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Originally Posted by alphagamzetagam
Not necessarily true. Democrats and Republicans spend MILLIONS of dollars trying to sway the middle from voting for a third party candidate, just because of the effect it has on an election. It was Perot that lost the election for Bush, and it was Nader that lost the election for Gore. Third party candidates have a huge effect on the outcome of an election, unfortunately, it's an adverse affect from their policy stance (Perot was more conservative, Nader more liberal).
Not saying that voting for a third party democrat is good or even something I would suggest, but it is the breaking point for a lot of elections. However, the more and more disillusioned the public becomes with both parties, the more and more people there are who will vote for a third party candidate. And, eventually, one of the two will "go out" much in the same way as it has happened in the past, and the third party will "come in."
In this case, however, it's just taken a fairly long time (almost half of the US as a political system, meaning since the republic was formed under the Constitution, has been under a Democrat v. Republican basis!).
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On a national level yes, but while third party candidates can be the "spoiler" for an election there's the problem that if I want Nader to win, I probably REALLY didn't want Bush to win, but voting for Nader means Bush is more likely to win.
But if you look at the restrictions on third party candidates, there are some in place that attempt to prevent them from ever having near an equal footing in the campaign, much less the election.