways no one now can anticipate.
— Michael Barone is senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner.
Trump should consider doubling down on telling the truth.....
the news cycle will make him.... some ol’ same ol’ soon....
IF he doesn’t..
There is Sooo much material to describe givernment knuckle-head schemes.. especially by Obama..
Trump should hire comedians.. to write his speeches..
suggestion... re-write “NONE OF THE ABOVE” if not Trump..
If he runs—it might be the start of a new party—Not a a Reform Party Ego Trip but a new political reality—The Liberty Party.
If we don’t have a political revolution, what’s the alternative? At some point some spark will ignite the other kind.
Sorry but a Trump third party run will take 80% of its votes from the Republican candidate.
How is he different?
And with all these guys, how do you really know how they'll turn out?
Perot at the start of his campaign looked different than he did after he quit and then jumped back in again.
Trump will be Perot 2.0 only if he runs as a 3rd party candidate for POTUS in Nov 2016.
I assume if he’s a ballot candidate for the R nomination in most states, sore loser laws will make a November run pretty much futile.
Clinton 45
R 30
Trump 25
Hillary wins with approx 370 evs, just like Bill in 92.
We are around the corner from something happening. The people have had ti with the left. The GOP might also go down with them too.
The are buying antacids in bulk!
I think Trump could actually win third party. The Dems aren’t that excited by Hillary and they like Donald.
“Somehow I don’t see The Donald as VP material.”
He’s an egotist. So are all Presidential candidates, and they’ll do anything to win. He’d willingly follow in the tradition of John Adams.
The more Trump talks, the better and legitimate he sounds. He reflects most of what I’m thinking and my BS meter is telling me more and more that he means what he says. And I started out quite jaded but don’t think he is that good of an actor nor do I think his speech writers are that perfect to be hitting so many perfect notes. That only leaves me to think he is legit.
I do know for certain that I would applaud a third party run if Jeb Bush is the candidate.
It is impossible not to expect some kind of media black out coming soon against Trump.
Truth has to be silenced. Especially, when it is delivered with a degree of confidence so great that it actually rings bells and scatters the wolves.
Every single vote of his will come from the GOP Rino candidate.
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You say that like it’s a bad thing.
I did happen to catch Trump on TV in a dated interview say that running on a Third Party ticket, or an Independent, would hurt the Republicans.
He didn’t deny that he understands the ramifications of doing such a thing, but on the other hand, the Republicans are already dead, as a party at all, so long as it remains in the hands of the UniParty thugs, Boehner and McConnell and the Gang of Eight, et al.
I believe he will watch the chips fall, read the tea leaves and move as he sees fit. So, it depends on if he thinks Hillary is a crook or not, to such an extent that he believes she needs to be defeated to save the nation, or if he determines under her, we continue the downward spiral.
You’re considering head counts of voters.
We have to consider the whole thing revolves around three or four states out comes. Watching state poll numbers will be more interesting. Except electoral votes are not in every case bound by their own state’s election outcome, in it’s popular vote.
Do you really think The Donald would take the Second Spot to anything? Nah..... He’ll be at the top of the Ticket or nothing.
Sorry but a Trump third party run will take 80% of its votes from the Republican candidate.
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Sorry, but you don’t understand. We are so fed up with both Parties, WE DON’T GIVE A S**T!!!
I think Trump could actually win third party. The Dems aren’t that excited by Hillary and they like Donald.
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This is the first time I’ve ever thought that a 3rd Party Candidate could really win. If it’s Hillary (D), Jeb (R) and The Donald (I).....
I think Trump could win it.
Ditto! I don’t think that is a scenario the establishment wants to see played out.:)
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