If you had to vote for a third-party, which one would you vote for?

Question

I started thinking about 3rd parties today. I will probably never vote for one, even if Giuliani gets elected (though I will find it hard to vote for him, being a Liberal and all), but I was thinking. What if the Democrats and Republicans just gave up, and gave us horrible candidates? I mean, in the last two elections we had to elect Bush (and no, he isn’t my favorite President) because the Democrat’s nomination was practically a joke.

And this year isn’t much better. The Democrats have all KINDS of good politicians, but they insist on touting Clinton and Obama as their top candidates. The Republicans insist on touting Guiliani, which means they would obviously rather get elected than actually nominate a candidate with real Republican values.

So, if you had to vote for a 3rd party system, which would you vote for? Forget actual candidates; just base it on the actual views of the party.
I would probably vote for the Reform party or the Constitution party. The reform party has a pretty good system of ideals:
http://reformparty.org/platform.htm

And the Constitution party seems to me to be just straight-up, old-school Americans, who actually remember what morals are, and remember a time when you could let your kids out to play without worrying about them getting kidnapped:
http://constitutionparty.com/party_platform.php

This is the one I would vote for, if I had to.

Here is a list of all the political parties in America:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States#Current_largest_parties

Take a look at some of these!
The KKK!
Nazis!
A BUNCH of Commies!


They got some STRANGE people in this world.

Answer 1

I like the capitalist party, the one completely opposite of the Socialist(dems) Party.

But consider this for a moment. Today with the stranglehold that the careerists in congress have on their parties I highly doubt that any third party can get 34% of the vote, and until that occurs a vote for a third party can actually make things worse for AMerica today.

To begin to correct this we need to rid congress of careerists. We can ask them to amend the constitution with term limits, and the repubs in congress have done this six times in the last 12 years and every time the dems have shot it down, so that does not seem workable today.

We could demand congress hold a constitutional convention, in fact 34 states have submitted 567 requests, and as of today congress has NOT RESPONDED to any of them. So it seems they are not going to follow the constitution.

We could start another revolution but who do we shoot first? And the ramifications of this are too horrible to imagine. So that would not work, although I know some people are seriously talking about it.

Or we could do our jobs, and vote them out of office. Alexis de Tocqueville said the American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. Well guess what, they discovered it about 50 years ago and way too many people just vote for the same guy every year, how else could you explain the 237 people in congress that have been there more than 12 years, and look at the crooks that are there. Voting has failed, AMericans have failed.

We have but one choice and that is to vote against all 12 year plus incumbents even if they are in the other party. If we do this in about 8 years we will have removed close to 40% of them and with the old ones dying like Kennedy and Byrd from old age, we may have made enough of a dent that the remainder will listen when we demand retroactive term limits.

Vote against anyone with 12 years, and do it over and over, until they all have less.

Ben Franklin said of congress, "They are of the People, and return again to mix with the People, having no more durable preeminence than the different Grains of Sand in an Hourglass. Such an Assembly cannot easily become dangerous to Liberty. They are the Servants of the People, sent together to do the People's Business, and promote the public Welfare; their Powers must be sufficient, or their Duties cannot be performed. They have no profitable Appointments, but a mere Payment of daily Wages, such as are scarcely equivalent to their Expences; so that, having no Chance for great Places, and enormous Salaries or Pensions, as in some Countries, there is no triguing or bribing for Elections"

Answer 2

I think the way you've phrased the question is, unfortunately, indicative of the flawed political system we have in place today. Many people feel that they have to vote Democrat or Republican or else their vote will be "wasted". I vote for a system where the "little guy" can be heard as well. And as far as the presidential race is concerned, I will personally never vote for one of the major two parties again because I just don't support the current "two-party" system. To answer the question: Independent.

Answer 3

First, I am sorry but from an outsider's view, I do not see Giuliani as a "liberal"..perhaps a "capitalist liberal" but definitely not a "humanist liberal"...now, the "third party " you should look at..hopefully the one we have not seen yet...we too in Canada dream of a new choice and I do see the day when a real people's party, and not using "people's" party in the communist sense...but be sure, the day when a real party emerges in either of our countries, the "free" media, owned by a very small group of rich people, will demonize it immediately as they have done for the life of both our countries....it is the usual tactic when the existing partys cannot defend the policies that are aimed toward the propagation of big business and controlled by lobbiests while ignoring the rights and life of the everyday working man...oh I forgot, working woman...until we realize that the media is detrimental to getting good government, Ronald Reagan made sure of that by allowing concentrated ownership, we will continually get what we deserve...the internet right now is the free media but it is changing fast before our eyes and when we open them the government will have it in its grasp and groups like Viacom and Bell will be controlling our future...And, one sad eyeopener is that in Canada any political group can run on the ballot, no one is denied, but in the US any state can deny a third party candidate the right to be on the ballot and to partake, as Penn did to Nader, in honest dialoge through debates....here they are denied the free debate right and that should of course be changed...that all said, thank you for the question and the backup material I have already bookmarked...people like you make this one of the more enjoyable things to do over my morning coffee.

Answer 4

Well if I had to pick from those 2 then I suppose the constitutional party would be the one. I am still hopeful that the better candidates on both sides (Repulican and Democrat)will be put forward for the election.

Answer 5

No, it sends a message to the winning candidate that there is opposition against them. When an elected official believes they will never be voted out of office, they will do their job less effectively.

Answer 6

Libertarian. I often vote Libertarian.

But, it's important to remember that voting third party is a 'protest vote' - there is no way one of them is going to win.

Answer 7

I might vote for lieberman whatever he ran under I think that being said it is not so much the party as the person. It will take someone like a ross perot to have a shot running third party.

Answer 8

I vote for the Libertarian party.

Answer 9

Independent.

Answer 10

Libertarian Party. I vote for them now when given the chance.