The Politico’s W. James Antle III has written an article surveying the diverse options voters will have for president in November — “more … than just John McCain and Barack Obama.” Antle says third-party candidates this year are “seeking to tap into discontent on the left and the right.”
Of the leading candidates on the left, he says:
[Ralph] Nader and [Cynthia] McKinney will both take up some progressives’ complaints that the Democratic Party has been too accommodating of corporations, too slow to end the war in Iraq and, believe it or not, too conservative.
Of the candidates on the right:
The Constitution Party also said “no, thanks” to perennial GOP candidate Alan Keyes, instead picking the lesser-known Pastor Chuck Baldwin because his noninterventionist foreign policy views are more in line with the party’s platform.
Unlike [Mike] Gravel, however, Keyes hasn’t thrown in the towel. He has started America’s Independent Party — a variation of a familiar name for minor parties — and still considers himself in the running. So in a few states, voters may have the option of Keyes, as well.
And of right-wing minor parties in general:
The recent history for minor parties of the right isn’t encouraging. Pat Buchanan, who started out with similarly encouraging poll numbers and who is much more famous than Barr, won just 0.42 percent of the vote as the Reform Party nominee in 2000. Paul won about 0.5 percent as a Libertarian in 1988. John J. Schmitz took 1.4 percent as a sitting congressman in 1972. The Constitution Party has yet to break 200,000 votes nationally, despite having fielded presidential candidates since 1992.
In the past 40 years, the candidates who have done best were the most difficult to classify ideologically. George Wallace took 13.5 percent and five states running on a populist, segregationist platform in 1968. John Anderson won 6.6 percent as a centrist in 1980. Ross Perot, who mixed populism and centrism, polled at 19 percent in 1992 and at 8 percent four years later.
Based on Perot’s success, Antle says a party that’s neither liberal nor conservative would have the most potential for success. “Liberals and conservatives mostly feel as though they have a major-party home, while many moderates don’t.”
However, Antle views Bob Barr and the Libertarian Party as “conservative” — not uniquely libertarian — and advances the “spoiler” argument as a reason to doubt Barr’s prospects:
If Barr or another conservative third-party candidate does well, he might be seen as a Nader of the right. A May 16 Rasmussen poll found Barr at 6 percent and Nader at 4 percent, with Obama beating McCain 42 percent to 38 percent. While these numbers should be taken with a shaker full of salt, anti-McCain conservatives will be reluctant to supply Obama’s margin of victory.
Most third-party advocates would beg to differ with Mr. Antle’s analysis. He admits that many Americans are dissatisfied with tthe two-party system, but suggests it’s because the Republicans are seen as “too conservative” and the Democrats as “too liberal,” while the people want a “centrist” alternative. Third-party advocates — from the CP to the GP and everyone in between — are more likely to argue that Americans’ discontent stems from the issues on which the two parties are in agreement. A centrist party, which would presumably cover even more common ground, would thus be even less appealing.
Peter – I agree with you and disagree with the author of the article. I was just making his point for him!
But again, I’ll add nuance: The few things that Perot DID stand for — opposition to NAFTA, dealing with the national debt — were things that the major parties did NOT. This further weakens the author’s case that the problem is the right/left extremism of the majors. The problem is the bipartisan consensus!
Peter – The author’s point is that it DID “work well” for Perot — or at least better than it did for anyone else in recent times (19%). But it wasn’t the centrism that attracted people to Perot, it was his disagreements with BOTH parties — most notably, NAFTA and acknowledgment of the debt.
Mr. Antle seems to be some sort of conservative-political wizz-kid of writing.
He writes for AmCon, American Spectator, AND Politico?