Can I be the jerk-off in the room that makes an obvious point (a point that none of the Democrats here will ever make)?
No third party candidate will win the the presidency in 2012. There is zero chance. It's between Romney and Obama, and that's that. As it stands, Obama probably has a better chance than Romney.
So far I have stayed out of this thread because it is a very much a Republican thread. I have no desire to do mischief to the Republican Party. It is enough for me to work for Democratic candidates when the GOP where I live (Michigan) is so clearly awful. It's trying to turn Michigan into Oklahoma and America into a pure plutocracy.
Third-Party candidates have no chance of winning. but they can give a message to the Party from which they bleed votes. If your Party is going a way that you dislike, then a Third Party is one way to tell its leadership that it needs to change direction fast.
Maybe the reelection of President Obama in 2012 is best described as "highly likely". Time is running out for any Republican candidate for President to make the case for a Republican coalition that has been shrinking in potential votes. Sure the Republicans can win an election in which lots of Democrats stay home, but counting on a depressed electorate is a high-risk gamble. Young Democratic voters of 2008 who failed to vote in 2010 because they overestimated the importance of Presidential elections and underestimated the importance of elections for State governors, Congress, and state legislatures may simply get older and more sophisticated.
Unless they really foul up
and get caught for it within four years, incumbent Presidents get re-elected. In the 20th Century, Taft could not avoid a challenge from a prior (and better) President from his own Party. Hoover catastrophically bungled his response to the economic meltdown. Ford was unsuited to a campaign for President. Carter had practically no legislative legacy of any kind and had to seek new supporters in 1980 as much of his 1976 constituency disappeared to the Reagan side. The elder Bush had achieved everything that he wanted to achieve and had no idea of what to do in a second term.
In the 21st century a President so awful as Dubya could win re-election despite a pair of bungled wars that had yet to become unambiguous disasters, could set up policies that would lead to the most dangerous economic meltdown since 1929-1933, and had one diplomatic
faux pas after another. If you thought that Solyndra is a disgrace, Dubya had Enron Corporation... and much personal attachment to its CEO. If you think that President Obama is 'too left-wing' and still is -- liberals thought that President Reagan was too right-wing in 1980 and still was in 1984. Reagan won.
Prepare yourself for an Obama victory in 2012. A President who satisfies the people who voted and hasn't done anything to irritate his core constituencies is likely to win if he has an effective campaign. He had the slickest campaign in my memory (which goes back to the 1960s) and I expect it to come out of mothballs in 2012. It will get likely Democratic voters out and that will turn over the House and keep the Democratic majority in the Senate.
Maybe 2014 will be much like 2010... but the big election will be in 2016, one with no incumbent running for President and a raft of R Senate seats up for grabs. Your Party will need an expanded coalition to win then against someone with more cultural ties to WHITE America. Votes for a Third Party nominee in 2012 will not hurt a Republican nominee in 2016. If anything they might help if some Democrats go along with that Third Party in 2012 and follow most of that Third Party vote to the GOP.
A vote for a Third Party nominee is essentially a protest vote -- a statement that both main Parties have gone awry. But it may be all that you have. You might be more interested in the "Christian" part of the Right on cultural values while you show disdain for a Party that sees nothing wrong with impoverishing 95% of America to enrich 1% that needs more help. Or, on the other hand, you might want a more secular conservatism that promotes rational thought. Maybe Mitt Romney can't have it both ways this year.
Better use? Maybe by promoting change within American conservatism so that it is less provincial, less tied to anti-rational thought, and on the whole more credible. If the Republicans fail at that, then conservatism may redefine itself by defending certain aspects of the Obama Presidency at the expense of others. Maybe conservatism needs to get its revival from within the Democratic Party as it beaks into liberal and conservative wings -- or perhaps a Christian Democratic Party and a Social Democratic Party.
Mitt Romney may be proving that one cannot say one thing at one time where such is convenient and its diametric opposite where such is convenient. Such may be a consequence of the 24/7 news cycle and the ability of news crews to get a scoop from a place like Chillicothe, Ohio (where Sarah Palin made her obnoxious "Real America tirade") all over America. President Obama has no such problem; what you see (or hear) is what you get.
Face it: Dubya was a subpar President, and much time may prove necessary for undoing the damage that he and his cronies did. If he had been a liberal and promoted the corrupt real estate boom and initiated wars for profit he would have been a horrible President.
