This editorial isn’t just about third parties, but it does address third parties. It also addresses the dynamic that often separates third party activists from major party activists.
The etherialists who are too good to stoop toward the “lesser evil” of politics—as if there were ever anything better than the lesser evil there—naively assume that if they just bring down the current system, or one part of it that has disappointed them, they can build a new and better thing of beauty out of the ruins. Of course they never get the tabula rasa on which to draw their ideal schemes. What they normally do is damage the party closest to their professed ideals. Third parties are run by people who make the best the enemy of their own good and bring down that good. Theodore Roosevelt’s’ Bull Moose variant of his own Republican Party drained enough Republican votes to let the Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, win. (His voters, believing he would not “send our boys to war,” saw the prince become a frog in World War I.) George H. W. Bush rightly believes he was sabotaged by the crypto-Republican Ross Perot, who helped Bill Clinton win. Ralph Nader siphoned crucial votes from Al Gore to give us George W. Bush.
All these brave “independents” say that there is not a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties, and claim they can start history over, with candidates suddenly become as good as they are themselves. What they do is give us the worst of evils…
AB@11,
“Besides, what about all the votes Buchanan and other third parties received? In some states that might have hurt Bush in favor of Gore using that logic, but nope, its ALLLLL Nader’s fault that we got stuck with Bush.”
Very true.
Harry Browne “beat the spread” — regardless of which way you believe the actual spread would have gone had the votes been honestly and fully recounted — between Bush and Gore in Florida.
He also beat the spread in New Mexico. If one believes that Browne’s voters would have overwhelmingly gone for Bush had Browne not been on the ballot, then if follows that if not for Harry Browne, the Florida outcome would have been irrelevant (if Bush had carried New Mexico, Florida’s outcome would not have made or broken the electoral college outcome).
I wasn’t politically active in 2000, but when I was part of the Ron Paul meet-up group in Virginia 2008, one of the Ron Paul supporters was a former Nader supporter, and she told me that for HER, George W. Bush was the lesser of two evils because Gore was the status quo, and Bush was advocating a more humble foreign policy, and that was her biggest issue.
So to think that Nader pulled more votes from Gore over Bush is just silly.
Besides, what about all the votes Buchanan and other third parties received? In some states that might have hurt Bush in favor of Gore using that logic, but nope, its ALLLLL Nader’s fault that we got stuck with Bush.
Obvious mistakes – names and typos – are always OK for any of us to correct. For more substantive changes, best to check with the post author.
Thanks Jill.
Theodore Roosevelt’s’ Bull Moose variant of his own Republican Party drained enough Republican votes to let the Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, win. (His voters, believing he would not “send our boys to war,” saw the prince become a frog in World War I.)
A great reason not to vote for Democrats and Republicans: they frequently lie about what they will do when they get elected.
George H. W. Bush rightly believes he was sabotaged by the crypto-Republican Ross Perot, who helped Bill Clinton win.
Completely untrue. According to exit polls Perot pulled exactly the same percent of votes from Clinton as from Bush. Why does the fabrication perpetuated by Wills above still survive and get repeated as if it had any relationship to reality?
Ralph Nader siphoned crucial votes from Al Gore to give us George W. Bush.
More plausible, but again not true. A large percentage of Nader’s votes in Florida came from Arab-Americans who usually vote Republican (the same may have been true in other states as well). Nader also induced many liberals to vote that would not have voted at all, yet ended up not voting for him when it actually came right down to it. Thus, if anything, Nader helped Gore.
Wills. of course, ignores parties such as Libertarians which are not necessarily closer to one of the bigger parties than the other.
What they normally do is damage the party closest to their professed ideals.
What if, as for many of us, there isn’t one?
I think both of the biggest parties are *equally evil* — and even if one is less evil from time to time, it’s hard to predict from one election to the next which one that will be.
Great editorial Gary; one of the great intellectuals of our time
Thanks for pointing that out. I don’t know if Red is online, so I’ll correct it for him. I hope that’s okay with him.
The headline misspells the fellow’s name.
“Extreme Moderation” and “Radical Centrism” is where it’s at, baby!
There are few types more annoying than smug, self-appointed centrism enforcers.