Need for a third party

[OriginalJS]

There are hundreds of political parties in the United States. I think there are over 200 in Texas alone. If you look around you will find any number in about any state. Many of them are crazies like the guy who used to walk around in Chicago in an Uncle Sam suit promising if elected to shoot drug traffickers on sight. There was a party in California that wanted to divide the state into three. It is a rich smorgabord! Go for it.

 

[mtk76]

Sorry but based on the ten principles it would take way more of the Republican base than the Liberal one…

Notice even though I agree with all church teachings and would be the Pro Life party I would not be The Catholic party because I would not take the conception issue on or you would be unelectable.

[SIGN]I’m all for a third party! Please make it as fiscally liberal as possible - big government, lots of regulations, etc. - so it attracts as many Democrats as possible.

Meanwhile, I will keep working on strengthening pro-life causes in the Republican party. [/SIGN]

 

[rlg94086]

I think we agree, so there is no reason to be sorry.

I am a happy Republican who believes in strengthening the Republican pro-life movement. My point is simply a selfish one. If they are going to start a third party, I want it to be ultra-liberal, so it splits or collapses the Democratic party.

Sorry but based on the ten principles it would take way more of the Republican base than the Liberal one…

Notice even though I agree with all church teachings and would be the Pro Life party I would not be The Catholic party because I would not take the conception issue on or you would be unelectable.

[sign]I’m all for a third party! Please make it as fiscally liberal as possible - big government, lots of regulations, etc. - so it attracts as many Democrats as possible.

Meanwhile, I will keep working on strengthening pro-life causes in the Republican party. [/sign]

 

[rlg94086]

After being a Republican with Independent tendencies since I was able to vote I now think it is high time for a third party. Both parties are only out for their own agenda and not for our interests and more importantly are not aligned with Godly principles. Here is my Ten Commandments/Ideals of what I would like to see the agenda be:

1. Strong pro-life from conception to grave
2. Concern for the poor and care of those who need help especially concerning item #1 and support of it.
3. Concern about schooling and especially making quality education available to all, with emphasis on languages, math, history and other areas to make a well rounded student.
4. Where rights of the minority (aka those who don’t want Ten Commandments etc… displayed in court houses etc. don’t outweigh the majority.
5. Focus on ethical treatment of all people and especially the leaders of the party
6. Border security and respect of established law AND do this in a respectful way recognizing illigeal immigrants are people too (but no social security, lawsuits etc…)
7. Reasonable fiscal responsibility so future generations don’t pay for our excesses
8. Environmental responsibility balanced with need for resources
9. Strategy that balances our resolve in foreign policy and balances need to fight war on global terror but come up with a winning acceptable strategy.
10. Bring special interests and lobbying under tight scrutiny with focus on ethics.

Who’s with me, and more importantly how do you do it.

How do you do it? You don’t. You work within the Republican or Democratic party to strengthen it on the principles you believe in.

God bless,

Robert

PS - I realize I should have answered your OP first.

 

[rlg94086]

The classical argument against a third party is that it weakens the movement. I.e. if the Republicans split, the result would be two parties that were weaker than the Democrats.

I think this is a myth. Notice how Lieberman ran as an independent but said he would caucus with the Democrats, hence not weakening the Democratic leadership.

It’s not a myth…you are citing an exception. Lieberman is not a member of a third party - he’s a Democrat who went Independent in order to maintain his seat.

Other exceptions are Jesse Ventura, who was elected Governor in Minnesota with the Reform party. He was not a party person, as much as a maverick. Schwarzenegger could have probably done the same, rather than running as a Republican.

 

[LCMS_No_More]

It’s not a myth…you are citing an exception. Lieberman is not a member of a third party - he’s a Democrat who went Independent in order to maintain his seat.

Other exceptions are Jesse Ventura, who was elected Governor in Minnesota with the Reform party. He was not a party person, as much as a maverick. Schwarzenegger could have probably done the same, rather than running as a Republican.

The thing is, Schwarzenegger is the quintessential Republican. The way I see it, he represents the heart of Republicanism, so why run as something he’s not?

 

[rlg94086]

That’s your, IMO, incorrect opinion. The quintessential Republican is pro-life. It is part of the party’s plank.

The thing is, Schwarzenegger is the quintessential Republican. The way I see it, he represents the heart of Republicanism, so why run as something he’s not?

 

[Jay74]

**So…62% of Minnesotans DID NOT want Jesse Ventura as governor! **
So, even though I used to not care for a two-party system, now I do since I feel it more adequately represents the majority. Just my two-cents.

Maybe a runoff is the way to go. Some states already do it…a runoff if no one gets 50%

 

[system]

The classical argument against a third party is that it weakens the movement. I.e. if the Republicans split, the result would be two parties that were weaker than the Democrats.

I think this is a myth. Notice how Lieberman ran as an independent but said he would caucus with the Democrats, hence not weakening the Democratic leadership.

I think if the Republicans split, the two halves would be larger than the original one party. If the Right to Life side didn’t get involved with a bunch of other stuff, they might attract Democrats who are Right to Life but for some other reason won’t support the Republican Party as it stands now.

In fact after celebrating and then sobering up and seeing how the two other parties were stronger, the Democrats would split too!!

But remember, parties to a great extent are state organizations. It could be for example, that Republicans in Alabama would just all move to the split off party which was more Right to Life. California, might have both of the two split parties.

• kathie :bowdown:

This is very well explained. Thanks!

As someone said, we are country full of different parties. ***There’s no lack of initiative here, but a lack of imagination on how to count people’s vote’s. *** Stay with me here because this idea is very foreign here in the USA. In fact, I may not be explaining 100% correctly.

I’ve tried to pay attention to the situation in Northern Ireland for quite a while now, and their election process does something that I think is very valuable. As everyone knows without any research, you have two divided sides there, (like here) but you also have varying degrees of difference…say there’s a sliding scale from far right to far left. When voting, you choose your first preference and a second preference. These are factored in when your vote is counted.

One of the positives of this is that opposing sides start to see what they have in common. So say half the people lean left and half the people lean right in the first choice and it’s very close in the results. We’ve all seen that, but in this type of election, you can then look at people’s second preference and find out that, OK, the country is still split left and right, but it turns out that 75% of the country chose say, the “conservative Green Party” (or something like that) as their second choice.

A couple things happen then:

1. the country that was divided half and half, finds out it has more in common that they thought

and

1. that hypothetical “conservative green party” suddenly has more political clout, maybe influences a couple policies, attracts new members, and will probably be a much bigger contender in the next electoral process.

There’s more to it than that of course, but I think it’s has some good to it.