3rd (minor) parties in 2004: Any effect?

[Ryan]

hmmm y'know this topic is like an onion lets peel another layer and see if it makes anyone cry

Independent polling as well as research by the Green party itself showed that in excess of 50% of Nader voters in 2000 would not have voted AT ALL if there was no Green party candidate.

In addition they found that another 15-20% of Nader voters would otherwise have voted for the Libertarian candidate Harry Browne or (esp. if Browne were not there) even for BUSH. Yes yes I know that's ridiculous and all; I wouldnt have believed it myself if I didnt know a couple of Libertarians who voted for Nader because of his extreme social liberalism/libertarianism especially on Marijuana legalization etc. With Nader out of the equation, they disliked both major parties social stances almost equally but would have voted for Bush on economic issues (as the lesser of two evils)

The rest would have considered voting for Gore or maybe the nominee of another left/liberal party like Natural Law if that party(s) made themselves known as such.

Now with all the (non-voting) or (voting for another third party) folks taken out of the equation and taking away (subtracting) the votes (say 5% of total) that might have actually have gone to Bush; Gore is left with a NET gain of only 15-20% of Nader voters, tops.

Now I regrettably cannot complete my argument because I have no figures on how many Reform/Libertarian voters would not have voted and how many would have voted for Bush if their candidates did not run.

Given what I know of these parties and their voters I believe the Bush Net gain would have been enough to overcome the 15-20% net Gore would have got from Nader dropping out.

Thus I surmise that the presence of the Green, Reform and Libertarian third party candidates in the 2000 race ended up hurting Bush a lot more than Gore.

Will look forward to reading the enraged rebuttals.

[Ryan]

Okay I'm not going to be debating this topic in-depth cause as you happily point out I lack information to 'seal the deal'

First I didnt "meticulously (and liberally) dissect the Green voters". The main source of my info was Green party releases themselves.

Second, the incident you refer to was ONE SINGLE CASE in Florida accounting for very few votes and if not Buchanan's name they would have mistakenly marked whoever else was on that particular slot on the ballot.

Third as I mention the Natural Law party as AN EXAMPLE - a possible alternative for voters determined to vote for a "progressive" alternative to Bush/Gore and would have actively sought out such a candidate to vote for.

Fourth I very clearly did not assume that ALL Reform and Libertarian voters would have voted for Bush!!!
If one accepts the GREEN PARTY'S own breakup (as supported by others) of how their own vote would break up, Gore would get a net gain of only 0.27% of the national vote. As you pointed out the Reform and Libertarian candidates 0.80% (approx) was small but ONLY about 40% of those would have had to show up and vote for Bush to make up the advantage Gore would have got  from Naders dropping out. Would 40% have DEF. done so, I don't know as don't YOU. Your argument that if they wanted to vote for Bush, they would have in the first place, applies just as well to Nader voters and Gore. U didn't think of that didja??

As I say we really don't know what would have happened but the conjecture is all the fun of being a political junkie and I think my post has at least dented the notion that Gore woulda definitely won but for Nader.

[Ryan]

A group of some five thousand libertarians have committed to moving to NH (and supposedly 40,00 more considering it) with a view to encouraging libertarian tendencies already present and building a true libertarian state (whose success is expected to encourage libertarianism nation-wide)

I wont comment on their goals but as to actual political impact............5000 (assuming they all do move there) is not a huge number even in NH and anyway they are likely to vote for the libertarian party candidate.

Even when libertarians vote for one major party or the other they split their vote depending on whether economic libertarianism (GOP-advantage) or social libertarianism (DEM advantage) is more important to them.

Hence they will either throw their vote away to a libertarian candidate or split it between the two parties so I dont believe they will make any huge difference in NH!!

I heard about a move by a Libertarian-minded group to attempt to build a plurality of voters in a small state, probably NH, and attempt to change public policy there.
1) Has anyone else heard about this?

2) What, if any, effect could this have in 2004?