Actually it started lower down than president, much more a grass roots response to the Kansas Nebraska Act. It organized to form majorities in most Northern states. Then the presidency with Lincoln.
Third parties trying for the top job today are spoilers at best. As we see on this site lately, they campaign against Romney, not Obama. No hope of actually winning the executive branch, merely preventing the GOP nominee from doing so.
Their first presidential candidate was in 1856, only 4 years before Lincoln.
We are working against the GOP nominating a socialist as its candidate for president.
I have ZERO loyalty to a party. I will support whichever party is compatible with my ideology. Conversely, I will oppose any party or candidate that is incompatible with my ideology.
The republican party crosses the line if it nominates Romney the socialist as its candidate. It will become the second socialist party in this country... And for that it deserves our opposition.
However, we are not to that point yet. NOTHING is inevitable about Romney being the nominee. It doesn’t have to happen, the convention CAN be opened up if enIts plunging a knife into its own heart and it NEEDS an intervention.
If the GOP nominates a socialist, it will have made an enemy of me.