Besides, I would hate waving the flag of the discredited party of G.W. Bush. Right-wing conservatives won’t even touch the thing anymore.

Even with the Libertarian Party’s weakening of principles in the last 4 years, we are still FAR better than the Repubs or Demos.

You are, of course, forgetting Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman–the two sitting Independent Senators.

Recent third party governors
Jesse Ventura – Minnesota from 1999 to 2003.
Angus King – Maine from 1995 to 2003.
Lowell P. Weicker, Jr.- Connecticut from 1991 to 1995, as a member of A Connecticut Party.
Walter Joseph Hickel – Alaskan Independence Party, serving from 1990 to 1994.

Recent “minor party”/Independent Congressmen

Harry Bird, Jr – West Virginia was elected as an Independent from 1970-1983

Dean Barkley – Minnesota
James Jeffords – Vermont
Virgil Goode – Virginia

Upon Lincoln’s death in 1865, Andrew Johnson became the only other National Union President. After the final break with the Congress over Reconstruction policies, Johnson used federal patronage to build up a party of loyalists, but it proved to be unsuccessful.Foner (2002).]

The 1866 National Union Convention was held in August in Philadelphia as part of his attempt at maintaining a coalition of supporters and Johnson embarked upon a speaking tour (known as the “Swing Around the Circle”) before the 1866 Congressional elections to attempt to garner support for his policies, but both proved ineffective as more of his opponents were elected. Republican National Committee chairman Henry Jarvis Raymond (1864-1866) lost the regard of the Republicans for his participation in the convention. The National Union movement became little more than the Democratic Party in a new form as Republicans left the movement and returned to the old party fold by the fall.

The last congressman to represent the National Union Party ended his affiliation with the party in March 1867. Andrew Johnson was impeached by the Republican-led House of Representatives in 1868, and he was acquitted in the United States Senate by one vote. Upon the 1869 expiration of Johnson’s only term as U.S. President, the National Union Party came to an end.

The platform adopted at the 1868 Republican National Convention strongly repudiated President Johnson, [ [http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29622 Republican Party Platform of 1868] ] while the platform adopted by the 1868 Democratic National Convention thanked Johnson,

[ [http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29579 Democratic Party Platform of 1868] ] but did not nominate him.

The Republicans used the “National Union Republican” label for their Republican National Conventions of 1868 and 1872 and regard the initial National Union coalition assembled in 1864 as part of their party lineage and heritage.

yeah!!!!!!!

you with the friend you texted me about ?

i think he called me awhile back from Vegas ,, i didnt get the message till 3 or4 days later.

A friend of mine with a computer is in town. Not sure for how long. I also subleased an apartment here.

I do have to hit the streets to get more signatures, and he uses his own computer too, so it’s not like when I was sitting in Alabama on here all day, but my access is better than it’s been up here before now.

No, not necessarily.

A “third” party has several advantages which major party caucuses don’t have:

1. Running candidates in the general election, when more people pay attention to politics

2. The ability to swing close races as well as challenge otherwise unchallenged incumbents, thus gaining leverage

3. Not having to pay filing fees or swear loyalty oaths to major party bosses

4. No veto power by major party bosses over who can vie for their nomination, as is the case in some places

5. No need to support the major party presidential or other candidates, even in theory, or otherwise carry the dirty water of the major parties to gather status within them

6. Whereas some smaller parties (GP, CP) can be easily said to line up more closely with one major party over the other, a properly organized LP would not be so easy to categorize as being closer to either the Democrats or the Republicans.

However, caucuses within major parties have some other advantages which independents and smaller parties lack.

Educational and lobbying groups, single issue organizations, etc., have yet other advantages; militias, other still, and so on.

No strategy is “the one” by itself. Any successful movement needs a diversity of tactics.

Anyway, if a party is the largest party in the country (comprised of part of the Democratic Party, most of the Republican Party, and some other people, at a time when a good amount of Democrats had seceded from the Union), I would hesitate to call it a third party. Just because a party is new doesn’t make it a third party – that’s just fatuous and idiotic.

I just presented the information, Ross. You decided I was making you look stupid.

But, it wasn’t my intention to do anything to make you look ignorant and foolish. You did that all by yourself.

Your fatuous and idiotic statement, “It was the largest party in the country, and hardly a third party” simply illustrates what a complete fool you are. The National Union party was the third party in the 1864 election. The first two parties were the Republican party and the Democrat party.

It is certainly rare for the incumbent not to be nominated by his own party, and even more rare for him to form a third party and get its nomination, and even more rare for him to fire his postmaster general as the only condition for the Republican candidate to drop out of the race. But that is what happened. The two parties that survived to the election in November 1864 were not the two that started out.

Your idea that a third party must be tiny and ineffectual is certainly consistent with what ever Libertarian Party national headquarters person seems to think.

There are many extra-solar planets. There are many elements in the periodic table beyond uranium. Now, your research methodology will reveal that I don’t have their names at the tip of my tongue. But they exist all the same.

Again, I pointed you at a page where two Senators who are currently serving and not from either major party are listed. Evidently you don’t read, or can’t think. So, have a nice life with the boot on your neck crushing your spine. (Not my boot, the boot of the Boot on Your Neck party.)

I was not asking you to do research.

You said that many third party folks had been elected to the Senate and House, so you should have a list off the top of your head.

Unless of course there have not been, “many such candidates … elected to these bodies”.

According to my research your statement is false.

And you don’t have to be a jerk about it.

Anyway, I would still argue that Lincoln was never part of a third party and that the National Union Party was the major party in opposition to the Democrats that year. It was the largest party in the country, and hardly a third party.

And I don’t think a third party’s candidate has ever won the presidency. The Whigs weren’t a third party, the Federalists weren’t, the Democrats never were, neither were the Democratic-Republicans, neither are the Republicans, and neither was the Union Party. Washington was technically independent, but no formal parties had emerged at that point.

It wasn’t until September that Fremont abandoned his campaign. But, evidently, he didn’t collapse the Republican Party, as it rather evidently still existed (and persists, somewhat, even today). There was a Republican party in 1864. Their candidate agreed not to run against Lincoln, who was already the candidate of a third party.

So, either get your facts straight, or if you know these things, stop lying.

The 1864 election may have been the last time a third party’s candidate won the presidency. It was not the last time a third party’s presidential candidate had a material effect on the success of the election for one of the other candidates.

Jim, Abe Lincoln was never a third party member. In 1864 the Union Party was the second party – there was no Republican Party that year.