Salon.com > Third Parties

In defense of the undecided voter

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 08:00:00 +0000

A confession: I recently received my Colorado ballot but, even though my state will play a key role in the presidential election, I still haven't voted. Yes, I'm one of the oft-ridiculed undecideds, and here's why:

I am a left-leaner who previously voted for Barack Obama with clear eyes. Having looked at his record, I knew he was no progressive, much less a Marxist, as his conservative detractors claim. He has always been a thumb-to-the-wind politician who shrouds corporate-backed policies in the veneer of altruistic liberalism. But I voted for him because in 2008 he presented the best opportunity for change.

Sadly, that opportunity was missed. Obama betrayed many of his campaign promises, not merely by turning over his economic policymaking to corporate-connected insiders, but, as the Washington Post this week documents, by additionally championing more-extreme versions of the Bush-era civil liberties and national security policies that he once criticized from his platform as a venerated "constitutional lawyer."

Now, four years later, Obama and Democratic Party-affiliated media outlets are demanding that voters ignore this record, or at least believe that a President Mitt Romney will automatically make things worse.

Third-party candidates debate

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 04:09:00 +0000

It was the first presidential debate in which the moderator was more famous than any of the candidates. Larry King, who in his post-basic cable life hosts a talk show on Ora.tv, had just flown into Chicago from Montreal, and was strapping himself into his red suspenders in the green room above the Hilton Hotel’s Continental Room. In a few minutes, he’d be feeding questions to the standard bearers of America’s third, fourth, fifth and sixth parties. Not even the event’s organizers seemed certain who they were.

“Is that Rocky Anderson?” asked a publicist for Free & Equal, the debate sponsor, pointing at a white-haired man in a baggy blue suit who looked sort of like the senator from The Godfather, Part II.

Americans Elect canceling caucuses, has no candidates

Thu, 03 May 2012 19:39:00 +0000

Americans Elect is a weird experiment in applying a lot of money and time and resources into proving a common elite myth: That Americans as a whole are crying out for "bold," nonpartisan political leadership, and that their strong desire for moderate, independent solutions is stifled by the two-party system. So far, the organization has managed to win presidential ballot access in 26 states, which is a remarkable achievement. The only problem is, it has no candidate. And the process it developed to select a candidate is turning out to be a big, hilarious mess.

So any Americans Elect delegate can "draft" a candidate, and any eligible citizen can declare him- or herself a candidate, but AE has a high bar for a candidate to be declared "qualified" to actually run in its online primary: "Insiders" require 10,000 clicks -- 1,000 people in at least 10 states -- of support from delegates. "Outsiders" require 50,000. Thus far, Ron Paul, a drafted candidate, has received 8,753 clicks. Buddy Roemer, a declared candidate, has 4,389. In other words, no one is close to being qualified, and the massive grass-roots support AE expected did not really pan out. The first "caucus" vote, scheduled for next week, has been canceled. The next vote, set for May 22, is reportedly "in jeopardy."

Thomas Friedman: America’s escalator is broken and only Mike Bloomberg can repair it

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 16:24:00 +0000

Thomas Friedman, globe-trotting superstar New York Times columnist and America's foremost Big Thinker, noticed recently that America is Broken, and by "America" he means an escalator, in a parking garage, at the train station in Washington. There is only one man who can fix this escalator that represents America: Famed escalator repairman and billionaire mogul Mike Bloomberg.

I had to catch a train in Washington last week. The paved street in the traffic circle around Union Station was in such poor condition that I felt as though I was on a roller coaster. I traveled on the Amtrak Acela, our sorry excuse for a fast train, on which I had so many dropped calls on my cellphone that you’d have thought I was on a remote desert island, not traveling from Washington to New York City. When I got back to Union Station, the escalator in the parking garage was broken. Maybe you’ve gotten used to all this and have stopped noticing. I haven’t. Our country needs a renewal.

And that is why I still hope Michael Bloomberg will reconsider running for president as an independent candidate, if only to participate in the presidential debates and give our two-party system the shock it needs.

Politico holds contest to nominate best representative of Politico’s warped worldview for president

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 18:14:00 +0000

Politico has finally revealed itself to be a devilishly deadpan satire of idiotic Beltway thought with its "POLITICO PRIMARY," an exercise in selecting a third-party "independent" candidate for president based on the only criteria that matter: fealty to the shibboleths of the political elite. I choose to believe it's a wicked parody, because the alternative -- that Politico's Internet contest to pick America's Next Top Centrist reflects the sincere beliefs of Politico's editors -- basically means that the Washington "grown-up" political class is completely divorced from reality, not just deaf to the concerns and needs of actual non-"Morning Joe"-watching Americans but wholly ignorant of the existence of a country outside their bubble.

Jim VandeHei and famous email newsletter author Mike Allen are spearheading the campaign (which has already been unfavorably reviewed by CJR). Here, they explain why America was crying out for Politico Primary: