The third horse

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

With the popularity contest between the two presumptive nominees for the upcoming US presidential election not going so well (record unfavorability rates, and all that), it's natural to turn to the possibility of a third party making some impact, and rallying much of the fence-sitting electorate - if only to flip the bird at both establishment parties.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/01/opinions/third-party-candidate-options-robby-soave/

Enter the Libertarian Party, the eternal third horse in what's largely a two-horse race. Some pundits have claimed the LP is going to be this summer's hottest trend, despite having largely been ignored by the mainstream media for most of the presidential campaign. Naturally, Gary Johnson is the presumptive LP nominee, and now he seems to suddenly be racking up the headlines. His argument? It doesn't have to be a choice between two evils. Compelling, right?

Since we're now in Statism vs Libertarianism month, let's look a bit closer at the Libertarian Party, and consider their chances to make a splash in the general election. What matters the most here, IMO, is what kind of splash it's going to be exactly. Curiously, most expectations are that the liberal-leaning part of the spin machine is going to give some praise to the Libertarians (paradoxically!), since they're probably going to help Hillary Clinton by taking some votes away from Trump and making her life at least a bit easier. Which would be very welcome for her campaign, since she's so unlikable by the independent voters (maybe not as much as Trump, but still). It's curious whether Johnson is going to steal votes from Hillary too, and to what an extent.

Trump might find quite some challenge in the LP, since he'll have to stray away from his initial extremist rhetoric and move to the center, once the general begins. And that could push more voters into LP's hands, especially those from the Never Trump camp, and ones that used to rally behind Cruz. All in all, the less both Hillary and Trump are liked, the higher the chances that the Libertarians will get a good score, and that could mean a landslide for Hillary.

In the meantime, some indications show that although a considerably large chunk of the electorate do still want an alternative to both Trump and Hillary, the LP is not taking the bulk of that segment, either. Makes you wonder why people wouldn't want to trust a Libertarian to run their government. Heh. Maybe not really.

Comments

[oportet.livejournal.com]

Democrats - when polled by phone or internet - might want to claim they're voting for Gary, even if they aren't - if only to give him high enough numbers to enter the debates. If the media won't willingly give him attention, that's their best bet for him taking votes away.

We also have to wait and see how much Hillary is willing to kiss Bernies ass to win over his voters. Even if Bernie himself only wants more of his type to be involved in writing the platform - his supporters might not settle for any less than a VP.

Trump could move to the center - or he could just go full Trump - come up with a nickname, Shithead Gary or something like that - and dance with the one that brought him here.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Let's face it. Nothing's gonna happen, third-party-wise. As usual. They won't make a splash. They'll go largely unnoticed. Nobody would care. It's the way things are set up in US politics. For eternity.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

It's the unfortunately nature of "first past the post" voting models. I'd love to see proportional representation adopted at the state and Federal legislative levels; I think that this would make third parties more visible and influential, which would, over time, cause them to potentially do better in Presidential contests. The Greens and Libertarians make noise every four years, but if they were actually having more influence on day-to-day politics, more people would actually know about them, and might consider them serious enough contenders to deserve a vote.

Australian-style preferential voting would be nice too, because folks would be more likely to vote for third parties (they wouldn't feel like their vote was being wasted, since they could still specify a more mainstream candidate as their "second-favorite" to receive their vote if their number one candidate loses.) Either way, I find both to be very interesting systems (not without their own drawbacks, of course) that (in my opinion) could potentially make for some improvements on our current methods.

[brother-dour.livejournal.com]

I dunno, man. All I know is that Trump is absolutely toxic and I'm just about done with the DNC, so I'm voting for Gary Johnson.

I doubt he has a chance to do anything, but at least I didn't vote for the GOP or the Democrats.