Why do so many of the third-party candidates seem to be a few fries short of a Happy Meal? They just don’t seem to be sitting on the two-party rocker.
Take Ross Perot, for example. Perot claims he is an intelligent, fiscally conservative, United States-loving businessman. I ask all of you, why would Ross Perot, a fiscally conservative businessman, spend millions of his supposedly hard-earned dollars bidding for presidential office when it is impossible to win as a third-party candidate? Even Steve Forbes was smart enough to attempt his White House purchase through one of the major parties.
The Democratic and Republican parties have maintained the American two-party electoral system for more than 130 years. Throughout our history there have been examples of viable third parties, like the Bull Moose party of 1912 and the American Independent party of 1968. However, because of the winner-takes-all, single-member district electoral system, the various Federal Election Commission regulations, campaign finance laws and legislative districting, the major parties have become stronger and increasingly stable over time. As the major parties’ roots dug deeper, the chances for successful third parties diminished.
For example, the Bull Moose Party of 1912 received a few federal and state congressional seats, 27 percent of the popular vote and 88 electoral votes. In contrast, United We Stand, with Ross Perot at their helm in 1992, received 19 percent of the popular vote, but not a single seat in the Legislature or a single electoral vote. Clearly, the major parties have been established and are protected from third-party intrusions.
The two-party system includes the advantage of balance. In the U.S. government, the wheel and gears of gridlock stall themselves frequently enough. Can you imagine the tired attempts at coalition building if we had three or more parties politicking for media attention, re-election and power? In Italy, for example, the government has had 53 different majority coalitions since 1945. In comparison, the United States is a stable and powerful democracy because of its consistency and minimal factionalism.
Third parties, however, have found a cozy little niche in our political system. Because they tend to center around a single issue or are regional, it is particularly hard for them to gain the broad base of voters needed to win elections. Therefore, third parties exist as pseudo-interest groups. For example, groups of citizens like the Green Party and the Christian Coalition lobby the Democrats and Republicans by pushing important social, economic and political issues to the forefront of the two-party debate. The two major parties then engulf third-party issues in order to increase their own appeal to voters.
Our freedom and independence allow us to vote for whomever we choose, but it is important we realize the effect of our ballots cast in favor of a third party. Because a third-party candidate has no realistic chance of winning a presidential election, we may unintentionally support the major party candidate that most offends us.
A ballot supporting a third-party presidential candidate will have a direct effect on the outcome of the race between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. As we saw in 1992, many Bush supporters decided to vote for Perot, which explains, in part, why Clinton is now our president.
Why do you think the Clinton campaign was overwhelmingly supportive of Perot’s participation in the 1996 presidential debates? Bill Clinton was not looking out for democracy, he was looking out for himself. Even he can see the equation: More votes for Perot equals less votes for Bob Dole, which equals a win for Clinton.
In our two-party electoral system, the Democratic and Republican nominees are the only viable candidates for the presidency. No vote is a wasted vote, but a ballot cast in November for third-party candidates like Ross Perot and Ralph Nader is not a vote for either of the third parties. Rather, when a third-party voter connects the lines on the ballot for president, he or she may as well extend the arrow over to Bill Clinton or Bob Dole, because when the sun sets on election day, the two-party outcome is the only outcome that will be affected.
Jennifer Halko is a senior inthe College of Liberal Arts. She is also the president of the University’sLeague of Women Voters chapter.