Third Party Presidential Campaign Fan Fiction is only slightly more tiresome than Brokered Convention Fan Fiction.
— Wyeth Ruthven (@wyethwire) May 7, 2016
You get a party, and you get a party — everybody gets a party of their own! One should never dismiss any possible development in the multi-ring circus of American politics, especially in this particular cycle. And surely every American is entitled to his or her very own political Theory of Everything, whereby the sufficient application of correct thought to the perfect handcrafted artisan unicorn candidate will CHANGE THE CONVERSATION such that everyone lives happily ever after. But the latest media proposals by the usual batch of Media Village Idiots, reliably wrong ‘pundits’, and ambitious careerists gunning for earned media don’t even rise to the dignity of a couple of tinfoil-hatted cranks taking up floor time at local meetings and wall space on public buildings (or Facebook) to promote the Independent Union of Patriotic National Americans for Responsible Freedom…
Let's say enough Repubs were ready to overturn Trump's nomination: who would be an improvement AND would accept the nomination?
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) May 9, 2016
Anti-Trump Republicans should start a new party on IndieGoGo. I would say Kickstarter, but the pitch would never pass believablity test.
— Mark Sumner (@Devilstower) May 9, 2016
There’s at least three strains of Third-Party Virus been rampant in the media since Trump clinched the Republican nomination. First, the evergreen Both Sides argument, where adult professionals revert to their Risk-and-fantasy-sports-playing adolescence. Jon Chait at NYMag explains to them that, “No, a Conservative Third-Party Candidate Can’t Steal the Electoral College“:
… [T]he plan would run like this: A right-wing third-party candidate would split the Electoral College, so no candidate reaches the 270-vote threshold. In that case, the House of Representatives would decide the winner, with each state’s delegation (regardless of population) casting two votes. Since Republicans control most state delegations, they would pick the winner, who would presumably be their right-winger, rather than Trump or (obviously) Hillary Clinton.
What gives the scenario the veneer of plausibility is that the last part of the plan is completely true. If the Electoral College deadlocked, then the House would really decide, and it really would give the presidency to the right-winger. The actual problem with the scenario is that the first part, where the independent somehow prevents anybody from gaining 270 electoral votes, is completely nuts.
Right now Clinton has the inside track to a majority of the Electoral College. Polls are a little dodgy at this early stage of the race, but most forecasters assume Clinton would win something like the states President Obama won in 2012, and perhaps some more if Trump fails to consolidate his party. That assumption isn’t terribly important. What’s important is that adding a right-wing splinter candidate would not reduce Clinton’s share of the Electoral College at all. It would increase it. Every state gives its electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most votes. If Clinton wins 51 percent of the vote in Florida, she gets all 29 electoral votes from Florida. Crucially, states do not require a candidate to have a majority in order to win the state. And a right-wing independent candidate will draw overwhelmingly from Trump’s support. So an independent would not take any states away from Clinton. Instead, that candidate would make it possible for Clinton to win a bunch of states without a majority. States where Clinton might otherwise fall a bit short of Trump would become blue states…
The Fevered Phantasies of A Redemptive Third PartyPost + Comments (133)