To Third Party or Not To Third Party

Another blogger recently made some very good comments about third party candidates on one of my blogs.  The basic point was that having a competitive third party candidate most often will not get that person elected but slip the votes between that person and the other party closest to what they stand for. 

If that third party candidate  leans a little left the votes would split between that person and the Democratic candidate. If the third party candidate leans a little to the right the votes would be split between that person and the Republican candidate.  The split would allow the unified vote on the other side of the spectrum to win the election and reduce that third party candidate to the role of spoiler and never really lead to a successful candidate.

In thinking about this, I find the evidence to support this hypothesis to be very strong.  This is worrisome to me.  The party system we have in place is clearly broken and these facts clearly show that there is no hope otherwise.

Maybe if there were to just be one other serious party (along with all of those minor parties that get like one to two percent of the vote every four years) that represented the area closer to the middle.  Not too right, not too left, just in the area near the middle. 

Obviously, there would be conflicts within this party on some issues and some areas that members of this party could possibly never agree upon, but this party would best represent the average American. 

I also think that two serious contenders for the title of president is clearly not enough.  The only alternatives we are left with are ridiculously irrelevant and a waste of our time. 

The only way there will really be change is if the voters come together and vote for someone else from another party who represents the overall values of the people.  That would first require a highly qualified candidate that would attract all of these voters form both ends of the spectrum and was different enough from the other candidates to really represent change. 

The sad fact id that I personally have not seen a person even close to this and I think that the other candidates who are running are in fact simply the spoilers who will devour the campaigns of the parties they used to belong to.