How Third Parties Can Win

[Free Palestine]

I believe that the third parties of America will not get anywhere if they keep doing what they are doing.  They need to, in my opinion, stop running candidates for president, governor, or senator, and focus on lower offices.  The Libertarians, the Greens, the Constitutionalists and others need to put their primary focus on candidates for city council, mayor, and/or the state legislatures.

Although the "alternative party" candidates don't usually win these elections, they have the highest probability of winning these, when compared to others.  All it requires is some effort to make people realize another viable option is there.

Few people have the state legislature or city council in high regard.  People base their elections for these offices on the D or R next to the name, or which name they recognize the most.  The failure of third party campaigns for these offices has less to do with low public opinion, and more to do with lack of public knowledge.  Heck, I didn't know we even had a state senate before I got the voter booklet in the mail.

Once there have been Libertarian state legislators, mayors, and city councilpeople, we can move on to getting Libertarians into congress.  With congress we can even potentially skip the local-level step.  With enough well-placed effort, the third parties can get people into congress.  Only then should we try for a Libertarian senator or governor.  And once we have those, a Libertarian presidential candidate.

For one thing, ballot access may be a lot easier if the state governments had some letters besides R and D.  Most of the money the third parties raise goes to ballot access, for a candidate that most likely will not even win.  It's like trying to build a pyramid from the top-down.  It just doesn't work.

The Progressive party of the 1900s started at the state level.  A national party did not even exist until 1912.  In the Libertarian Party's first election they had ballot access in two states and got around two thousand votes (and one electoral vote).  If the parties want to get anywhere, they have to get their heads out of the clouds and think realistically.