Third Party Politics

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Originally Posted by buttcheeks

From what I've gathered, third parties do so poorly because a lot of them never look at the big picture. There are normally a dozen ass hats every election running for parties you've never heard of. They do little to get their voice out there and organize themselves.

They also do stupid shit like run for the prez and not smaller offices. Until we have third party people in normal political offices; we will most likely not see a third party president.

We may still not see one even then, as the other two parties have a lot of power at their disposal for smiting the little guy. A viable third party would almost have to split from the other two like the night before an election.

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No, they do poorly because our electoral system (first past the post) is ill-suited to more than 2 viable parties. Seriously. I can't remember the details, but basically, the way we divide up votes and award winners actually leads to, or at the very least strongly encourages, a two-party system. It's interesting, I learned it in a basic PS class.

Of course that only talks about the national level, you're right on the 2nd point. But there's nothing wrong or taxing about putting a guy up on the Presidential election, it shows you're for real. And, I think parties like Green or Libertarian do actually focus more on local.

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

All of these parties sound like great choices for avatar to throw away his vote. He's a prime example why the voting age should be raised (if we can't go back to land owning males).

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Let me try to understand. Me caring about my vote and not wanting to support 2 parties that fail to impress me with their vision of the future makes me a prime example of why 18 years shouldn't vote.

So my vote for prez is worthless if I don't like neither the Democrat or Republican guy. WTF?

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Originally Posted by Diff-chan

No,

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=/

Thats kind of sad, because I'm pretty sure it was you or gozen that I got a lot of that info from, like 3 years ago, like the first time we talked about this.

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Originally Posted by avatar

Let me try to understand. Me caring about my vote and not wanting to support 2 parties that fail to impress me with their vision of the future makes me a prime example of why 18 years shouldn't vote.

So my vote for prez is worthless if I don't like neither the Democrat or Republican guy. WTF?

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yeah, sadly pretty much. Untill there is a some how a magical strong third party, or we restructure our way of voting, you are shitting your vote away. Hell if you don't live in three big vote states, you are shitting your vote away.

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Originally Posted by avatar

Let me try to understand. Me caring about my vote and not wanting to support 2 parties that fail to impress me with their vision of the future makes me a prime example of why 18 years shouldn't vote.

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The fact that you want to vote for idealistic bullshit instead of accepting reality is why 18 year-olds shouldn't vote.

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So my vote for prez is worthless if I don't like neither the Democrat or Republican guy. WTF?

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Yes, it is. Again, it's not warm and fuzzy, but it's the truth.

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Originally Posted by Diff-chan

Vote for Sherrod Brown. edit: Mike DeWine is a bad bad guy.

p.s. if you want to see the Republicans out of power through 2008, its a pretty important election.

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But even the Democrats here are pretty conservative shits. I can't find a single one of them that doesn't have an '(insert candidate) believes in the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman only.' ad campaign. Even our liberals are super-Christian-valued like that. It irritates me.

Politics are totally bogus.

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Originally Posted by Nomi

But even the Democrats here are pretty conservative shits. I can't find a single one of them that doesn't have an '(insert candidate) believes in the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman only.' ad campaign. Even our liberals are super-Christian-valued like that. It irritates me.

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That's because saying otherwise makes you unelectable.

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Originally Posted by buttcheeks

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Thats kind of sad, because I'm pretty sure it was you or gozen that I got a lot of that info from, like 3 years ago, like the first time we talked about this.

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It's not impossible for a third-party candidate to get airtime during a national election if they've got the jack (Ross Perot anyone?), but the problem is that the two parties are the most organized and can flex influence anywhere in the US, they have the infrastructure. The third-party has to rely on the 'grassroots' which is cool, but not effective compared to a major national machine.

If I can be crude for a moment: Fuck God.

The day the werewolf, dracula, and swamp thing show up at my door is the day I'll start believing in fairy tales. I understand that god is a big deal in this country, but the only reason people believe in god is due to fear. Show me a christian, and I'll show you one scared person.

If you want to bring up living in reality Yoshi, perhaps it's time to address this issue. God was real important up until fairly recently, so I'll admit it's hard for people to let it go, but an 'all-powerful, wrathful' supreme being simply isn't relevant anymore.

We should elect Bill Hick's corpse.

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

That's because saying otherwise makes you unelectable.

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Yeah, for the majority. I won't vote for any of them for that reason alone though, so it goes both ways.