Third party candidates are shaking up two major races in elections Tuesday, and the success of those candidacies is a warning shot fired at both major parties by voters angry at government and disillusioned by politics as usual.
In New York’s 23rd Congressional district, where longtime Republican Rep. John McHugh stepped down to be Army secretary, Dede Scozzafava, the candidate chosen by state GOP leaders to replace him, was forced out of the race by a surging Conservative Party candidate, Doug Hoffman. High-profile national Republicans endorsed Hoffman, saying Scozzafava, a state assemblywoman who supports abortion rights and gay marriage, had abandoned core GOP values. (I call bullcrap. This is further evidence that no matter the thoughts or concerns at the local level, the national parties have the ability to step in and “force out” a candidate that doesn’t toe the party line. Of course she abandoned core GOP principles. She argued for equal rights and personal liberty…. how dare she)
Corzine, Christie, and Daggett
Daggett is not expected to win the New Jersey contest, and the GOP split in upstate New York could throw the race to Democrat Bill Owens (which would serve the jackasses at the national GOP right).
But the impact of those candidacies on the high-profile contests points to an anti-incumbent, anti-establishment sentiment that could be a prevailing theme in the 2010 congressional elections and beyond.
“What it says is the public is looking for less self-interested parties and candidates who can reflect the needs of a very frustrated public,” said Douglas Astolfi, a history professor at Florida’s St. Leo University. “We have two wars and we’re in a recession that neither party seems to address in any positive way. There’s a deep sense that government has abandoned the common man. People are frustrated and angry.”
Indeed, a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll released last week found that trust in government is at a 12-year low, and half of all Americans now support the creation of a new political party.
Both parties ignore such sentiment at their peril in 2010 and perhaps into the 2012 presidential race.
In Senate contests from Florida and Kentucky to New Hampshire next year, conservatives furious at the Republican establishment are mounting primary challenges against more mainstream candidates favored by the national party.
On the other side, Democratic strategists worry that progressives, disgusted by the big money bank bailout and disillusioned with President Barack Obama’s lack of fight on issues such as a government-run health insurance plan, might keep some people from voting. That could cost Democrats seats up and down the ballot.
Political operatives are keeping an eye on independent voters — an important and growing group that often decides elections. Will these voters send a signal to politicians Tuesday as well or will they stay home and leave it to the more ideologically driven base voters in both parties?…… (skipped a bit from here)
Hoffman’s rise infuriated leaders of New York’s Republican Party, who insisted Scozzafava was a good fit for the district which favored Obama last year, but is one of the few still held by Republicans in the Northeast.
In New Jersey, Daggett, a businessman and former Environmental Protection Agency official, has appealed to voters who are turned off by both Corzine and Christie and fed up with the candidates’ campaign bloodbath. Daggett was widely believed to be the winner of a televised candidate debate and has been endorsed by The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., the state’s largest newspaper.
John Weingart, associate director of Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics, said Daggett’s candidacy had succeeded in giving disillusioned voters a competent and credible alternative to Corzine and Christie.
But Weingart said lack of money, the institutional obstacles to a third party candidacy and a growing awareness among voters of the ideological differences between Christie and Corzine would cause Daggett’s campaign to stall.
“To vote for an independent candidate, you have to believe either that the person can win or that there is no difference you care about between the Democratic and the Republican candidate,” Weingart said.
Third Party Candidates Shake Up Local Races, Send Warning Ahead of 2010 – FOXNews.com
So the question becomes again, what impact does a third party hope to have in the elections that will be coming up in the near and not so near future?
I tend to believe a lot of what this article is discussing. Americans in general are definitely beginning to realize that the two parties in power are really on the same team wearing different colored shirts. Both are out to gain power, wealth, and legitimacy. Neither party has the interests of regular people at heart. Not one single bit. And I think that includes the President, regardless of what he says, and all the members of Congress, except for maybe one or two. Americans are ready to have an alternative to the two big boys. However, I have a few concerns…
First, we have to ask ourselves if the impact of the 3rd party candidates on the election cycles is a good or a bad thing. On one hand, it does send a message that the two candidates and the two parties are not a choice that the voters were happy with. But realistically, all the 3rd party candidates seem to actually accomplish in the races are a disruption and a altering of the balance of power one way or the other. One of the two big party candidates is going to win. The 3rd party seems to simply have the ability to steal votes from one, allowing the other to win. Whether that is a good thing, I suppose, would rest with whether it is your candidate that benefits.
Next, the fact remains that it doesn’t seem that the two big parties ever get the message. Perot got 19% of the popular vote in 1992, but it certainly didn’t change the course in Washington. Think about that. 1 out of 5 people voted for Perot. And still the two big boys ignored that fact. So I am not sure that the message is ever going to get across to the big boys unless a 3rd party candidate actually has the ability to win an election. That won’t happen in a Presidential election, but could in other elections. The deck is too stacked in the Presidential election. It is literally an impossibility for a 3rd party to win under the criteria set up under the Constitution, unless that candidate got overwhelming support (they would have to win more electoral votes than the other two parties combined, not just have the most).
The thing that warms my heart is that I do think that the average American feels abandoned by the federal government. Let’s face it, the middle class has been ignored for quite a while. If you are wealthy, you get paid attention to. If you are poor you get paid attention to. Otherwise, no luck. And those two segments of the population are not nearly as large as one might think. But they are both powerful in the voting booth. Regardless, the fascinating thing is that the wealthy have always been served. The poor have never been. They get pandered to, by both parties, although it was the Democrats this time around, but the government never does anything to actually change their situation. The government does little for them besides ease their pain while ensuring they will still be there to be pandered to when the next election cycle comes around.
I do think many Americans realize that the two parties are self serving, not people serving. The fact that half of the American public is in favor of creating a new political party tells me they see the evil before them. Unfortunately it tells me that they also don’t understand reality well enough to understand that a new party would replace one of the two we have and end up with the same results. Remember the Republicans were a 3rd party once. And the Whig party died a quick death. But things didn’t exactly get better from there, did it?
I think that the bottom line is that we are in a sad position where people are supporting 3rd parties when they see the two big candidates are the pieces of trash they are. It isn’t a support for a different ideal or a new platform. It is a rejection of the two dominant platforms or candidates. And there is a big difference there. A big difference between embracing a new ideal and simply taking any alternative to what is being offered by the big two. But it is a start. Look at New Jersey. Two unpopular choices result in 13% of the people choosing someone who isn’t unpopular, as opposed to the people choosing someone who is really a candidate they think is ideal.
In the final sentence of the article above, it states, “To vote for an independent candidate, you have to believe either that the person can win or that there is no difference you care about between the Democratic and the Republican candidate.” And I think that this points to exactly what I am talking about. People are willing to accept a ton of bad about a candidate if he is simply slightly better than the other big party guy and actually has a chance of winning. It goes to that sentiment that a vote for a 3rd party is a wasted vote, as it allows the candidate you don’t like to win because it denies the vote to a candidate with a chance to win. And realistically, 3rd party candidates don’t have much of a shot of winning, so this is the case in the vast majority of elections.
So how does that change? It doesn’t…. at least not until the “real thing” comes along. And I think that the “real thing” is exactly what we have been discussing on this board for the last year. A third party will win, and could even win the Presidency, when that party has a candidate that is the real thing.
I believe that the vast majority of Americans are good people. I believe that they adhere to principles and values. Look at the people that post on this site. Are there any who you think are not “good people” in general? I believe they all want to do the right things and help the people who need help and fix the things that are broken. But we all disagree on how to do that. And I think that this is because we fall into the trap of believing that the two options presented are the only ones that can work. We fall into the trap of believing that the people in Washington, or the University economists, or the big business folks, or whomever, are simply better able to make the big decisions.
That is what we have been told for decades. The economists are the only ones that can fix the economy. Trust them. The politicians are the only ones that can fix the health care system. Trust them. The wall street barons are the only ones that can finance our business world. Trust them. The government is the only one who understands foreign policy well enough to deal with foreign nations. Trust them. The economy, health care, wall street, foreign relations, all of it. We are told that we need big government and all the experts to help us deal with a complex world. They are our protectors. Our saviors. Our guardians.
They are our four horsemen is what they are. They are bringing the apocalypse. Slowly, but surely.
I say bullshit. They aren’t smarter than we are. Common sense, ethics, morals, principles, and values are the tools needed to effectively deal with all the situations we face.
So what is the “real thing”?
The real thing is that candidate that operates from the principles of liberty and freedom, rights that we have regardless of and in spite of government’s constant attempts to strip them from us. The real thing is that candidate that truly operates with the best interests of the people in mind. The candidate that talks like Barack Obama, but acts like Ghandi. The real thing is the candidate that adheres to values, principles, and ethics even when they make the task 100 times harder. When that person comes along, they will transcend partisan games and obliterate both major parties because their message will be the one that resonates with the people. The real thing will be that candidate that makes people believe again in the principles that this country was founded on: life, liberty, freedom, equality for all. The real thing will make Americans stand up and act like Americans again. The real thing will make us once again believe in ourselves rather than believing that a man with a golden tongue has the answers to cure our ills.
Just one problem.
The “real thing” would realize that the second he was elected, he would have to step aside and finally allow the people to live free.
http://standupforamerica.wordpress.com/
In New York’s 23rd Congressional district, where longtime Republican Rep. John McHugh stepped down to be Army secretary, Dede Scozzafava, the candidate chosen by state GOP leaders to replace him, was forced out of the race by a surging Conservative Party candidate, Doug Hoffman. High-profile national Republicans endorsed Hoffman, saying Scozzafava, a state assemblywoman who supports abortion rights and gay marriage, had abandoned core GOP values. (I call bullcrap. This is further evidence that no matter the thoughts or concerns at the local level, the national parties have the ability to step in and “force out” a candidate that doesn’t toe the party line. Of course she abandoned core GOP principles. She argued for equal rights and personal liberty…. how dare she)
Corzine, Christie, and Daggett
Daggett is not expected to win the New Jersey contest, and the GOP split in upstate New York could throw the race to Democrat Bill Owens (which would serve the jackasses at the national GOP right).
But the impact of those candidacies on the high-profile contests points to an anti-incumbent, anti-establishment sentiment that could be a prevailing theme in the 2010 congressional elections and beyond.
“What it says is the public is looking for less self-interested parties and candidates who can reflect the needs of a very frustrated public,” said Douglas Astolfi, a history professor at Florida’s St. Leo University. “We have two wars and we’re in a recession that neither party seems to address in any positive way. There’s a deep sense that government has abandoned the common man. People are frustrated and angry.”
Indeed, a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll released last week found that trust in government is at a 12-year low, and half of all Americans now support the creation of a new political party.
Both parties ignore such sentiment at their peril in 2010 and perhaps into the 2012 presidential race.In Senate contests from Florida and Kentucky to New Hampshire next year, conservatives furious at the Republican establishment are mounting primary challenges against more mainstream candidates favored by the national party.
On the other side, Democratic strategists worry that progressives, disgusted by the big money bank bailout and disillusioned with President Barack Obama’s lack of fight on issues such as a government-run health insurance plan, might keep some people from voting. That could cost Democrats seats up and down the ballot.
Political operatives are keeping an eye on independent voters — an important and growing group that often decides elections. Will these voters send a signal to politicians Tuesday as well or will they stay home and leave it to the more ideologically driven base voters in both parties?…… (skipped a bit from here)
Hoffman’s rise infuriated leaders of New York’s Republican Party, who insisted Scozzafava was a good fit for the district which favored Obama last year, but is one of the few still held by Republicans in the Northeast.
In New Jersey, Daggett, a businessman and former Environmental Protection Agency official, has appealed to voters who are turned off by both Corzine and Christie and fed up with the candidates’ campaign bloodbath. Daggett was widely believed to be the winner of a televised candidate debate and has been endorsed by The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., the state’s largest newspaper.
John Weingart, associate director of Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics, said Daggett’s candidacy had succeeded in giving disillusioned voters a competent and credible alternative to Corzine and Christie.
But Weingart said lack of money, the institutional obstacles to a third party candidacy and a growing awareness among voters of the ideological differences between Christie and Corzine would cause Daggett’s campaign to stall.
“To vote for an independent candidate, you have to believe either that the person can win or that there is no difference you care about between the Democratic and the Republican candidate,” Weingart said.
Third Party Candidates Shake Up Local Races, Send Warning Ahead of 2010 – FOXNews.com
So the question becomes again, what impact does a third party hope to have in the elections that will be coming up in the near and not so near future?
I tend to believe a lot of what this article is discussing. Americans in general are definitely beginning to realize that the two parties in power are really on the same team wearing different colored shirts. Both are out to gain power, wealth, and legitimacy. Neither party has the interests of regular people at heart. Not one single bit. And I think that includes the President, regardless of what he says, and all the members of Congress, except for maybe one or two. Americans are ready to have an alternative to the two big boys. However, I have a few concerns…
First, we have to ask ourselves if the impact of the 3rd party candidates on the election cycles is a good or a bad thing. On one hand, it does send a message that the two candidates and the two parties are not a choice that the voters were happy with. But realistically, all the 3rd party candidates seem to actually accomplish in the races are a disruption and a altering of the balance of power one way or the other. One of the two big party candidates is going to win. The 3rd party seems to simply have the ability to steal votes from one, allowing the other to win. Whether that is a good thing, I suppose, would rest with whether it is your candidate that benefits.
Next, the fact remains that it doesn’t seem that the two big parties ever get the message. Perot got 19% of the popular vote in 1992, but it certainly didn’t change the course in Washington. Think about that. 1 out of 5 people voted for Perot. And still the two big boys ignored that fact. So I am not sure that the message is ever going to get across to the big boys unless a 3rd party candidate actually has the ability to win an election. That won’t happen in a Presidential election, but could in other elections. The deck is too stacked in the Presidential election. It is literally an impossibility for a 3rd party to win under the criteria set up under the Constitution, unless that candidate got overwhelming support (they would have to win more electoral votes than the other two parties combined, not just have the most).
The thing that warms my heart is that I do think that the average American feels abandoned by the federal government. Let’s face it, the middle class has been ignored for quite a while. If you are wealthy, you get paid attention to. If you are poor you get paid attention to. Otherwise, no luck. And those two segments of the population are not nearly as large as one might think. But they are both powerful in the voting booth. Regardless, the fascinating thing is that the wealthy have always been served. The poor have never been. They get pandered to, by both parties, although it was the Democrats this time around, but the government never does anything to actually change their situation. The government does little for them besides ease their pain while ensuring they will still be there to be pandered to when the next election cycle comes around.
I do think many Americans realize that the two parties are self serving, not people serving. The fact that half of the American public is in favor of creating a new political party tells me they see the evil before them. Unfortunately it tells me that they also don’t understand reality well enough to understand that a new party would replace one of the two we have and end up with the same results. Remember the Republicans were a 3rd party once. And the Whig party died a quick death. But things didn’t exactly get better from there, did it?
I think that the bottom line is that we are in a sad position where people are supporting 3rd parties when they see the two big candidates are the pieces of trash they are. It isn’t a support for a different ideal or a new platform. It is a rejection of the two dominant platforms or candidates. And there is a big difference there. A big difference between embracing a new ideal and simply taking any alternative to what is being offered by the big two. But it is a start. Look at New Jersey. Two unpopular choices result in 13% of the people choosing someone who isn’t unpopular, as opposed to the people choosing someone who is really a candidate they think is ideal.
In the final sentence of the article above, it states, “To vote for an independent candidate, you have to believe either that the person can win or that there is no difference you care about between the Democratic and the Republican candidate.” And I think that this points to exactly what I am talking about. People are willing to accept a ton of bad about a candidate if he is simply slightly better than the other big party guy and actually has a chance of winning. It goes to that sentiment that a vote for a 3rd party is a wasted vote, as it allows the candidate you don’t like to win because it denies the vote to a candidate with a chance to win. And realistically, 3rd party candidates don’t have much of a shot of winning, so this is the case in the vast majority of elections.
So how does that change? It doesn’t…. at least not until the “real thing” comes along. And I think that the “real thing” is exactly what we have been discussing on this board for the last year. A third party will win, and could even win the Presidency, when that party has a candidate that is the real thing.
I believe that the vast majority of Americans are good people. I believe that they adhere to principles and values. Look at the people that post on this site. Are there any who you think are not “good people” in general? I believe they all want to do the right things and help the people who need help and fix the things that are broken. But we all disagree on how to do that. And I think that this is because we fall into the trap of believing that the two options presented are the only ones that can work. We fall into the trap of believing that the people in Washington, or the University economists, or the big business folks, or whomever, are simply better able to make the big decisions.
That is what we have been told for decades. The economists are the only ones that can fix the economy. Trust them. The politicians are the only ones that can fix the health care system. Trust them. The wall street barons are the only ones that can finance our business world. Trust them. The government is the only one who understands foreign policy well enough to deal with foreign nations. Trust them. The economy, health care, wall street, foreign relations, all of it. We are told that we need big government and all the experts to help us deal with a complex world. They are our protectors. Our saviors. Our guardians.
They are our four horsemen is what they are. They are bringing the apocalypse. Slowly, but surely.
I say bullshit. They aren’t smarter than we are. Common sense, ethics, morals, principles, and values are the tools needed to effectively deal with all the situations we face.
So what is the “real thing”?
The real thing is that candidate that operates from the principles of liberty and freedom, rights that we have regardless of and in spite of government’s constant attempts to strip them from us. The real thing is that candidate that truly operates with the best interests of the people in mind. The candidate that talks like Barack Obama, but acts like Ghandi. The real thing is the candidate that adheres to values, principles, and ethics even when they make the task 100 times harder. When that person comes along, they will transcend partisan games and obliterate both major parties because their message will be the one that resonates with the people. The real thing will be that candidate that makes people believe again in the principles that this country was founded on: life, liberty, freedom, equality for all. The real thing will make Americans stand up and act like Americans again. The real thing will make us once again believe in ourselves rather than believing that a man with a golden tongue has the answers to cure our ills.
Just one problem.
The “real thing” would realize that the second he was elected, he would have to step aside and finally allow the people to live free.
http://standupforamerica.wordpress.com/
