Why is it hard for an Independent to get elected?

[Shelly]

Are their views too far out there? Not enough campaigning? Not enough money? What's the reason?

I have no idea, but am curious to see what y'all think.

[T Park]

not enough money, and not enough people to stray from either party.

[IcemanCometh]

its the way the system works. perpetuation of the norm.

[CosmicCowboy]

Personally I think the country is ripe for a centrist third party...and if it happens it will probably come from an existing well known politician with respect from both sides of the aisle...John McCain comes to mind as one possibility...

lose the radical rights religious issues and lose the radical lefts "government is the solution for everything" iisues and with the proper financing a centrist party could make a real impact...

Heck...if Ross Perot could poll 28% of the votes as whacked as he was it is obvious that a lot of this country is disenfranchised with both parties...

[Shelly]

So, how can it be changed? For those of you that are voting independent (Manny/, Scott?) what's the solution?

[Shelly]

Good ol' H. Ross Perot. We hardly knew ye.

[Hook Dem]

Personally I think the country is ripe for a centrist third party...and if it happens it will probably come from an existing well known politician with respect from both sides of the aisle...John McCain comes to mind as one possibility...

lose the radical rights religious issues and lose the radical lefts "government is the solution for everything" iisues and with the proper financing a centrist party could make a real impact...

Heck...if Ross Perot could poll 28% of the votes as whacked as he was it is obvious that a lot of this country is disenfranchised with both parties...
Thats what it's gonna take.......name recognition.

[T Park]

Schwarzanegger IMO seems more middle of the road, then republican.

He could get elected being an independant.

[CosmicCowboy]

the movie war hero vs. the real war hero?

McCain would kill him.

[Shelly]

Schwarzanegger IMO seems more middle of the road, then republican.

He could get elected being an independant.

? I though you had to be born in the USA to be president?

[IcemanCometh]

don't hurt tparks feelings shelly

[CosmicCowboy]

This is the main reason it is hard for an independent party to get a foothold...

Campaign spending nears $4 billion, a record level


By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


Make that billions not millions: Campaign spending is off the chart.
At $1.2 billion, this is the most expensive presidential election in history. Add congressional races and the total reaches almost $4 billion — a 30 percent increase from four years ago, according to an analysis of campaign finance figures released yesterday by the District-based Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group.
Intense interest and the pocketbooks of generous private citizens could hold the key. "The 2004 presidential and congressional elections will shatter previous records for spending, and the biggest reason is the increase in giving by individuals to campaigns and parties," said Larry Noble, the center's director.
Indeed, individual contributions to both federal candidates and political parties ultimately will total about $2.5 billion, based on current figures from the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenue Service.
Four years ago, the figure was $1.5 billion.
Women in particular are more generous, the study found, contributing almost 30 percent of party donations exceeding $200 this year. In the previous election, they gave just more than 23 percent; in 1996, the figure stood at 21 percent.
Election Day looms in a little more than a week, but frantic fund raising continues. Though he continues to recuperate from heart bypass surgery, former President Bill Clinton went to bat for Sen. John Kerry and the Democratic National Committee, calling for contributions from party loyalists in an e-mail message Wednesday.
"The future of our country is at stake," Mr. Clinton stated.
Since Oct. 1, political action committees and other organizations — from the American Nurses Association to the Marijuana Policy Project — shelled out almost $43 million on campaign spots and contributions for President Bush, Mr. Kerry and other candidates.
The "527 groups," named after a section of the tax code, continue to be generous. The analyses estimated that groups such as the pro-Bush Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth or Kerry loyalists at MoveOn.org eventually will contribute $187 million to their respective favorites when all is said and done.
"This is a conservative figure," the study noted.
Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry each ended September with about $37 million in their campaign war chests, according to an Associated Press estimate yesterday.
The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, had $71 million at the beginning of this month, after spending almost $57 million but also raising $34.5 million in September. The Democratic National Committee began October with $42 million, spent $77 million last month and raised $63 million.
Although critics charge that costly negative or misleading campaign blitzes alienate a weary public from politics and elections, University of Wisconsin political scientist John Coleman believes they do the country some good.
"Studies indicate that campaign spending does not diminish trust, efficacy, and involvement," Mr. Coleman wrote in his own analysis earlier this year. "Spending increases public knowledge of the candidates, across essentially all groups in the population. ... Getting more money into campaigns should, on the whole, be beneficial to American democracy."

[IcemanCometh]

http://www.mantasoft.co.uk/_stuff/hypnotoad.gif

VOTE OR I KILL YOU

[Clandestino]

Are their views too far out there? Not enough campaigning? Not enough money? What's the reason?

I have no idea, but am curious to see what y'all think.

read what nader is for and you'll see why! what an idiot..

[CosmicCowboy]

read what nader is for and you'll see why! what an idiot..

Nader is a friggen joke. He has made a career out of running for president. Fortunately he is so marginalized now that he no longer qualifys for Federal campaign funds...

[Shelly]

CC, Perot had the money. I don't remember what his views were, though. Why isn't he out backing an independent?

[Shelly]

read what nader is for and you'll see why! what an idiot..

What about the others?

[Brodels]

From another thread:

I really feel that people are polarized because they feel the need to identify with something and they either think that there are only two options or they find strength in supporting a popular party. At least some of the polarization you see is a front. There are many republicans who choose to be hardcore republicans because they hate what democrats stand for and vice versa. Those people don't understand that you don't have to be republican just because you hate democrats.

Money and fear make it hard for third parties to succeed. The money factor is obvious. And people are simply scared to vote for a third party candidate because they are afraid that the candidate that least represents their views will be elected if they do.

[Shelly]

Makes sense, Brodels. Thanks.

It will be interesting to see if it will ever change.

[CosmicCowboy]

legitimate candidates run from Perots endorsement like Hooters girls run from TPark...

under campaign finance law Perot can't bankroll another candidate...($2000. individual limit)...he can only use his fortune to run himself...and even he knows he is not electable...

his political stance was kind of Libertarian with an Ayn Randian twist...he had some good points but was perceived as just too friggen strange...

[Spurminator]

The solution is to have one election with all parties involved, and then have a runoff between the two candidates with the highest vote total.

[Shelly]

:lol CC

So how does one go about getting the process changed? Will it EVER be changed? Can it even be changed?

[CosmicCowboy]

I honestly think that McCain has already considered it. If the Republican party stiffs him now (assuming W is not re-elected) I can see him being a legitimate 3rd party candidate in 2008. Here is an interesting article...

McCain's shadow campaign
By Joan Vennochi, Globe Columnist | November 2, 2004

JOHN MCCAIN voted early and often in Campaign 2004. His candidate of choice: John McCain.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Arizona senator managed to walk a perfect political line between the Republican President George W. Bush and Democrat challenger John Kerry -- the line that helped himself. McCain wins no matter who loses.

Both camps wanted McCain at their side, and Kerry wanted him as his running mate. That gave McCain tremendous leverage, especially with the Bush campaign, which he skillfully exploited. He gave a dramatic nominating speech for Bush at the Republican National Convention, praising the president as a tested leader. McCain hugged Bush on the campaign trail, giving the president a much-coveted photo op and a political shot in the arm. But he also slipped a shiv between the incumbent's ribs, telling Fox News Sunday on Sept. 19 that the president was not being "as straight as maybe we'd like to see" regarding the situation in Iraq. In the final campaign stretch he is back in the Bush camp, recording Vote Bush phone messages and telling voters the latest Osama bin Laden videotape helps the president because it refocuses attention on the war on terror.

"Perhaps the new meaning of independent is two-faced," muses a Boston-based Democratic consultant, asked to explain the McCain phenomenon.

McCain helped Kerry at an especially low point last summer in the Democrat's campaign, when the Massachusetts senator's Vietnam War service came under harsh attack from the group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. McCain condemned an attack ad run by the group, calling it "dishonest and dishonorable" and "very, very wrong," and he publicly urged Bush to condemn it as well.

The Arizona senator had personal reason to resent the attack against Kerry, a longtime friend, and he had personal motive to seek revenge. Four years ago, when he was running for president against Bush, McCain was subjected to a similar attack. He lost the South Carolina Republican primary in 2000 after Bush supporters accused him of opposing legislation to help military veterans; McCain's "Straight Talk Express" never recovered.

A desire for revenge is understandable but not particularly high-minded. Yet McCain still manages to cultivate a reputation as a man of boundless integrity. He is helped by a public that views him as an inspirational war hero and by an often entranced mediathat he diligently courts. A recent article in The New Yorker, which profiles Mark Halperin, the ABC News political director, refers to a birthday party McCain hosted for himself right before the Republican convention, "at which various fixtures of the media establishment had turned up: Tim Russert, Barbara Walters, Judy Woodruff, Chris Matthews." "I've never seen anything like it!' Halperin is quoted as saying in the article. He was seated next to McCain's aunt, and, as Halperin told The New Yorker, "Charlie Rose was sitting on the other side. It was pretty wild."

In an Aug. 31 column about McCain's bipartisan political and broad-based media appeal, Washington Post columnist David Broder concluded "I've never seen anything like it." Both campaigns used McCain in ads (until McCain asked Kerry to stop); both drop his name for possible Cabinet positions. He wins accolades as the champion of campaign finance reform even though in the end, the legislation he championed cleared the way for groups like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to raise unlimited amounts of money to underwrite candidate attack ads. Now that the campaign finance loophole is obvious to all, McCain is pledging to work in the courts and through legislation to regulate these outside advocacy groups.

It is difficult to review McCain's back and forth on Bush and Kerry and conclude anything but this: Whatever happens in 2004, at least one Vietnam War hero will be a presidential candidate in 2008. A Bush win would make it easier for McCain, but running against an incumbent Democrat is just as plausible, no matter how old his friendship with Kerry or how deep their mutual respect. There are many differences between Kerry and McCain, who is unafraid to put a label on his politics. He is a proud, self-described social and economic conservative.

Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation," McCain said: "On Nov. 3d, we'd better call a truce and stop this and sit down together, no matter who wins, and start talking about national unity and addressing these issues. I deplore this kind of bitterness and anger."

From the start, McCain read this election for its potential to advance his own cause. He is a smart, appealing, and ambitious politician who is already tapping into the nation's campaign battle fatigue and desire for peace, first, at home.

[JoeChalupa]

There are some that I know what say they are libertarian but don't vote for their candidate. Maybe that's why they don't get many votes?

[2pac]

Nader is a friggen joke. He has made a career out of running for president. Fortunately he is so marginalized now that he no longer qualifys for Federal campaign funds...

Don't let facts get in the way of your blind hate.

Nadar has been a top consumer advocate, and has founded lots of groups representing consumers and protecting them from companies.

[CosmicCowboy]

Don't let facts get in the way of your blind hate.

We are talking about running for PRESIDENT, not winning personal injury awards against GM...