Boy, is this right on point! The Republicans are too far-right and complain about being not far-right enough. The Democrats are all over the loony left-wing map. What we need is a third party that takes the best ideas from both that actually work regardless of rhetoric and ideology. One that wants to restore the freedoms we’ve lost to Big Brother ‘protections’, keeps religion out of politics, ends corporate influences, produces a balanced budget while cutting taxes, is a floor wax and a desert topping and so on. Yeah, I know I’m dreaming…
Americans’ desires for a third political party are as high as they have been in seven years. Fifty-eight percent of Americans believe a third major political party is needed because the Republican and Democratic Parties do a poor job of representing the American people. That is a significant increase from 2008 and ties the high Gallup has recorded for this measure since 2003.
The finding, based on an Aug. 27-30 USA Today/Gallup poll, comes at a time when Americans are widely dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States and give relatively weak approval ratings to the president and Congress.
[...]
Election results in recent years and polls from this year indicate Americans are frustrated with the job the two major parties have been doing. [...] Given the lack of alternatives, it perhaps is no surprise that Americans’ desires for a third party are as high as they’ve been in at least the last seven years. And while the formation of an official third party is not imminent, that desire may be manifested in voters’ strong anti-incumbent sentiments this year.
I suspected the day Obama won that something like this would happen. Why? Because it always does. Oh it was great that the good ol’ USA showed it was finally demonstrating to the world that whoever looks like they actually CAN do the job should get the job, regardless of what they look like or where they came from. (and it’s rather interesting that the military has been–sort of–doing this for decades).
That it would dissolve into a lot political hoo-hah is to me simply an obvious sign of how utterly complex governance has become, no matter who tries to steer it.
Jesse Ventura was selling his book on C-SPAN and someone asked him if he was a Libertarian. “Yes but with a lower case ‘l’.” was his reply. Funny, that’s how I see myself these days, too.
(actually I did go to a Libertarian party meeting once, but I saw the crackpot meter pegged and was out of there long before it ended).
We have many parties in Brazil. They all suck.
Politics is a perfect workplace for crooks, all the requirements and perks are there, no party is going to fix that.
After they get elected, the crooks either jump from one party to another or just strike very friendly deals with members of opposing parties. Deadly enemies today are photographed smiling and shaking hands tomorrow. And they are the ones who make the laws. Foxes taking care of the henhouse.
They prosper, the nation gets screwed. No party is going to change that.
Actually I’d just like to say that I don’t believe the “party” system is very helpful at getting anything done in government. More often than not, instead of elected representative voting on the merits of an issue, then vote according to their party’s demands. They issue becomes polarized by politics, rather than whether the bill is a good thing to do, or not. At least, that’s what Congress and the Senate want us to believe, they’re doing. I suspect that secretly, they’re juggling the vote behind the scenes, according to what lobbyists want. And the partisanship is all an elaborate sham. I’m betting they really don’t give a hoot which party is voting which way. So long as some bill passes or fails, to accommodate the desires of the lobbies that pay the most.
Like WWE wrestling. It’s all be carefully choreographed theater. You don’t really think multi-billion dollar corporations are going to leave any to chance, that effects their bottom lines, like some Congressional vote, do ya? Or that a bunch of guys that spent millions to run for an office, are going to ignore the piles of money offered to them change their votes? This is America, not Fantasy-Democracy-Land.
It is true we don’t have much choice since all the candidates are in the pocket of the wealthy. They keep talking about the middle class… Voting for the wealthy and corporations. Meanwhile, almost everyone is lower class now, how about some love for the majority of Americans? How about some actual more social than center candidates? Today there is only center-right and loony-right as far as candidates who get chosen to be on TV, etc.
I guess we need to tune out any candidates who get on TV because odds are they have to be corrupt to get there at all.
“Actually I’d just like to say that I don’t believe the “party” system is very helpful at getting anything done in government.”
And there is nothing in the Constitution that requires them. Many local governments operate under “no party” rules. Perhaps the national government should operate in the same fashion.
#22 Like any other dimwit that has to learn from their own mistakes and never from watching others do them, the Americans need to live first hand what you just pointed out, that having more parties fixes nothing.
Terriffic comments from all–except for Alfie of course, and Pedro hitting his 50% average.
That said, in practice the two party system has developed into an anti-Constitutional attack on our country. The house and senate are designed to represent the various interests of the people and the states: not the political machines that got them into office.
A good attorney-general would start prosecuting politicians who vote straight party line, aka filibusters for political purposes. When you introduce a bill 4 years ago as a Puke, and then vote against a near identical bill now because it is supported by Obama, then you ought to be in jail for subverting the US Constitution. And Obama should be impeached for being Puke light, but thats a different issue.
While an excellent post pointing out that the moderates of either party ((used to)) have more in common with one another and the American Party than the extremes of either party that actually hold the power, this jumped out at me: “produces a balanced budget while cutting taxes.”
Whats this fervor for cutting taxes??? Ha, ha. Stand too close to the sick, and you get sick yourself. Normally, most normal societies should be close to the norm is spending/taxation issues for normal functioning in normal times. Just look at what a society “needs” to function, and what nations on average normally spend, it looks to me like taxes need to be a bit higher, and spending a good bit lower, in order to achieve justice, stability, pragmatic equity?
Its what elections/government is supposed to be all about: not politics or morality.
Silly Hoomans.
We need to abandon the anti-UK style of democracy: Winner takes all. Third parties would be taken more seriously while sitting in Congress with votes to horse-trade, not just as sound bites for the MSM to belittle/ridicule. There is a lot of UK politics I don’t like. I just think this is fairer representation.
You really need to learn the meaning of the word “liberal”. It does not mean Left Of Centre. It means In The Centre.
You Have Liberals and Conservatives. A third party might attract the Left of Centre. There may be more of them than you think. They just haven’t had anything to vote for.
Your Democrats are not left wing. They are rumoured to get on well with the UK Conservatives. They are so right wing that they cannot find decent allies in any other country in the EU. What does that say about people that find them left wing?
The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article entitled
“What on Earth Happened to the New York GOP?
A dozen years ago Republicans dominated state politics. It doesn’t appear they’ll be a factor this fall.”- by John Fund
The relevant paragraphs:
“Republicans morphed with Democrats into one party called the Demopublicans,”… “Voters couldn’t detect much difference and didn’t see most Republicans as a vehicle for reform and change.”…
Bill Stern is a prominent Democrat who served as Mario Cuomo’s campaign chairman in his first race for governor in 1982 and then became head of the state’s Urban Development Corporation. Like Mr. Astorino, Mr. Stern has also come to believe the two major parties have blurred into one.
The state is dominated by an “insider commercial party” whose main business is “doing contracts,” Mr. Stern says. The key disputes aren’t ideological but about who gets the state’s business—whether bond sales, construction contracts or rigged development deals. “Politically connected lawyers, PR firms, lobbyists and vendors are influential in this new party, and they all do well as they depend on the state for much of their livelihood,” says Mr. Stern. “But the economic interests of this ‘nomenklatura’ aren’t compatible with the state’s future prosperity.”
I cite this to prove one thing, this happened because of us voters. Our desire to win elections rather than vote our conscience.
Democrats should stop electing “Republican light” blue dogs…and Republicans stop electing RINOs, just to win elections.
Because that is a vote of the DemoPublican party which will only serve itself, do anything necessary to be reelected.
AND if we don’t throw the bums out, why shouldn’t they.
The problems of the parties is us, we the sheeple who follow the Governing Elite’s advise to vote, not our conscience, but for their hacks who do their bidding once in office.
Anyone who really is passionate about their beliefs, is also probably odd in some area of their life, or has done things that make them seem “extreme.”
BUT those are the people who will actually do what they say once in office, the hacks only lie to get elected.
So until YOU folks stop allowing the Governing Elite and its propagrand press use ad hominem to derail the very candidates you actually want…
you will keep electing DemoRepublicans…
Alfie the shill–so close and yet you keep your head buried in the sand up to your ass.
WHAT candidates are you actually for?????
Only an idiot would be “for” Palin or O’Donnell or either of the Paul’s.
“Extremists” ARE NOT A CHOICE EXCEPT FOR OTHER EXTREMISTS: aka not a rational choice.
Right now, the only reasonable alternative candidates are those with so little money/popular appeal they are irrelevant. Nader too old, or is he?
Who else is anti-corporatist, anti-religion posing as public policy, anti-religion posing as science, anti-business as usual/remaining bound to carbon based energy?
Sounds like the green party????
But tell us Alfie==who do you think is a “good” candidate??
VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE.
# 7 Dan Barker “you should have a PrimeMinisters Questions type thing” We do but the questions are all planted by the left.
# 9 C0mdrData “If they were liberal we would have had true national health-care by now” According to Jimmy Carter, the reason we don’t have health care is because of Ted Kennedy.
My personal opinion is that we don’t need another party we just need term limits and an end to the post-term perquisites of serving. We need to get rid of the pro-pols and get back to the Framer’s concept of a volunteer Congress.
Oh, and take away Pelosi’s plane!
No, I don’t think you’re dreaming, I think you’re stoned! Many Americans consider religion in politics to be important. The ones who don’t like this are mostly lefties, and a handful of Libertarian types. I don’t know if this is bad or good (it is all subjective) but you shouldn’t confuse what you want with what everyone wants.
“The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article entitled….”
An elitist New York lamestream media rag controlled by a foreigner. Alfred, go back to Cuba where you belong comrade.
I am with the one above who said we don’t need the parties. All you need to do is to have an open primary. The top two vote getters goes on to the election no matter what party they claim. It has the advantage to push the candidates in the middle at the primary.
#31 Anyone who knows history. Redistribution schemes never work because we run out of rich people to rob.
The very folks who bake the pies we want to eat, are put out of business…
Then we all starve.
During the middle ages only a few folks lived as well as our poor do today.
Yet today billions of folks live better then them, even our poor have running water etc.
How did that happen? Wealth creation. Rather than attack those who create wealth, we must get out of their way.
Let them bake pies, and we all eat to our satisfaction.
Putting them out of business by stealing their money, and regulating them till its like climbing a mountain to be in business, is AGAINST OUR SELF INTEREST.
“Self interest” motivates us, not platitudes. Only a free market system, where freedom reigns, creates wealth, because it allows self interest to be rewarded.
Redistributive systems impoverishes, that is proved by China, Cuba, Russia etc…only when they allowed some free market in, did their situation improve. Those that allowed more, improved their lot more.
Our ruling Elites, the governing class, don’t care…they are enriching themselves.
Every new regulation results in a new lobbyist bearing gifts.
Their greed and theft is killing the goose that laid the golden eggs, and is we the people who will suffer. They will just move to their estates overseas.
Both parties are guilty and their theft is enabled by us because we keep reelecting the hacks they tell us to.
We keep allowing Hollywood and the Propaganda Press of the ruling class, define the candidates who would vote as they promised, as kooks or extreme or whatever.
We must not allow their manipulation and misdirection to work.
Christine O’Donnell is a good example, she is a kook, but Bite Me Biden, known plagiarist and who often claimed 3 degrees (when he only has 1) etc., or to know famous people, when he didn’t, or said FDR would talk to the people on TV, before it was invented, can be in that seat for years and end up as our vice president.
Biden is a party hack, O’Donnell is not, therefore she gets slandered, while Biden gets promoted.
If you want real change, get rid of Bite Me Biden.
Their bank accounts should be locked down and restricted to only the pay provided them no contributions permitted. Any and all contributions made would go towards funding schools, law enfocement, health care etc.. Then their actual pay should be based on a performance rating done by their constituency.
I lived during the age of George Carlin!
http://i.imgur.com/BSDcQ.jpg
“Americans’ desires for a third political party are as high as they have been in seven years. Fifty-eight percent of Americans believe a third major political party is needed because the Republican and Democratic Parties do a poor job of representing the American people. ”
LOOK! HERE IS THE REAL PROBLEM PEOPLE!
OVER HERE!!!!!
READ IT AGAIN.
US citizens are SO stupid that they WANT a third party and they have dozens.
They are SO dumb they can’t count.
There should be NO MORE wonder, at all, WHY we are in the very bad state we are in.
58% of US citizens cannot COUNT. How can we expect any of them to vote?
Cursor_
#39
Cursor,
Over the years of watching a FEW groups try to create a NEW, stronger group to combat these 2…
do you know what has happened?
In the beginning, they got HIT HARD, BLACK BALLED, STOMPED ON, Ridiculed, taken into court and Besmirched, LIED about, infiltrated and taken DOWN.
NOW days, there have been many HIDDEN LAWS/REGULATIONS/CONDITIONS created for any NEW group to match and in most states they change the conditions to have any VOICE in the state. Many of those rules also got rid of SOCIAL CLUBS..
And on your point, about being NOT SMART.. and WHOSE fault is that?
1. the system created
2. those that dont take THEIR OWN education into their OWN hands, and LEARN on their own.
3. now you know where G. Bush jr. came from.