Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Third Party A Guarantee of Failure.

The more I watch the conservative movement, the more I am convinced that our biggest enemy is ourselves in the conservative movement. As Pogo once said, " We have met the enemy and he is us." Why do I say this? Especially after the glorious conservative march on Washington, seeing ACORN finally come under fire, and Van Jones demoted? It is because, unlike the left, we seem to not be able to stand together when it counts.

We make fun of all the special interest groups on the left, however, when it comes to election time they put their differences aside and elect the candidate on the left. Once done they go back to fighting among themselves. Those on the right side of the aisle are too sold out to their own special interests to come together to make sure that the candidate who more closely fits their beliefs is elected. We are too proud of our righteous virtue to our causes, so we vote for the guy or gal who fits that narrow scope and in so doing not only waste our vote on someone who will be luck to get double digit percentages of the vote, we assure that the candidate most against our principles is elected. This happened twice with Clinton due to Perot's third party candidacy. The left must be laughing themselves silly as they keep advancing their agendas.

Today, we find a strong grassroots movement against the corruption, the out of touch, and out of control government in Washington. We have momentum that should keep building to give us the opportunity to take back the reigns of power in 2010 and 2012. However, the most sure way of losing that power, and that momentum is if we decide to back a third party candidate. That would be assuring more power to Obama, Reid, and Pelosi.

This is going to not sit well with my Libertarian friends, but the only way that they will ever have power is to join and force the GOP into a new direction. That is very doable now if we will unite and make it happen. Our best chance, our only chance is within one of the two parties. Of those two the GOP is our best chance, we have a lot of people in it now who want to push it back to Conservative Constitutional values and principles. We need to unite and push it together.

I have heard a lot recently that "I will never be a part of either major party again!" All I can say is that is very foolish, it may feel good to say such things in pride, but it dooms you to being out of power forever. It is then all about you, and not about what is best for your country, in other words, it is the very definition of selfishness.

The Libertarians are screaming at me now, I think I can hear them. They are saying that they are the answer to fill the void. Historically there is nothing to make us believe that but blind faith in fantasy. There is going to be the ever present "proof" of a successful third party candidate in pointing out that "Lincoln was the third party candidate as the Republican." That sounds like a great, and convincing argument, it is just not true. However, since very few people know history it sounds very good and holds up until you find someone who does know.

In the 1860 presidential election, the Republicans were a new party. They were the new party after the Whigs imploded a few years earlier, they were also the party of the anti-slave democrats, and the by then defunct Free Soilers. Lincoln was his parties candidate, but keep in mind this new party that was only six years old, had already won a major governorship two years before and had momentum. The Democrats were split into two candidates one from the Northern Democrats Stephen Douglas and one from the Southern Democrats John Breckenridge. John Bell was the "third party" candidate for the Constitutional Union party. Lincoln won with 39.8%, to Douglas's 29.5%, Breckenridge's 18.1%, and Bell's 12.6%.

The Libertarians formed in December of 1971, soon to be celebrating their 38th anniversary without winning anything but low level offices at township or county levels, and never gaining more than about 5% of the vote Nationally. There are many things that those of us in the conservative wing of the Republican party and those in the Libertarian party agree, it is time we forge an alliance and take our country to our Constitutional principles. Our nation today is in critical condition, I heard it described the other day that we are in triage now, we can worry about cosmetic differences later. Now we must save the patient. My favorite way of looking at this is too often we are fighting among ourselves about what color to paint the dining room all the while our house is burning down around us. Let's get together, put the fire out, then argue about paint colors, okay?

5 comments:

  1. Funny, how Libertarian ideas are more popular than ever before. Marijuana legalization? You couldn't find a city in the USA that had a majority that would support it prior to that party championing it. Now many states do. Same goes for many other issues that the Libertarians champion. Did these ideas come from the two major parties? No, they didn't. They were initially championed by third party candidates. Yes to move them the corporate Fortune 500 parties have to carry them forward. But when do they decide to do so? When the third party support threatens to swing an election. I'm voting for Joe Kennedy. You can call me selfish all you want but I contend this article is selfish. You want to win so bad that you will put the votes of others down. Needing to win even if it doesn't accomplish anything? Selfish as you can get. I will not disrespect you for voting for the Fortune 500 because I know we all want the same thing. But sir, your article is a piece of junk and even worse is you spam on Joe Kennedy's fan page. Fail.

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  2. Mike,
    My goal is to educate. Your comments are true, but where you are missing the point is through basic civics. It truly comes down to "feeling good" vs "doing good." For me unless good things are accomplished it is still a waste no matter how "good" I feel pretending to make a difference.

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  3. Morgan, Your education attempt is entirely from the Progressive manual. You seem to miss the important point that Money is the current basis for elections with the current system. Only the people can make this change. You will never change the two current parties with the current system. It is rigged. Look how difficult it is for a third party to even get on a ballot. by the time a third party gets on the ballot in any state, they have spent so much money they have nothing left for advertising. The two parties keep making it more and more difficult. You want to be part of that system and continue to help them with the destruction of the United States constitution? Wake up man, you are a pawn. Only money prevails. Learn about and support GOOOH.com a new system that takes money out of the equation and replaces congress with patriots through discussion and debates.

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  4. This explains why any third party is going to fail, even if they win the election.

    http://morganj428.blogspot.com/2009/08/real-life-civics-lesson.html#comments

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  5. There is a lot of merit in your post. Despite the theme of 'can't we all just get along', it just ain't gonna happen because the differences are well beyond cosmetic and are driven by an ideological agenda they feel is purist and uncompromising. These strident attitudes are also embedded in both the R. & D. parties who are seen as 'evil'.

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