College newspaper columnist criticizes third parties

In his column in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Badger Herald, Jack Garigliano uses the presidential campaign of independent Ralph Nader and U.S. House campaign of Libertarian Kevin Barrett to condemn third parties and independent candidacies in general, writing, “If you love your country and want to devote your life to improving it but can’t bring yourself to identify with either the Democratic or Republican parties, here’s a suggestion: Don’t run for office. Forget what your 4th grade teacher told you in civics class — just because you can grow up and run for president doesn’t mean you should, especially if you want to do something that matters. If you run for public office as a third-party candidate on the state and especially the federal level, your efforts to improve the nation will be wasted, and you will have squandered time and money you could have spent actually making a difference.”

Garigliano argues that Nader was once an effective activist, but his presidential candidacies have “done little more than make a vague political statement that grows weaker with each passing election.” As for Barrett, he is “another irrelevant political hopeful who used to make great strides toward addressing what he thought to be a major issue,” the alleged role of the U.S. government in the 9/11 attacks. Barrett “sparked a national debate on academic freedom and consequently brought an enormous amount of publicity to his cause. … How will a fruitless run for Congress prove his conspiracy theory or convince the public that he’s not a grade-A wacko, instead of doing just the opposite?”

He concludes, “While it is unfortunate that most elections in this country are limited to two parties and candidates with gobs of money and connections — that is simply the way our system works — and no amount of complaining or acting contrary to convention will change that.”