WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER
False assumptions of third parties in a two-party system
CONTENTS
Introduction
ARE
YOU POLITICALLY ACTIVE?
(Take a poll to see where you
stand)
VIDEO
Hear
what people are saying
about third parties?
(featuring John Hagelin of the
Natural Law Party and Howard Phillips of the Constitution Party)
Pat
Buchanan: Reform Party hopeful?
LINKS
American
Political Party Directory
State by State Guide to 1999
Elections
Third-Party News and Information
The
Race for President 2000:
Who's who in ALL the parties?
Who Is Representing You?
(Biographical Information on
Senators and Representatives)
When Isaac Newton first theorized about the existence of a force that tended to make all things fall, his ripe observation of the plunging apple could never have predicted the durability of the American political party system. From its conception to present day, the political party system in the United States has seen its ebbs and flows and weathered many storms. More illuminating however, is that through it all, the party system has continued to remain at the “heart of American politics” (Aldrich, 3). “No America without democracy, no democracy without politics, no politics without parties, no parties without compromise and moderation” wrote Clinton Rossiter in his book, Parties and Politics in America (1). It is from this axiom that we begin to understand the integral and complex role political parties play both in the political system and in public life. However, as Americans feed on a multiplicity of democratic options in their daily existence, the American political party system confines them to party choices of either or, while greatly limiting other parties from developing into viable and realistic options.
Third parties in America, although not novel by any stretch of the meaning, have been a distracting and inconsistent force at best in their pursuit for major party victories. So true and ingrained is this failure in society that the belief in a system dominated by two parties, the Democrats and Republicans, subscribes to any other party that exists the title, “third party,” thereby consigning them to permanent peripheral status (even though there are many third parties with greatly differing ideologies unfairly grouped under this umbrella). Even so, in the true spirit of the underdog, the 1990s have shown an intense period of third-party activity. In 1996, a total of seventeen third-party candidates, representing some thirty parties, ran for president. The candidates for the Reform and Libertarian parties appeared on the ballot in all fifty states and the District of Columbia, while candidates for the Natural Law, U.S. Taxpayers, and Green parties appeared on the ballots in forty-four, thirty-nine, and twenty-two states, respectively. The remaining twelve candidates appeared on twelve state ballots or fewer, with eight appearing on fewer than five. All together, minor parties gained a respectable 10 percent showing on the ballots in 1996 (Herrnson & Green, 10). Additionally, a 1995 poll disclosed that “63 percent of the citizenry supported the formation of a third party that would run candidates for president, Congress, and state offices against Democratic and Republican candidates” (Bibby, 73). Is a new era coming?
On face value, it would seem that a new
era of third-party viability and a developing multi-party system may be right around the
millennium. But on closer look, due to the historical durability of the major parties,
institutional structures, basic failures within third-party organizations, and the
realignment of the major parties' electoral market, it will be a cold day in hell before
third parties begin to show significant promise on both levels of the political arena,
especially on the national level. From this,
I deduce that even though third parties will continually fail in their pursuit of
electoral success, their role in American political life is crucial to the county’s
growth and development.