Talk Elections

Fifty-eight percent of Americans, and 62% of Tea Party supporters, favor third party (http://www.gallup.com/poll/143051/Americans-Renew-Call-Third-Party.aspx?utm_source=add+this&utm_medium=addthis.com&utm_campaign=sharing&utm_term=Americans-Renew-Call-Third-Party)
by Jeffrey M. Jones

PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans' desires for a third political party are as high as they have been in seven years. Fifty-eight percent of Americans believe a third major political party is needed because the Republican and Democratic Parties do a poor job of representing the American people. That is a significant increase from 2008 and ties the high Gallup has recorded for this measure since 2003.

The finding, based on an Aug. 27-30 USA Today/Gallup poll, comes at a time when Americans are widely dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States and give relatively weak approval ratings to the president and Congress.

Though the rise in support for a third party could be linked to the Tea Party movement, Tea Party supporters are just about average in terms of wanting to see a third party created. Sixty-two percent of those who describe themselves as Tea Party supporters would like a third major party formed, but so do 59% of those who are neutral toward the Tea Party movement. Tea Party opponents are somewhat less likely to see the need for a third party.

The desire for a third party is fairly similar across ideological groups, with 61% of liberals, 60% of moderates, and 54% of conservatives believing a third major party is needed. That is a narrower gap than Gallup has found in the past; conservatives have typically been far less likely than liberals and moderates to support the creation of a third party.

There are already plenty of "third" parties. It's just that few people actually want to vote for them because doing so helps the major party you like the least.

I'm sure they mean third major party.

The three most popular 3rd parties are all to radical/insane for the average American.

Of course they do.

It just means 42% of Americans are so bizarre they think they're being wellserved by their party system.

GO TEA PARTY!!!!!! I can see them winning 58-21-21, easily.

And you can't be "major" unless people vote for you. Face it, unless we change the way we vote (unlikely) we're stuck with the parties we have.

Yes, but do 0.01% favor it?

The best thing that could possibly happen to this country would be the formation of a formal Conservative/Tea Party.

This would drain all true--and some dumb neos who think they are true--conservatives out of the GOP and put moderate heroism into that party (because when you look at the history of the Republican Party as well as the history of the term "Republican," that's where it belongs).  Then, by draining all the blue dogs out of the Democratic Party, it would finally allow them to become the passionately liberal party they haven't been in 40 years.

This would then allow people to actually know what they are getting when the go vote.

Time and time again the StatesRights and jferns of this country have voted party line in hopes of getting someone who will fight for conservative and liberal values only to get a representative who spends his term swinging watered down deals.

Conservatives are conservative block, Democrats are liberal block, and Republicans form the coalitions (and there's still plenty of htmldons... or hell, me... to vote for coalitioners) that the decide the passage or failure of each bill.

Now, I know what you're gonna say: how is having the conservatives, liberals, and moderate heros separate on the ballot but all still in office going to solve anything?  The answer is very simple: with three parties, any candidate will only need 35% of the vote to be re-elected.  That low of a quota will allow conservatives and liberals to stand their ground and the moderates to vote as they please without worry about a public opinion survey.

It will never happen, but it would solve a lot.

One wonders if that means that only 42% of Americans realize that third parties make no sense given the dynamics of 'democracy'.

The question is: what third party?

When you look at what's different between the US and other countries with more than two parties, a common difference is the electoral system. It is unusual to maintain more than two dominant parties (other than regional parties) in a FPP system. A "Tea Party" third party would pretty much be a sap on the GOP, resulting in either a moderate Republican Party or Democratic dominance. I see room for a moderate/classical liberal party ala the Minnesota Independence Party, which I would love to see in general, but only because it would be able to find room and balance in the middle. But as much as I'm a pro-third party guy, I would sooner want a change in the electoral system than for a single third party to come to prominence.

The Tea Party is just a third force for neo-liberalism.  The missing party is a socialist/social democrat voice in the US, and it will never be allowed.

"be allowed"...? We have had socialist parties in the US before, but there simply isn't a large enough socialist voting block in the US nowadays for one to spring up in the same way there are opportunities for moderate, classical liberal, and paleoconservative parties. Of the likelihood of the new third party being moderate (or non-right/left, like libertarian or populist) versus conservative or leftist, I would rank it: moderate > conservative >>> leftist.

I meant be allowed to rule.  All the groups you mention above are neo-liberal.  There's an absolute monopoly of power in the US by the owning elite, and these parties we're talking about are irrelevancies as long as that arrangement is accepted.

Given the 2 shining stars they have to chose from now, who can blame them?

I think we can blame them - they still think american democracy is the answer!  Oh, just add another party, and it'll get better.  Naive j******s.

Can't we just switch to Proportional representation?  It would eliminate this problem entirely.

That's the key, but it's unlikely, because it would require a constitutional amendment, and Republican and Democratic congresspeople are among the least likely to support it.

When they realize that it would end up run by Moderate Hero crooks and self-important scum like Specter, Crist, Murkowski, and Lieberman, I doubt they would have such in interest in a third party.

That's the major problem.  Democrats and Republicans have entrenched the two-party system into election law in order to protect themselves and they are therefore the least likely to support any kind of reform, let alone an amendment to the Constitution.

IMO a much easier reform to pass than a proportional representation would be implementing instant run-off voting.  That's how you'd get independents like Crist and other moderates elected.  It would pull everything back to the center instead of pushing it out to the extremes like the current two-step system where the primaries eliminate the moderates and you end up with a choice between two extremists in the general.  If people don't feel like they're wasting their votes on third parties then they'll be more likely to vote for them.

How does the two party system create extremes? The last few elections have been anything but extremists.

Clinton v Dole
Bush v Gore
Bush v Kerry
Obama v McCain

These guys were extremists? More like party hacks.

Look at it like this. Everyone wants a third party, that will be the made in his image. States Rights wants a third party, Fezzy wants a third party. I highly doubt they would fit in the same one. That is why a third party will never work, everyone wants a different kind of third party.

Absolutely not.

What's so bad with pluralism?

You're approaching some sort of cliche reactionary status. I can't think of any legitimate reasons why someone would oppose proportional representation unless it's a purely selfish "I wouldn't like the results of it" reason.

Do you mean that we can't "just switch" to PR? Or that it wouldn't eliminate the problem? Because if you mean the latter, I don't think that that's a defensible position. If "the problem" is a lack of third parties, then PR does fix it--look at anywhere in the world that there's PR. The Netherlands, for example, wouldn't have so many parties if they had US-style representation.

It would also have the benefit of eliminating gerrymandering, as there wouldn't really be any districts to draw every census.

Presidential primaries are no where near the same as congressional primaries.  In individual congressional races the choices are often between a far right Republican and a far left Democrat.

Personally I have some concerns about the US turning out like Israel where umpteen different parties enter and the threshhold for representation is so low (5% IIRC) that major parties can rarely form a coalition on their own without reaching out to the extreme fringe (usually religious oriented) parties and grant them major concessions to form a deal for governance.

Of course that scenario does have somewhat less threat in this country where politically active religious extremists already have effective control over one of the two major parties....

Proportional representation? When the hell did this become Eastern Europe?

I question whether PR would be the best system for America.

And what... 40% of Americans don't vote...  Was this a poll of just people or voters?  If it's just people, I put very little stock into it, since a large amount of them don't/won't ever vote.

Please tell me you're joking? If not that is absolutely hyperbolic nonsense.

Sure, States. The religious right has almost NO influence whatsoever on the GOP's hard-line social conservatism. ::)

Of course coming from someone for whom "old times there are not forgotten"--ever--and who cites "50k years of human nature" as a reason for kids to languish in orphanages rather than the horror of their being adopted by gays, well, "social conservativism" is rather relative, no?

To call them "extremists" is really inane hackery. Westboro Baptist Church is extreme, mainline Protestantism and Evangelicals aren't really extreme. Very very very few of the Christians involved in politics at the moment are pushing for any sort of theocracy that you'd imagine in your head. And don't use me as any sort of example, I'm outside the scope of the normal political spectrum, just like most of the leftists here are.

Being pro-life, pro-family and other social conservative positions are not "extreme" by most any standard in this country.

I'm well aware that mainline Christian Churches aren't 'extremist", States. I actually belong to one.

If Westboro Baptist is even close to your threshold for religious extremism, that rather proves my point, game, set and match.

Uh, I was just using them as an example. I couldn't think of anything closer. I'd certainly say they are the most extreme church right now. What words are you trying to put in my mouth? Really, IMHO, they're all horse crap, Catholicism is the true church anyway.

They are religious extremism and moves towards theocracy, States - attempting to impose the religious person's views upon the non-religious.

It's unclear (as far as I've seen) what party system IRV encourages.

Then you should work to change our Constitution to create a system much more amenable for a multi-party system.

When the hell did Western Europe become Eastern Europe?

58% of americans favor creation of third party

57% of americans favor creation of third party and are too stupid to vote for one that already exists.

I wonder what percentage actually favors the elimination of all political parties.

It depends on how the polling question was asked.

There are already third parties....

The poll asked if a third "major" party was needed.

Within five years of the creation of this "major third party", approximately 58% of Americans will say they favor the creation of a fourth party.

Yes, I know living under a multi-party system is difficult for your imagination.

The Greens, Libertarians and the Constitution Party are on the ballot in many states.

A 3rd party in this country could only survive if it was considered not to be liberal or conservative.
I think the wedge issue of abortion makes this impossible. There is no way to explain that you are neutral on the issue. You could say you want to leave it to the states, or you are against it but don't want to impose your views on others, but either way, that party would fall into one of 2 categories, pro-abortion or pro-life.
So I think it's going to be impossible to sustain a 3rd party. A new one may push a current one out, but I don't think more than 2 major parties will ever be in place for a long period of time.

I've always found it ironic that the US always gets on China's case about not being democratic when, in fact, the only significant difference between China and the U.S. is that we have one more major political party than they do.  If it would force us into more pragmatically oriented solutions to our problems, I would favor major third and fourth and fifth parties.  But I don't really consider minor variations on already existing party themes to be candidates for major party status.  The TEA (Taxed Enough Already) party is, as far as I can tell, even for all its internal variety, basically a group of infighters in the Republican party, not a third party.