Local Third Parties

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Conventional wisdom says, and in this rare occasion conventional wisdom is correct, that third parties splits the vote and enables the party in opposition to the party whose vote is being split to more easily gain position in office.  For example, H. Ross Perot split the republican vote in 1992, which enabled Bill Clinton to win the presidency with ease when the percentage of the vote he obtained would have never won in prior election cycles.  A little over a hundred years ago Teddy Roosevelt, running on the Bull Moose Party ticket, split the republican vote so that ultra-progressive Woodrow Wilson could take the presidency from Taft, setting up the opportunity for leftism to create the Federal Reserve, a direct tax (income tax) with the 16th Amendment, and kick the voice of the States out of the American political system with the 17th Amendment (which changed how the senators gain office from appointment by the State legislatures to a popular vote by the people).  So, on a large scale, third parties can be dangerous.  On the national stage voting for a third party splits the vote, and allows candidates that oppose your political position an easier road into office.

This is not to say that third parties should not exist.  As parties like the Republican Party have proven, adherence to the values and ideology of the base is not always something we can trust a political party to honor.  Local influence on your political party may assist in turning it in the direction you desire, but on a national scale, getting the party to return to its base's desired political position can be a nightmare, and is an immediate impossibility.  Change for the better is not something that can be engineered at the national level.  Working to influence the party nationally is important, but it will never permanently alter the direction the party is headed.  Such a change in direction must be initiated locally.

Activism includes attending and influencing school board meetings, utilities meetings, city council meetings, planning department meetings, public hearings, and attending and participating in your party's central committee meetings.  We have to be influential locally, for even if we were able to get rid of the politicians we have a problem with nationally, what good would it be if we don't have honest local people available to replace them?

Locally, however, third parties that, in the case of frustrated republicans, are more conservative, can make an impact, and may not necessarily split the vote.  In fact, many of your city council races don't allow candidates to discuss party affiliations, so the political philosophies of the individual candidates are even more important at an individual level.  If a third party is influencing politics locally, and is not expending money and efforts nationally, it can only be a good thing.  Perhaps that is the way to start making headway.

And if one third party does well locally, maybe it will catch fire, and become a national party that will replace, or compete with, the major parties of today.  But we have to remember, the way to do that is to begin locally, for biting off more than a small party can chew nationally is a proven disaster in the making, and causes more harm than good.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary