US Third Parties

Take a look at the good letter before it rolls off.

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Riding in the wake of Hoffman's big election results in New York district 23, Judge Andrew Napolitano  invites Ron and son Rand Paul, both doctors, for a discussion on elections. The judge announced Rand, who is running as a Republican in the Kentucky senate race, is leading in the latest poll commissioned.

Although Ron ran on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1988, he seems less-than-enthused on taking that route these days. He points out that there wasn't a primary in the upper New York district, and that Dede was hand-picked. Where there are fair primaries, we can extrapolate, he must believe that's where the battle should be. But that extrapolation contradicts Paul's 2008 endorsement of Chuck Baldwin for president.
Some might call battling in one party primary and losing, then to keep fighting under the flag of another party in the general to be "sore loserism", but the Pauls, the TEA partiers, and all the sons and daughters of liberty see this as a fight for the republic to the end. 

The term "cognitive dissonance" is thrown around a lot by pundits trying to back their arts in the more concrete ground of science. But with an article by Politico, one political writer truly can't perceive what is impossible for him to conceptualize.

Josh Kraushaar manages to write a whole post about Doug Hoffman being the "dirty Republican" pulling tricks on Dede Scozzafava. Indeed, the post about an attack ad on Scozzafava is entitled "Republican Dirty Tricks."

Just one problem. While Hoffman is undeniably right of Scozzafava, Dede is the Republican! Indeed, he buried this fact extremely deep, yet never once mentions what party Hoffman belongs to. Maybe it's just inconceivable that a third-party candidate (who isn't a plutocrat or celebrity like Mike Bloomberg or Jessie Ventura) is on the verge of crowding one major party candidate out of the race.

Maybe for some it is impossible to conceive that a Conservative Party separate from the GOP can rise up and be an actual contender.

And I have to agree with a lot of the commentators. Hoffman's attack ad isn't only about Scozzafava. By presenting her as the "progressive choice," he may siphon a wing of disenchanted support from the Democrat, Owens, to  Scozzafava's camp, even as rank-and-file GOP shift to the Conservative. In that case, the splintering is brilliant. Perhaps it's a model for all third-party candidates to follow?

Tammy Houle, CPMN State party Chair:

It was a warm September evening when leadership from the Libertarian Party, the Constitution Party and five Ron Paul Republicans met at a Minnetonka restaurant to strategize about restoring Constitutional government in Minnesota. At least that was the perceived purpose for the meeting. Wayne Zimmerschied, vice-chairman of the CPMN and I, were on hand to represent our party. Because it was assumed that all in attendance were of a like-mind, dedicated to a renewal of liberty, albeit by different means, we were happy to sit down with this distinguished group of patriots.
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With the historic low approval ratings for Congress and President, part of me really expected to see 2008 as "the year of the third parties". But that dramatically failed to occur. Did anyone else have similar expectations? What do you think happened? Are Americans truly so ignorant that lurching back and forth from Democrat to Republican is the only change they can conceive of?

Given that this was already a bad year to be a third party supporter even before Super Tuesday, anyone seriously interested in overtaking the two-party duopoly should focus on not only getting ballot access in 2010 and 2012 but also winning some seats at all government levels as well. I am suggesting a different method because there are issues that neither party will touch and other things that both parties have logical points on but won‘t budge because of their own ideologues. Instead of just building a party from scratch, people who don’t particularly belong to either one of the two major parties should join forces with several regional parties that share the given platform. This group would more or less show flexibility when the two majors--and current minor parties--won’t.

So, who caught the debate last night? What did you think of it?

“Fight for the Right” Debate Added to 2008 Conservative Leadership Conference on the question, "Should conservatives and libertarians vote for the presidential candidate most ideologically similar to themselves…or for the candidate polling says is most likely to defeat Barack Obama?" x-posted

Here's another poll confirming the results of the one I posted a year (*gasp*!) ago: Polls show more reject both McCain, Obama

2-party system: No choice but evil Now if only Americans would grow the cajones to stand by their convictions...

U.S. Constitution Wearing Well in Modern America, But Zogby newsletter poll shows wide majority feels the two–party political system is not working well; Most want more options

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