An option for Everybody

 Third Parties in the US are Secondary Political Parties  Historically, the US has a Two Party system ◦ Some say the Electoral College with its “Winner take all” award of electors has done this ◦ Should we just use Popular Vote instead???

 Third Parties rarely win elections but do play an important role in Democratic Governments  Third Parties draw attention to issues that may be ignored by the Majority Parties. Examples???  Referendum: referring and issue to popular vote of the people for approval or rejection

 America First Party ◦ Extremely Conservative party  American Party ◦ Very small conservative Christian splinter party

 American Independent Party  American Nazi Party ◦ Racist often with shaved heads ◦ Has not fielded a candidate since Rockwell in 1964

 Green Party of the United States  Ralph Nadar  The Greens/Green Party USA  Smaller fringe party

 Prohibition Party  Against the sale of alcohol  Peace and Freedom Party  Against Vietnam War

 Socialist Party USA  Socialist Equality Party  Socialist Labor Party  Socialist Workers Party  Democratic Socialists of America

 Family Values Party ◦ Founder Thomas Wells of Florida claims God spoke to him  Light Party ◦ Founder Da Vid M.D. ◦ Promotes wholistic medicine

 Pansexual Peace Party ◦ Left-wing ◦ Free love  Pot Party & U.S. Marijuana Party ◦ Advocate the legalization of Marijuana

 Bull Moose Party (1912) – Teddy Roosevelt – also called the Progressive Party ◦ Women’s suffrage, banking reforms, social welfare assistance for women and children

 Socialist Party (1900s) – Eugene Debs ◦ Ran for president from jail

 Dixiecrats (1948) – Strom Thurmond ◦ Segregationist Platform – race was a major issue ◦ Significance: First splits in Democratic Party ◦ South used to be all Democratic

 American Independent (1968) – George Wallace ◦ Continuation of Dixiecrat – segregationist and Racist ◦ Receives 46 southern electoral votes

 Independent/Reform – Ross Perot ◦ Key focus was the economy ◦ 1992 Election – received almost 20 million votes -19% of popular vote ◦ NAFTA –”giant sucking sound heading to Mexico”

 Green Party (2000) – Ralph Nader ◦ Stole votes from Al Gore ◦ The reason Bush won???

 3 rd Parties tend to exist to promote a Specific Issue or Personality  Growing trend is for a major party to help a 3 rd Party with the idea of taking votes that would likely go to a major party – This is the classic “Divide &Conquer” tactic

 Currently, the Green Party is viewed as pulling more from the Democrats while the Libertarian takes more votes from the Republicans