Forum Post: Why third party or independent candidates are rarely elected.
Posted 12 years ago on April 9, 2012, 3:19 p.m. EST by jrhirsch
(4714)
from Sun City, CA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I asked a friend who he was going to vote for. He said Romney, even though he really liked Ron Paul better. His reasoning was if he voted for Paul, and he assumed he would lose, then Obama would win. An inferior conservative was better than any Democrat.
If there was a third party or independent candidate that had 51% of the voters supporting him, but they all assumed he wouldn't win, he would not be elected, even though he had enough votes.
What a gutless way of thinking. It guarantees that a person who has great leadership skills, but is not of the two major parties will almost never be elected.
November is fast approaching, and as long as we settle for second best, we will continue to be ruled with incompetence.
If a prospective candidate is able and popular, it is very likely he or she would be invited to join either camp, Democrat or Republican. I would hazard a guess that a candidate had to go over to a third party simply because he/she wasn't popular enough (and popularity does not necessarily have anything to do with morality or even leadership skills). Hence a third party candidate is very likely 'inferior' to begin with and therefore has lesser chance of getting elected. Not the other way round.
A candidate who chooses not to join either party in no way makes him inferior. If he sees that both camps are corrupt, why should an honorable person join them? By joining a party, he gives up doing what is right in favor of what is right for the party.
Our entire government system is built to maintain the status quo in society. It is incredibly difficult to change anything since there are so many obstacles you have to overcome.
You need the president and a supermajority to get anything done.
Of course, the Founding Fathers purposely designed the government this way because they were the original 1 percenters.
The Founders were comprised of rich, white, slave owners. They were scared of democracy and equality. Madison, in particular, wanted an oligarchy and was scared that democracy might put an end to the privileged lifestyle him and the rest of the opulent enjoyed. Madison wanted a society where only rich, white property owners could vote.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWvIWxh2yRs&feature=player_detailpage#t=511s
One thing you can do to give 3rd party candidates a legitimate shot is to have run-off voting. This enables you to vote for more than 1 candidate. If your original vote does not win (Ron Paul), they count your second vote (Romney).
If the people want it, they can get it. They simply just dont give a fuck.
I disagree. People care greatly about the outcome of their life. The problem is they have limited ability to change things on their own and all the social institutions in place just advocate on behalf of the status quo.
Why should we settle? We have the right not only as Amereicans but as human beings to demand that we have politicians that will do the best for all of the US, not just for themselves and for coporate America. Settling is one of the worse things we can do. By voting for, to put it bluntly, an idiot like Romney we are giving up more of our rights that have already been taken from us. Screw the media. If you believe everything they put out then you need a severe wake-up call. Do your own research. Vote for the person best for you and for the country at large, not the one you think will win and possibly be better than the last guy. If everyone would grow a set and vote for the RIGHT person, not just the most media-popular one, then we would be a lot better off. My ending statement is this: On the day I go to place my vote, I will vote for the best person for me and for my country. I will vote for Ron Paul and I will be encouraging others to man up and do so as well.
Libertarianism: A society where everyone fends for themselves so that the strong can dominate the weak until society is eventually ruled entirely by a small group of rich people.
If you want a society ruled by the 1%, vote Ron Paul.
Ron Paul will eliminate all the barriers to maximum income inequality. The rich will become even richer and the poor will become even poorer.
"A society where everyone fends for themselves so that the strong can dominate the weak until society is eventually ruled entirely by a small group of rich people." Isn't that what we already have?
Yes, but not entirely. Ron Paul would make it entirely true.
We still have tons of social programs like free schools and guaranteed hospital care that even the playing field, even though the extent to which it evens the playing field is limited.
Electing a president will swing the country in his direction. Congress provides the balance preventing a sudden swing in either direction.
I agree. But that is the problem. Read my comment above:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/why-third-party-or-independent-candidates-are-rare/#comment-700905
Our government was deliberately designed to favor the status quo. It is near impossible to change anything.
The Founding Fathers were the original 1 percenters who were publicly against democracy because they knew it would be an end to their privileged, 1 percenter lifestyle.
That is why I think the best way to change the country is by organizing labor around the 1 issue that nearly every worker can agree on: better pay. Read the comment below for details on what I mean or click this link to get you to the comment directly:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/why-third-party-or-independent-candidates-are-rare/#comment-700925
Its already owned by the 1%. So what do you propose we do? We cant just attack and hope for the best.
What you can do is not vote for libertarians or right wing candidates regardless of what party they are from.
The democrats today are more right wing than the republicans were a few decades ago.
However, I believe that all political power comes from income and income is currently allocated unfairly. So if you want to end the rule of the 1%, you have to stop unfairly allocating most of the income to the top 1%.
Since the only economic reason for paying one person more than another is to get people to work hard, the only fair way to allocate income is to limit differences to only what is necessary to get them to do difficult work and give their maximum effort.
Allowing the "top 1%" to take more than that amount, allowing them to take as much as 50,000 times more income than everyone else, is unfair and undeserved because 1) they don't work 50,000 times harder than everyone else, 2) they didn't earn this money from willing consumers in the market, 3) they shouldn't have the power to force the rest of society into poverty or financial struggle, 4) there is no economic justification that requires us to pay them this amount in order for the economy to work well, 5) it makes society undemocratic since it gives them as much as 50,000 times more political power than everyone else.
And I believe the only way to make this radical change from an unfair, undemocratic society ruled by the 1% to a fair, democratic society ruled by the people is for labor to organize into a single union and demand it.
Every worker in America in 2012 should be wealthy. Worker productivity in this country is $65 per hour which means if everyone was paid equally, full-time workers would get paid $135,000 per year.
But since the top 1% unfairly take the lion's share of the income the 99% produce, most workers do not get paid anywhere near the $135k they produce. 97% of all workers make less than that amount and 50% are in or close to actual poverty.
If we allocated income based on hard work, that would all come to an end. Every worker would get paid closer to that $65 per hour. For example, if we determined that paying the top earners 4 times more than the bottom earners was enough incentive to motivate people to work hard, we would be able to pay every worker from $115k to $460k per year. That would make every worker wealthy.
So labor has every incentive to be the ones who demand the change. 90% of the entire labor force would benefit from increasing the minimum wage to $115k. And if 90% of the labor force demands that income be allocated based on hard work so that the economy is fair, and so that the economy works well for everyone, and so that society is democratic, or they go on a general strike, our economic system will have no choice but to change.
When do you plan to get it started?
Read my above comment again, I edited it with some additional information.
I don't understand your question.
Are you asking when do I plan to get started organizing the work force into a single union that demands income be allocated based on hard work? I would love to contribute to such an effort, but I am only 1 person.
It takes people willing to put themselves out there, to get things rolling. If you belief that you are only one and therefore its pointless, then............
I do not think I am the only one who would contribute to such an effort.
I would be willing to be the one who gets the ball rolling, but it is a lot of work. And I think people would take the idea more seriously if more prominent, respected people were on-board.
You need to give it a shot. Im working for Rocky Anderson in Tampa, pretty much by myself, trying to get it going. Its tough. And lots of people look at you like you are crazy.
But it is well worth it, if this is the type of stuff you care about (and you are on here, so Im going to assume you do :)
The other reason a third partier won't get elected is because of the bias of the mainstream media. Just look at why Buddy Roemer hasn't been on debates. CNN would only invite candidates who received a certain amount of preliminary votes get on their debates. However, Roemer wasn't even listed as a candidate in these preliminary ballots. So how on earth was Buddy Roemer ever going to get on these debates?
Candidates are basically chosen by the Conservative Media(contrary to popular belief, media has a Right-Leaning bias). It's a sad, sad, sad state of politics we live in. Television is the source of many of our political woes.
Roemer is one of the few who self limits campaign contributions to $100 or less. It makes me want to vote for him for that fact alone.
Absolutely. I don't agree with any candidate 100% (or even 70%--but what can you ask for?), but the issue of money in political campaigns is so important that I could just vote for him based on that. It's a real honest way to run a campaign.
The primaries are exactly when this should be decided.
But some of us hate the Iraq War and Citizen's United so much we wish they had not happened, some others are proud they voted for Nader, depends if you want to do, be proud, or build a better nation, I guess.