http://www.modernwhig.org
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Ideologically the only thing that attracted was attacking the two party system. Looking back on his proposals…I wonder….19%?

http://www.modernwhig.org
Check out an up-and-coming political movement!

The Reform Party had more than a “handful” of candidates in 1996 for office other than president. It had 176 candidates for state legislatures of various states. One in California, Dominic Cortese, who was the Reform nominee for State Senate, was a sitting Assemblyman.

We were discussing recent third party presidential campaigns and their effect on Congressional races down the ballot. My point was that it hasn’t made much difference over the last couple of decades. Perot and Wallace being prime examples. And in reality 2006 was a more exciting year for serious third party and independent campaigns at the state and local level. During Presidential years, the focus seems to be squared on the top of the ticket.

a href=”http://www.progressivehistorians.com/2008/06/so-you-want-to-run-third-party.html

Here’s what I said then:

“1) A rising tide floats all boats

You would expect that third parties would do best in elections where one major-party candidate wins in a landslide, making people feel comfortable “throwing away their vote” on a minor party – but that’s not the case at all. Instead, third parties tend to do best in elections that feature other high-vote-getting third parties. For some solid evidence, look at the two third parties whose electoral strategy has remained constant over long periods of time and which consistently scored high vote totals: the Socialist and Prohibition Parties. The Socialists ran one man five times (Eugene Debs), while the Prohibitionists ran no-name party activists in every one of their elections – but both parties’ performance varied considerably. Debs’ best election was in 1912, when the public was energized by Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party race. Meanwhile, the Prohibitionists ran their most successful campaign in 1892, a year which saw a major third-party challenge from Populist James Weaver. There’s more evidence from other races, too: the Libertarians’ best race was in 1980, the year John Anderson waged a major independent run; John Fremont and Millard Fillmore seem to have aided each other in 1856. To be sure, not all third-party candidates have benefited from other third-party races – Prohibitionist Eugene Chafin was unable to capitalize on the success of Roosevelt and Debs in 1912, and Libertarian Andre Marrou performed poorly in 1992 despite Ross Perot’s excellent showing – but it remains an interesting and well-proven principle that one third party’s good showing is good for other third parties.

I’m not certain why this happens, but my guess would be that a lot of third-party campaigning is about telling voters it’s okay to vote third party. Once someone like Roosevelt or Weaver had shaken major-party voters loose, it might have been easier for them to vote for some other third party they agreed with more. At any rate, this finding suggests that third party candidates might want to work together more closely in future in order to mutually boost their vote totals.”