Third parties in the US are protest vehicles. Let us look at Nader in 2000. The Nader campaign was essentially a faction of the left [both inside the Dem party and camped beyond its fringes in the allied activist movements]responding to Clinton’s triangulation politics by saying they would rather see Bush win then be told to vote the lesser evil while sitting meekly and quitely in the back of the bus. They pulled Gore [who figured to be an easy winner - peace/prosperity without the Clintonista soap opera and scandals] to the left and still took enough protest votes to throw the election. However they have not been marginalized since. The Dem party of 2008 is well to the left of that of 1998 in large measure because they proved that the Democrats did not have the activist votes by divine right but rather had to work for them. So I simply will not vote for a man who personalizes every policy dispute and demonizes those who disagree with him. I don’t expect to win them all. I do expect that any party that wants to get my vote doesn’t call me racist scum simply because I disagree with a dim whitted, poorly thought out Amnesty Plan. Better 8 years of Hillary followed by 8 years of Chelsea. Let the moderates who keep saying we are an anchor that keeps them from winning try to win without us.
