Fabio

A few days ago, I wrote about Ron Paul’s amazing $4 million single day fund raising feat. At the least, it shows that there’s a lot of angry antiwar libertarians inside the GOP. But what does this incident say about third parties more generally? I’d argue that the lesson is that 3rd party politics is useless. If you want to make an impact, work inside the two major parties, unless you want to blow the election for the candidate who is closest to you.

In the American system, it’s always been hard to be a third party since the country is run on a district based winner takes all system. Up until the early 20th century, third parties could occasionally get traction by exploiting election rules, and some third parties got some victories in the midwest, such as the Socialists. Over time, the state governments have made it harder and harder for third parties to run and win.

In modern times, the only third parties to make an impact are personality based campaigns. Eschewing political ideologies, the campaigns do well because of the candidate’s charisma: T. Roosevelt, George Wallace, John Anderson, Ross Perot & Ralph Nader. Total election victories? 0. Total states won? T Roosevelt got 6, Wallace got 5 and the rest got 0. The best vote tallies were got by Roosevelt (27%) and Perot (19.5%), though Perot didn’t get a single state or electoral vote. A number of them actually tilted the election toward people who they would have viewed as much worse, in policy terms, than the winner (e.g., Nader & Gore; Perot & Gore). It’s also the case there parties quickly withered without them. The best perhaps was the Reform Party, which managed to attract another charismatic candidate, Jesse Ventura. Without charismatic leaders, third parties might be lucky to pull in 2% of the vote.

At the local level, third parties do horribly. Since Ventura, no governor has been third party. Before that, it was a long time. Between them, the libertarians and the greens can barely claim more than a few hundred commissioners and city council seats, out of thousands. No major city has had a third party mayor since the socialists. The media coverage is even worse. When not ignored, journalists third party candidates as a freak show.

But what happens when third party people “come in from the cold?” Nothing magical, but they start to be taken seriously. Ron Paul’s a good example. As a Republican, he’s got instant credibility he would never have as a libertarian. The media actually pays attention and fills a niche within the GOP. He’s been able to fold that into millions in contributions, far outdistancing anyone who has ever run on the libertarian ticket. If he actually comes in 3rd or 4th in Iowa or New Hampshire, beating Fred “the Zombie” Thompson, he’ll get a short lived burst of publicity that third party members can only fantasize about. And the remarkable thing is that he didn’t need a Nader like cult following. Just the willingness to take a consistently antiwar stance in the GOP.