Third-Party Candidates, by Rena Silverman
May 6th, 2008 § 1 Comment
White the Democrat and Republican parties have dominated United States
politics for over 140 years, the American political system does allow
other parties and independent candidates to also run for office. Over
the last twenty-five years, a nimiety of third-party candidates have
gained enough voters to make a difference in the outcome of the
presidential race.
In 1992 and 1996, businessman Ross Perot ran as an angry centrist
tired of political corruption in Washington. in 1992, he got an
extraordinarily high 19% of the popular vote. Some believe that he
took more votes away from the republican George H. W. Bush than from
the Democrat Bill Clinton and therefore helped Clinton to victory. In
1996, Perot received 8% of the vote.
Progressive advocate Ralph Nader in 2000 ran as the Green Party
candidate, gaining just 2.7% of the vote. Since Nader was running on
an anti-corporate, environmentalist platform, he almost certainly took
more votes from Democrat Al Gore than from Republican George W. Bush.
Angry Democrats accused Nader of being a “spoiler,” arguing that he
effectively helped the candidate who was worse from his own political
perspective: Bush. But, Nader and the Green Party rebutted that Gore
was too pro-business to merit their support.
by rena silverman
It’s far more than a he-said she-said situation. The statistics are conclusive. All of the third party candidates who ran in Florida in 2000 had enough votes for Gore to win the election with. Gore, an incumbent candidate, lost both his home state as well as Bill Clinton’s. Roughly 200,000 Florida Democrats voted for Bush in 2000. Nader campaigned, last minute, in Florida for a solitary day. He spent nearly all of his time in “safe” states. The Democrats failed. Period.