No Talking Points: Mayor goes off book President Obama's rosy 'View' Enter Americans Elect. By paving the way though ballot access, the group hoped this was the year a third-party candidacy became truly viable. Yet the conditions of this election cycle, according to Avlon, proved less than ideal.
Since President Barack Obama is running for re-election, the process is largely a referendum on his first term rather than a vote of confidence for either Democrats or Republicans. Obama and Romney are also both relatively centrist candidates, making it hard to advocate for a third-party alternative. Aside from the political challenges, some saw the Americans Elect process for nominating candidates as too long and rigorous: Its website has hundreds of pages of bylaws, rules, committee pledges, candidate pledges, elector applications and briefing books.
Becoming a verified supporter of a candidate proved so challenging that the site's leading contender, former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer, couldn't even get approved to support himself.
Avlon echoed that sentiment, saying Americans Elect's effort, while well-intentioned, proved to be "fatally flawed. The system, which was designed by the same group that designed eTrade's secure website, was time-consuming for voters looking to support a candidate. Ileana Wachtel, national press secretary for Americans Elect, said processes like verifying voter registration and gathering support for candidates were to be expected when running for an office like the presidency.
People would have been complaining it's not secure. In the end, the role of Americans Elect was to provide a candidate with a platform rather than a campaign. We supplied the platform. This non-doctrinaire approach enables the Republicans and the Democrats to tolerate great diversity within their ranks, and has contributed to their ability to absorb third parties and protest movements when they have occurred.
In general, Republicans are seen as the conservative party, with more of an emphasis on property rights and private accumulation of wealth, and the Democrats are seen as somewhat more to the left, favoring liberal social and economic policies.
In practice, when they achieve power, both parties tend to be pragmatic. In addition to being ideologically flexible, the two main American parties are characterized by a decentralized structure.
The Democratic and Republican congressional caucuses composed of incumbent legislators are autonomous, and may pursue policies that are in opposition to the president, even if the president is from the same party.
Party fundraising for elections is similarly separated, as the Republican and Democratic congressional and senatorial campaign committees operate independently from the national party committees that tend to be oriented to the presidential election.
In addition, except for asserting authority over procedures for selecting delegates to national nominating conventions, national party organizations rarely meddle in state party affairs. This organizational fragmentation reflects the consequences of the constitutional separation-of-powers system — the division of powers among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government, both at the federal and state level.
This is broadly true whether we are talking about members of Congress vis-a-vis a president of their own party, or a similar relationship between state legislators and a governor. The layered system of federal, state and local governments in the United States provides further impetus for decentralization of the parties by creating thousands of constituencies for officeholders at the federal, state, and local levels.
As previously noted, the use of primary elections to nominate candidates also weakens the party organizations by denying them the ability to control the selection of party nominees. Individual candidates, therefore, are encouraged to build their own personal campaign organizations and electoral followings, first to win the primaries and then the general elections.
In spite of the long and impressive evidence of organized partisanship within the American political system, one ingrained component of American civic culture has been increasing distrust of political parties. The adoption and growth of the primary system for nominating congressional and state candidates is testimony to a populist, or even anti-party, sentiment within the public. Modern Americans are skeptical about the leaders of their party organizations exercising great power over their government.
Public opinion polls consistently reveal that large proportions of the population believe that the parties sometimes do more to confuse the issues than clarify them — and that it would be better if there were no party labels on the ballot.
Parties thus must contend with the problem of a substantial number of voters attaching diminished importance to party identification. One indicator of this is the incidence of ticket-splitting. Thus, in an age of divided government, presidents often find themselves attempting to govern without a majority in one or both houses of Congress.
Divided party control of the executive and legislative branches of government has become a commonplace feature of both the national government and the governments in the 50 states. Some observers believe that voters even prefer the arrangement because it tends to stifle major government initiatives that might inconvenience voters.
Third- parties and independent candidates, despite the obstacles discussed previously, have been a periodic feature of American politics. Often they have brought societal problems that the major parties had failed to confront to the forefront of public discourse — and onto the governmental agenda. But most third parties have tended to flourish for a single election and then die, fade away or be absorbed into one of the major parties. Since the s, only one new party, the Republican Party, has emerged to achieve major party status.
In that instance, there was a compelling moral issue — slavery — dividing the nation. It provided the basis for candidate recruitment and voter mobilization. There is evidence that third parties can have a major impact on election outcomes. So if a third-party candidate is unlikely to win, why do they still run? Historically, there are a variety of reasons why candidates have thrown their hats into the ring, but relatively successful third-party candidates have depended on fractious party schisms, frustrations with the status quo, regionally based movements, and poor economic conditions.
The question is, do such conditions exist right now, and could they be enough to make someone like Schultz competitive?
Republicans split between Roosevelt and Taft, allowing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to easily win the presidency with just 42 percent of the popular vote. But could a serious schism on par with happen in ? That probably makes a major cleavage unlikely. Later, in the election, Republican Robert La Follete tried to make a go of it as a third-party candidate frustrated with politics at the time. With the major parties each nominating conservative candidates, La Follette attracted support of farmers and laborers who felt the two major parties were ignoring their interests.
As the lone progressive-minded candidate in the race, La Follette won 17 percent but only carried his home state of Wisconsin, while Republican President Calvin Coolidge comfortably won the election with 54 percent of the popular vote. Issue-based regional movements have also sparked third-party bids. The Populist Party, led by James Weaver in , was largely an agrarian movement arguing for, among other things, a looser monetary policy known as free silver. Weaver won 22 electoral votes, performing best in the western half of the country where the free silver policy had major appeal.
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