Would a Third Major Political Party ever stand a chance of getting off the ground in this country?
The way things are now it would be hard to get a new party started. Conditions would have to become worse almost to the point of rebellion where there would be enough fed up people to have a political rebellion by starting a new party. The party I would like to see would be a centralist party taking ther good from each current party. It would leave the conseratives to the republicans and the liberals to the Dems and combine with independants to form a party of common sence, integraty and practicality. A pragmatist party were they would use things that worked and not try to fix things that were not broken. The last time this happened was when the Republican party was born in 1860 and was led by Abraham Lincoln. We need a Lincoln type person to lead the new party. Can’t say I know of anyone who meets the qualifications. I like Lee Iacoca he might do. Great business mind, great organizer, saved a major auto company. His book impressed me. For now we are stuck with the status quo. Actually
I think a major third party would be pretty unlikely. The American electorate tends to split Left/Right. Any third party would either have to split one of the majors (leaving two smaller left or right wing parties, neither of which could win an election) or take a chunk out of the middle leaving far right and far left parties which could not win except by allying themselves with the centrists. The two party system is also heavily embedded into the political system. The system can handle the occasional independent but any significant number of non-Republican/Democrat office holders would require a comprehensive overhaul of State and Federal primary, election and governing procedures. It’s very unlikely that the establishment would accept that without a fight or that the public would put up with the cost and confusion. The major parties tend to modify themselves to conform to current trends. The “new” positions of any third party would quickly be incorporated by the majors into their own
