POLITICS NOVEMBER 24, 2011
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The two most salient facts about Mitt Romney’s presidential candidacy as the January primaries approach are that he is always first or second in the polls and that his support is stuck at about 25 percent. It’s premature to call Romney the presumptive nominee before any votes are cast, but this year’s Republican field is so weak that alternative outcomes are pretty hard to imagine. Yet the GOP base remains wary of Romney because of his moderate record in Massachusetts and the extreme pliability of his political views. Republicans will probably nominate Romney, but it’s doubtful they’ll enjoy doing so. All of which leads to one inescapable conclusion: It’s time to audition a right-wing, third-party candidate.
Most recent talk about a possible third-party presidential run has focused on the centrist, nonpartisan group Americans Elect. Bankrolled by a former leveraged buyout tycoon named Peter Ackerman, Americans Elect is inviting voters to draft a candidate via the Internet. The effort has won praise from Matt Miller of The Washington Post, Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, and Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times. “[I]t just might reduce the polarization that has infected the two major traditional parties,” McManus wrote on November 20.
But polarization hasn’t infected the two major parties. One major party has been hijacked by its extreme wing while the other has struggled, unsuccessfully, to coax it back toward the center. During the super committee negotiations over the deficit, Democrats proposed a roughly even split between budget cuts and tax increases. Republicans initially refused to consider tax increases at all, then “compromised” by proposing $300 billion in tax increases combined with $2 to $3 trillion in tax cuts. GOP candidates routinely sign a pledge never, ever to raise taxes. Democratic candidates aren’t even asked to sign a parallel pledge never, ever to cut entitlements.
A May report by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press sketched out these mythical twin poles. On one side, you have “staunch conservatives” who “take extremely conservative positions on nearly all issues.” On the other, you have “solid liberals” who “express diametrically opposing views ... on virtually every issue.” But their disagreement is less striking than what Pew calls their “intensity gap.” Eighty-four percent of staunch conservatives say they “strongly disapprove” of President Obama’s performance, as against 64 percent of solid liberals who “strongly approve.” Seventy-three percent of staunch conservatives say Republican leaders have the better approach to the deficit, as against 58 percent of solid liberals saying Obama does. On health care reform, 80 percent of staunch conservatives say it is mostly “bad for the country,” as against 43 percent of solid liberals saying it is mostly “good for the country.” A party that can’t get a majority of its most extreme partisans to support its greatest domestic-policy victory can be called many things, but “polarizing” is not one of them.
In sum, we don’t need a moderate, centrist third party. We need an extremist conservative third party to accommodate the wingnuts who can’t abide their likeliest nominee.
My motive for saying so is of course impure. With unemployment at 9 percent and an approval rating at about 44 percent, Obama could use all the help he can get. But, if a spoiler candidate emerges—and I think one probably will—it won’t be to accommodate liberals like me. It will be to accommodate conservatives who wonder why their party wants to give ObamaCare’s architect the keys to the White House.
A stickler will tell you that only once in the last century did a third-party presidential candidate win enough votes to alter the outcome in a two-party race. The spoiler was former president Teddy Roosevelt, who, as the Progressive Party’s candidate in 1912, outpolled his White House successor, William Howard Taft, in both the popular vote and the electoral college, thereby ushering Woodrow Wilson into the Oval Office. Many would argue that Ralph Nader’s 97,488 Florida votes put George W. Bush in the White House, but the official Florida count had Bush beating Al Gore by fewer than 600 votes. With a margin that microscopic, the number of plausible determinants approaches infinity.
No subsequent third-party candidate ever matched Roosevelt’s 27 percent of the popular vote. Ross Perot came closest in 1992, with a whisker under 19 percent, but he didn’t win any electoral votes. Strictly by the numbers, then, modern third-party candidacies don’t swing presidential elections.
But luring votes away from a major-party candidate is only one way a third-party candidate can affect the outcome. He can divert organizing talent and, to some extent, the flow of campaign contributions. He can force a major candidate to devote scarce resources to shore up support in a particular state or region. And he can sow dissatisfaction. George Wallace didn’t cost Hubert Humphrey the presidency in 1968 in any direct way. Nor did votes cast for Perot cost George H.W. Bush reelection in 1992. (Perot drew votes equally from Democrats and Republicans, but the flavor of his campaign rallies was very GOP.) Nonetheless, Humphrey and Bush both lost. Harry Truman won reelection in 1948 despite third- and fourth-party challenges from Henry Wallace on the left and Strom Thurmond on the right. But Truman won by such a narrow margin that the Chicago Tribune famously reported (initially) that he lost.
Are spoiler candidacies a cause or a symptom of voter dissatisfaction? Probably both.
The likeliest third-party candidate within the current Republican field is Ron Paul. He’s done it before (on the Libertarian ticket), and, though he says he doesn’t want to, he also says he probably won’t support another GOP candidate. Paul is a sort of godfather to the Tea Party movement, and getting Tea Partiers stirred up about Romney’s perfidious support for the health care mandate (albeit only at the state level) would certainly be worthwhile.
But Paul wouldn’t likely attack Romney on social issues. That’s why I nominate Sarah Palin to run as a political independent. She’d probably see the certainty of failure as a plus, given her demonstrated scant interest in office-holding (as opposed to campaigning). It would be good to see her burn bridges with Republican establishment figures like Fred Malek and William Kristol. And she could give those staunch conservatives a place to call home. Everybody wins. Except Romney, that is. But, then, that’s the point.
Timothy Noah is a senior editor at The New Republic. This article appeared in the December 15, 2011, issue of the magazine.
20 comments
Brilliant.
- chaitless
November 25, 2011 at 11:49am
It's too bad we can erect a kind of Disneyland/Fantasyland like state called "Tea Party Land," or some such where all the wingnuts could practice their Ayn Rand fantasies in real life and support themselves by selling tickets to the rest of us to admire how brilliant and wonderfully they function as the water falls on the tea party witch of Alaska (or whomever) they finally settle on.
- skahn
November 29, 2011 at 12:06am
Fun to contemplate, but don't bet on it. As nutty as these wingers are, they're strong on party loyalty. And where's the percentage in it for any of them? They're all about accumulating power, and selling out your own party to run a quixotic campaign that is guaranteed to lose is not a good way to consolidate your gains. Okay, so Ron Paul is enough of an outsider crank to do it, but would be have any measurable impact on anything? I somehow doubt it.
- AaronW
November 29, 2011 at 7:09am
Why not return to the design of the founders and have the two candidates with the most votes elected to president and vice president, but with a twist, those same two alternating each year as president and vice president. This would serve a couple of salutary purposes. First, it would give the vice president's party much greater incentive to cooperate with the president's party, and vice versa, as both parties have a stake in a "successful" presidency. Second, it would give the vice president something to do besides avoiding embarassment to himself and the president. Third, it would help avoid the second term blahs that so many presidents seem to suffer. And finally, it would come much closer to the design of the founders, at least his Excellency Washington (though not the wingnuts' new favorite, the hyper-partisan Madison), for a non-partisan president. Some might complain that, in the absence of a party agenda, little is likely to be accomplished. My response: a little, if that's the result (which I doubt), is better than today's nothing.
- rayward
November 29, 2011 at 7:40am
Interesting analysis of 3rd party candidates. I have to admit that it would feel weird to be cheering for Sarah Palin with her teeth sunk into Romney's pant leg.
- Nusholtz
November 29, 2011 at 8:26am
I nominate Tim Noah to be her press secretary.
- Tristan
November 29, 2011 at 8:54am
I agree with AaronW. Most of the Right wingnuts hold their noses and vote Republican. No chance of a nutter party making an electoral dent in the GOP, which is already on the extreme Right. Many Democrats, however, have the courage to vote against their party line. Witness Nader's performance in 2000. I couldn't stand Hubert Humphrey in 1968 (I was a protester in Chicago at the Democratic Convention), so I voted for Eldridge Cleaver. Those on the Right might say I was extreme in doing so, especially after I read his disgusting screed, Soul on Ice, but, hey, from your viewpoint it worked out. Cleaver was so grateful that he was allowed back in America, after being kicked out of Algeria for killing his wife's lover, that he eventually became a Reaganite. I saw him on a Seattle PBS station in 1984, dressed in a business suit and stumping for Reagan's re-election. He was still hawking codpieces, though. Right on the show. Some things don't change.
- magboy47.
November 29, 2011 at 9:48am
That really is brilliant. That would free up the Tea-Party to be as Right-Wing as they want to be, while more centrist Republicans could then support Romney. And since Clinton won with less than a majority of votes, I think Ross Perot's candidacy DID keep Bush-I from having his second term. And I think it's fair to make this suggestion, since quite a few people are suggesting we need a centrist candidate. I think your analysis of the situation there is spot on.
- AllanL5
November 29, 2011 at 10:31am
Though it occurs to me that Michelle Bachman would better fill this slot. Sarah Palin is so 2008.
- AllanL5
November 29, 2011 at 10:38am
Gary Johnson is so pissed off at being shut out of the debates he is talking about running, and I don't blame him. He was a 2 term Governor, and is a far more plausible nominee than the ancient Paul.
- blackton
November 29, 2011 at 10:57am
The problem with Ron Paul is that he might take some votes from dumb lefties. And note to Allan L5 the fact that Clinton had less than a majority doesnt' prove that Perot cost Bush the election.
- stanmvp48
November 29, 2011 at 11:02am
I wouldn't be so sure that a third-party candidacy couldn't gain traction on the right. The Republican Party's monolithic image comes from the top, not the grassroots. It's the product of a handful of "political commissars" like Grover Norquist who act as ideological enforcers on Republican elected officials. The party's rank and file are a good deal more diverse than its politicians. The modern Republican Party is a conglomeration of the religious right, resentful white working-class voters, small government libertarians, neoconservative defense hawks, and businesspeople. These groups are not all natural allies. The small government libertarians are often at loggerheads with the neocons and the religious right, the "white resentment" voters are not fond of big business, and the religious right doesn't trust anyone who doesn't share its fundamentalist views. A third-party candidate on the right would have a tough row to hoe with the conservative establishment--the commissars would come down hard on such disloyalty and would do everything in their power to choke off the candidate's media oxygen. He or she would have to run over the opposition of Fox News, which is why I don't see Palin making a play. But in terms of the voter base, a candidate willing and able to brave that opposition could find a lot of support. Of the five groups I mentioned above, the business community is the only one which actually wants to vote for Mitt Romney. He's a Mormon, which is toxic with the religious right. Romneycare is equally toxic for libertarians. The resentful white working class finds plenty to resent about Romney the Harvard plutocrat. And Romney himself is keeping some distance from the neocons, who were badly discredited by Iraq and Afghanistan. If someone does make a third-party run to the right of Romney, my guess would be that it will be fueled either by the libertarians or by the religious right. Ron Paul is the obvious person to claim the former. Not sure about the latter, but Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann seem most likely to me. None of those three would have a prayer of winning the election or even more than a handful of electoral votes, but they could do to Romney what Nader did to Gore.
- Dausuul
November 29, 2011 at 11:21am
Hmm... and it looks like Gary Johnson is actively considering a run on the Libertarian ticket. On paper, he looks like a strong candidate. Successful two-term governor of New Mexico, plenty of libertarian cred, did well in the few debates he was invited to. On the other hand, his fundraising totals and poll numbers are abysmal. On the other other hand, he claims his low numbers are mainly due to a Catch-22; pollsters often don't put him on the list, so he polls low, so he doesn't get invited to most of the debates and can't score donors, so he continues to poll low and pollsters don't put him on the list. Someone to keep an eye on.
- Dausuul
November 29, 2011 at 12:32pm
Noah's one failure in the Palin Proposal thought experiment is who would be her running mate? Considering that Palin hasn't ever finished what she starts, it's safe to assume that those off-the-rail GOPers that would vote for a Palin presidency (shivers run my spine as I break into a sweat thinking that thought) would need a solid Veep as her backup. Since he/she would be defacto POTUS once Palin raided the WH for goodies and went rogue by resigning so she could do another US tour funded by SarahPAC.
- singlspeed
November 29, 2011 at 2:03pm
Good grief. Three Repulicans running in 2012--blithe moderate (BHO), multiple-choice Mitt, and a wing nut. I wonder how a real Democrat might fare?? Maybe the election of 1824 is really the best analogy??
- drofnats1
November 29, 2011 at 8:43pm
Too bad the economy didn't crash last August-- rather than next August (if not sooner). Then Democrats might have also had a choice in 2012. Maybe Bismark for once didn't get it right (God has a special providence for drunks, fools, and the United States of America).
- drofnats1
November 29, 2011 at 9:02pm
It is patently absurd to suggest that recent third party candidates didn't swing elections. In 2000, Nader's votes in Florida alone were more than enough to deliver that state and the entire election to Bush, what with the recount shenanigans the 'Pubs pulled. In '92 the Perot vote pulled mostly from Bush, and by my count it probably took 186 electoral votes from GHW Bush, so even if I'm way high, it was enough to throw the election to Clinton. Granted, Wallace and Thurmond probably were not outcome determinative. That said, a right wing third party would clearly help Obama, as would a supposedly center-right third party. It really doesn't matter, so long as the vote pull is mostly from the 'Pub candidate.
- Kokomo O
November 30, 2011 at 12:03am
Have you not noticed that S.P. is over?
- paskunac
November 30, 2011 at 6:37am
"Ross Perot came closest in 1992, with a whisker under 19 percent, but he didn’t win any electoral votes". Tim, please tell me that you're not this obtuse. A third candidate doesn't need to win any electoral votes *themselves* in order to swing an election. All he/she has to do is steal enough votes *within* that state from the favorite so that their opponent wins the state, instead. And then you've got "Many would argue that Ralph Nader’s 97,488 Florida votes put George W. Bush in the White House, but the official Florida count had Bush beating Al Gore by fewer than 600 votes. With a margin that microscopic, the number of plausible determinants approaches infinity.". Huh? The whole point is, if Nader hadn't taken 97k votes from Gore, the margin would *not* have been that small... and your "number of plausible determinants" inches back from infinity. Geez... do any left-brained people proof-read your stuff before you post it?
- jemenake
November 30, 2011 at 1:29pm
I'm completely befuddled at the logic that concludes that because Gore's loss to Bush in Florida was by such a narrow margin, the 97,000 votes for Nader should be dismisssed as just one of many possible determinants. Even if half of Nader's voters would not have voted without his being in the race, where do you think the other 50,000 votes would have gone--to the conservative or to the moderate democrat? Would a larger margin for Bush have made the Nader vote more significant? My guess is that Timothy Noah is a Nader fan who feels better ascribing Gore's loss to Bush in Florida to the infinity of other plausible determinants.
- szweda
December 29, 2011 at 11:00am