A Viable Third Party

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

A lot of "independents" are partisans that simply choose not to label themselves as such. Beyond that, you have to deal with the fact that many "centrists", or those whose survey results peg them as centrist, may hold entirely unorthodox views. An example from a few years ago of the way these surveys become skewed is if someone, say, wholeheartedly supports universal healthcare but also despises gay marriage. For the halfwit political scientists that are scoring such a result, it may balance out to "centrist" but reflects neither being moderate, nor matching our typical view of what an "independent" would look like. As such, Perot, who could be all things to all people--both to those on the fringes and to those in the center--is probably far more exemplary of what a good independent candidate would look like than, say, Bloomberg, who manages simply to acquire hate from all sides. If one looks at those ridiculous "who would you have voted for?" threads on this forum, one can find several people of very different ideological persuasions choosing to vote for Perot over Bush and Clinton in 1992. Given the above, proper issue and persona selection are very important. One must both appear to care for "the people" while at the same time disdaining "bureaucrats"; one must embody the popular "radical" ideas of both parties while still appearing to be between them; one must attract both those voters that think "the two major parties are the same!" and those that think "the two major parties are too far apart!"