Thrid Party Strategies To Win

First off, I hope the new template works out. It should, since it's one of the official Blogger ones, but if it doesn't look right to you, drop me a line and I'll see if I can fix it.

Now, I'm (obviously) not a member of a third party, in fact, it would be downright weird, considering the name of this site, but I have a few ideas about how third parties could better organize for elections. After all, I'd rather have an Independent in office than a Republican.

1. When you vote, you want your guy to win. In third parties, the guys don't win. They can't win big elections. Not now, anyway, maybe in the future. When the Democrats & Republicans band together, they can get enough votes to make their guy win. If all the Independent & third party voters got together and voted for one guy (which would never happen), he still wouldn't win. State races might be possible, especially in Oregon, where Libertarians are the third-largest party.
2. If you want a third party candidate to win, the first thing you need to do is build up the party, from the ground. Parties need to make a stand at the local & state levels. Then, once they, and more importantly, their views are established and known among the public, they can run for a national offices. The Office of the President is the Omega of all political offices. You can't just jump into the drivers seat if you're from a third party.
3. It'll take a generation or two, but then the third parties who are serious about being in the political world will be "dug in" and ready to actually be a major campaign. In another completely pathetic cliche, third party candidates such as Ralph Nader & Pat Buchanan just wanted to skip to the end of the movie, without first watching the character development.

Or, for those of you who are familiar with Operating Systems:

They are like the operating system Linux. It's all based on the same core software, but they're all different, with differing standards. If they were to unite, on even the most basic issues, they would be just as strong as Microsoft & Apple. The same goes with third-party politics. There are WAY to many parties, when they're not that many different points of view. If they were to unite on some basic ideas, they would be taken [really] seriously. But until then, there are too many choices.

Now, I realize that not all third parties have the same views. But many of the smaller ones are very similar, and should unite and compromise, in order to gain political footing. Yes, some are there to "make a point", but making a point, and not seriously trying to win, can be dangerous. Just look at 2000. That whole fiasco may have not happened if Darth Nader didn't need to make a point.

Gee, thanks Ralph.

-Adam

New Poll Numbers

Okay, for a while there, I got really sick of politics. I almost got to the point where I hated it, but then I realized "Hey, the Republicans are screwed in the midterms"; thus, I am back here. I'm going to try to breathe new life into this place (maybe a new template would be nice), but for right now, I've got some new poll numbers (these I got off of MSNBC this morning.)

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Okay, in a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll,

On the subject of Iraq,

Now - 68% are feeling less optimistic about Iraq
Now - 20% are felling more optimistic about Iraq
June - 44% are feeling less optimistic about Iraq
June - 45% are felling more optimistic about Iraq

On the subject of the president's approval rating:

38% approve of the president's overall job. That's down three points from the last poll.

On the subject of who Americans would like in power:

52% - Democrats, 37% - Republicans -- That's the widest gap ever measured on this poll.

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Okay, over on CNN, they had a few other numbers:

Is Congress out of touch with Americans?

Now - 74% say YES!
1994 - 75% said YES!

In 1994, the Democrats lost control of Congress to Republicans.

Does big business have too much influence over the Bush Administration?

79% - Yes, 19% - No

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Denny Hastert: remember to leave the keys to the speaker's office on the counter, so the Democrats can pick them up afterwards.

I'm not sure how many seats Democrats will pick up, but I know it'll be enough. Remember to vote this November.

-Adam