Free Republic

The numbers are startling. ......Given all of the above, advocates of a third party — or at the very least another viable option in the 2012 presidential race — seem to be sprouting up all over. [snip] The two most prominent are Americans Elect, a group aimed at winning ballot access for an eventual third-party candidate, and No Labels, an organization filled with high-profile names — including former George W. Bush media consultant Mark McKinnon and former Kentucky state treasurer Jonathan Miller — designed as an online home for the politically disaffected. “If you build it (ballot access), they (candidates...

President Barack Obama recorded a telephone message for Hawaiians urging them to vote for a Democrat in this month's special election for Congress, but he neglected to say which Democrat. With two Democrats running against one Republican in the mail-in, winner-take-all contest, polls indicate the Democrats are splitting their party faithful and Republican City Councilman Charles Djou is in the lead. The lack of a decisive endorsement by the president may just push Mr. Djou over the finish line.

"If the major competitive states are split, we could be talking about a situation where one electoral vote matters," said Randall Adkins, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Only Nebraska and Maine divide their electoral votes, though the votes have never actually been split. Obama has opened a campaign office in Omaha to make a play for the electoral vote decided by results in the 2nd Congressional District, which would be essential to victory if the election ended in a 269-269 electoral tie, neither candidate reaching the mandatory 270 electoral votes.

The year was 1992. America was in the midst of an economic recession, and a presidential election was looming. The two major parties produced a pair of candidates that had the electorate issuing a collective yawn -- a sitting president who seemed aloof and clueless on how to turn around the sagging economy and a slick-talking governor from Arkansas who seemed to have only a passing familiarity with the truth. Out of nowhere rode a brash little Texas billionaire who ran one of the most successful third-party presidential campaigns in history by spending a great deal of his own money...