It's not possible that a third party will help. It's probably not possible that third party could happen. As discussed here over the weekend, people will say they're tired of the left-right divisions, but what they usually mean is that they're sorry to have lost whatever battle they've just lost in that context.... There's a dance in the old girl yet.

In our current environment, third party fans might elect a state rep or at most a single legislator as a "Tea Party Candidate". More than likely, the Tea Party candidate will help elect the Democratic Candidate, much like Hoffman in New York. But I think they should run, lots of them. And Palin and Bachmann should be the spokesmen!

The only solution is to get rid of the "winner-take-all" system of elections, and go to a proportional system. The problem with winner-take-all is that a third party can only elect a candidate by getting the majority of votes in a district - this is almost impossible in anything other than a local election.

The proportional election system pools the votes across the entire election area, and candidates are chosen according to the total number of votes their party receives.

Here's an example: Suppose a state is electing 10 representatives to Congress. Each party puts up a slate of candidates and people vote for them (you may be allowed to vote for more than one candidate). Candidates from each party are elected according to the number of votes the party received. Within each party, the candidates receiving the most votes are chosen.

In this example, with 10 representatives, a small party could get a candidate elected by getting 10% of the vote. This makes it possible for new parties to get people elected at the state and federal level.

As a bonus, this completely eliminates gerrymandering, since individual districts no longer exist.

Of course, this requires a major change in election law, which would be to the detriment of the two major parties.

It's not the parties that are the problem so much as the insane expansion of government bureaucracy that's sucking freedom at a prodigious rate. I'll vote for any candidate who's shown that he or she will actually oppose government expansion and, for all their faults, that's tended to be the Republican side.
But the Republican "party elite" or however the term is formulated that have bought into the idea that they should be in power (witness Gingrich's recent "I'm a leading candidate" statement when he's NOT) are not going to get my support.

Any ideas on how to clean up the ginormous mess this country is in?
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A real start would be to implement The Fair Tax.
A great book by Neal Boortz and Congressman John Linder.

This would keep politicians from continually rewriting tax laws that favor their special interest groups.

This would take a considerable amount of power out of the hands of the federal government and politicians. It would also be a tax that is actually constitutional, unlike our present income tax.

You would pay no income tax.The Fair Tax Act is designed to replace all federal income taxes (including the alternative minimum tax, corporate income taxes, and capital gains taxes), payroll taxes (including Social Security and Medicare taxes), gift taxes, and estate taxes with a national retail sales tax.
People who do not pay income taxes or hide income would pay when they purchased something. So a whole slew of people who don't pay would now pay.

Instead of the government taking their share before you ever receive your paycheck, you would decide when your economic situation was right for you to pay. It would be very uncomplicated, unlike our present system.

Don't criticize until you have read the book. You can get a summary by googling wiki Fair Tax.

Yes, but it will take a revolution. Restrict the Federal Government to its Constitutionally enumerated powers and nothing more.

Most people do not have the ability or confidence to manage their own lives, so it will never happen.

"It's not the parties that are the problem so much as the insane expansion of government bureaucracy"

Which is supported by both parties, each in their own way. Why? For the simple reason that bigger bureaucracies mean a bigger concentration of money and power for them to feed off of. Candidates are almost always beholden to the party machinery.

"A real start would be to implement The Fair Tax."

Let's go a step farther and eliminate withholding at the same time. Here in Switzerland you send in your tax return, and the government sends you a bill to pay. Needless to say, the size of this bill gets your attention - and makes people very aware of the level of taxation.

I just got the strangest email from a friend not noted for anything but being completely solid. He says, "let's get a credit card and take the kids to Barbados for a month and sit in the sun drinking umbrella drinks"

I think he's feeling the ginormous mess, too.

I think the problem with the Libertarian party is that they keep trying to go straight for the brass ring and don't do enough on the local level. It's rare to see many Libertarian candidates for anything other than the presidency. They need more people at the local level so that voters get used to seeing them around. That would likely be true of any third party, really.

Me, I vote third party knowing damn well I won't get what I want, but it's a protest vote at this point. You have to start somewhere!

Ann at January 14, 2010 7:33 AM-

Excellent post!

The problem with a libertarian party is that it's a contradiction in terms.

Ann has it exactly right. Third party groups cannot jump straight for the Presidency without showing that they have something right at lower levels of Government. If they start electing City Council members, Mayors, and such, then work their way up to State Representatives, State Senators, and Governors, THEN go for the Federal Congressional seats and finally the Presidency, they might be able to accomplish something.

This is a two party country. The only thing a third party ever accomplished was to divide the vote from the party from whom it split and deliver victory to the other party. Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose Party and Ross Perot in 1992 come to mind.

It would be a good Democratic Party tactic to encourage a "Tea Party" Party thus dividing the Republican Party vote into two competing interests and insuring Democratic Party victory.

The biggest problems are gerrymandering and closed primaries. There are republican districts and democratic districts. In the primaries, the rightwingers (or the left wingers)choose the nominee and the general election is simply confirmation.

The solutions are simple:
1) Have a non-partisan committee in charge of redistricting.
2) Have primaries open to all voters or, even better, have the top two vote getters in the primaries get on the final ballot regardless of party affiliation. Each of these option would encourage politicians to attract the center instead of the hard core on either side.

The only solution is to get rid of the "winner-take-all" system of elections, and go to a proportional system.

Our Founding Fathers debated several systems before settling on this one.

While the proportional system does have the advantages you outlined, it also has a few disadvantages that could play havoc in this country.

For one thing, the proportional system often results in coalition governments. That is, when no party has a clear majority, two or more parties agree to govern together and share power, splitting the various government posts.

The coalition government [sometimes] works in a parliamentary system where the majority party or coalition assumes the executive roles (prime minister and the cabinet). But, here, the executive branch is a separate branch of the government. That means the incentive to form a coalition and keep it together through acrimonious debate and partisan squablling is not as strong as it is when any party threatening to dissolve the coalition would lose cabinet positions and executive power.

[Side note: Hitler came to power as part of coalition government.]

Another issue is that our Founding Fathers understood (as did Tip O'Neill) that politics is local. The idea of having Congressional districts was intended to keep representatives closer to the people they represent. If a representative is elected by the state's entire population, he can ignore those parts of the state with fewer voters. This system leaves people in less-populated regions effectively without representation.

A proportional system means high-population areas would dominate the elections. Chicago would dominate Illnois elections. NYC would basically select the Congressional delegation for New York. It would be the same with most other states as well.

While our system is not perfect, it was intended to ensure representation for all citizens and still does a decent job at that, all things considered.

The current system does have the issue that less populated areas sometimes end up with political power that is out of proportion to their population. The Northeastern US with its more numerous smaller states has outsized representation in the US Senate. California, with roughly 37 million people, has two senators. New England, with roughly 15 million people, has twelve.

The current system is also corrupted, as you pointed out, with gerrymandered districts designed to ensure re-election of the incumbent.

It is also plagued by representatives and senators who spend the vast majority of their time in Washington and only occasionally visit their districts or states.

I'm a Libertarian.

My voting practice is to vote for a major party candidate (usually Republican) if it's a close race (since I live in Illinois, that's rarely a problem) and to vote Libertarian if not.

In Illinois, thanks to the Conservative movement "taking back the Republican Party", I no longer have to worry about competitive races.

There is a large group of "small government" republicans (especially in the suburbs) who are just scared to death of the social conservatives, so they often vote Democrat lately. But, obviously, that's not working out well for them.

The answer is Fusion Politics. Create a "Small Government" party (Libertarians?). In any competive race, they would endorse the candidate who best meets their values. If the race is non-competitive (or the major party coices are just god-awful), they endorse their own candidate.

Hopefully, the major parties begin to see that they need to make the small government types happy if they intend to win elections.

Sorry folks, at this point armed revolution is the only action that can save what the founding fathers envisioned

"Sorry folks, at this point armed revolution is the only action that can save what the founding fathers envisioned"

I think we can safely say that hyperbole is alive and well on the series of tubes we call the Internets.

Democrats are Marxists, Republicans are fascists, the Arctic ice isn't melting because Al Gore's house is too big and John Kerry's Purple Heart was manufactured in George Soros' basement along with President Obama's Certificate of Live Birth! Up the revolution! Pass the Cheetos. This will be great on TV.

The Libertarian Party runs weirdos and losers because most of its members are weirdos and losers. LP Libertarians are a lot like the lifestyle leftists that follow Nader and Dennis Kucinich. Their politics are basically narcissistic. They're more interested in posturing that in accomplishing anything substantial.

Democrats are Marxists, Republicans are fascists, the Arctic ice isn't melting because Al Gore's house is too big and John Kerry's Purple Heart was manufactured in George Soros' basement along with President Obama's Certificate of Live Birth! Up the revolution! Pass the Cheetos. This will be great on TV.

LOL.

American "libertarians" usually are nothing more than Republicans who want to smoke pot. Popinjay jackanapes, mouthing the latest line from the RNC. The catamite wing of Republican Kook Crowd.
Look at so-called "libertarian" publications. Feckless poltroons, ever-careful not to offend wealthy backers.
I doubt we will see a libertarian candidate, as they do not stand for anything, except what the crapulent R-Party stands for.

Why vote for libertarians, when in 2012 you can vote for Sarah Palin, and her running mate, Terri Schiavo?

That is going to be one hell of a combo!

"The only thing a third party ever accomplished was to divide the vote from the party from whom it split and deliver victory to the other party."

What third parties need is a change in the election laws to prevent this. No candidate should be declared the winner of any election unless (s)he wins a majority of the votes cast, not just a plurality. If nobody has a majority, there should be a runoff between the top two vote-getters, or else an "instant runoff" system should be used.

How about this -- your vote is based off the fact that you are required to pay $0.01 or more of your income than you receive in welfare from the government.

Or in other words you can't vote if you aren't paying taxes. In other words, if you are sucking off societies tit, you don't have the right to vote. It would stop the welfare moms being bussed to the local polling place to vote for the local, state, federal schill.

Jim P. - there ain't that many of them, and most don't vote. They're not worth mucking about with the foundation of our Republic.

How do you think B.O. was elected. What was that group (neighbor nuts?) that went out and registered all the people as democrats?

Oh, and while we're at it, we need to do away with rul with the Federal Election Board modified to have three independent members on it.

Jim, Obama would have won even if every welfare queen in the country had voted for McCain. After eight years of Dubya, no one except the hard-core base was going to vote for anyone whose name ended in (R).

Obama would have won even if every welfare queen in the country had voted for McCain. After eight years of Dubya, no one except the hard-core base was going to vote for anyone whose name ended in (R).

Rex, you make the hard-core base sound larger than it really is. Out of 130 million votes cast, about 60 million went for McCain and about 70 million went for Obama.

Rex is right though. The last year I could find data on (before the Clinton reforms which reduced the number of welfare recipients), there were 2.2 MM single parent families receiving aid. Assuming that all of these are the dreaded "welfare queens" and all of them voted for McCain and not Obama, there still would not have been enough of them to make up difference.

Yes, there is a way out of the mess. Unfortunately, typing it out at work would probably get me fired.