Voters may not like either Trump or Clinton, but it’s still a two-party country
Voters may not like either Trump or Clinton, but it’s still a two-party country:- While the two major parties nominated presidential candidates with unprecedented flaws and unfavorable ratings well over 50 percent for the entire general election, the two “major” minor parties — the Libertarians and the Greens — have once again failed to take full advantage of the opportunity.
If there really was an opportunity at all.
For months, we all heard a lot of babble of how Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein could be factors in 2016, even potentially costing one of the major parties the White House.
Well, it is obvious now that that is not happening.
The presidential contest has popped open, with Democrat Hillary Clinton now holding a commanding lead in national and state polls. She will finish first handily in the popular vote and is headed for a solid electoral vote victory.
The size of her victory will overshadow the third-party vote and eliminate the argument that the Libertarians and/or Greens had much of an impact on the contest.
To be sure, Johnson and Stein are likely to do much better in November than they did four years earlier, when Johnson drew just under 1 percent as the Libertarian nominee and Stein drew just over one-third of a percent carrying the Green Party banner.
But it is unlikely that Johnson will draw double digits, as he did earlier in the cycle in some polls, or that Stein will draw the 5 or 6 points that she once did. This should not surprise anyone. Third-party nominees often see their numbers slide as Election Day approaches.
In recent highly regarded national polls, Johnson has been drawing between 3 percent and 7 percent of the vote, while Stein has consistency draw from 1 percent to 3 percent.
If that showing is the best the Libertarians and Greens can do with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as the Republican and Democratic nominees, the minor parties have a long way to go before they deserve to be treated as contenders.
The Libertarians may have missed the boat this year.
Johnson, a former two-term GOP governor in New Mexico, has proved to be the lightest of lightweights. Unfamiliar with the tragic developments in Aleppo and unable to name a single world leader he admires, Johnson played to the way some caricatured him — a pro-marijuana legalization advocate who had smoked one too many joints over the years.
A credible Libertarian nominee intent on mainstreaming the party, who had the skills of a politician and explained the party’s agenda and how and why it would help voters, might have taken advantage of the two weak major parties’ nominees. But despite his political experience, Gary Johnson was not that person.
You can be sure that both the Libertarians and the Greens will cite their showings in November as evidence of their growing appeal in the country and their right to be taken more seriously by the national media. And they will complain that they would have done even better if Johnson and Stein had been included in the televised debates.
That last point surely is true. Putting third parties on an equal footing with the two major parties would have given Johnson and Stein more visibility and credibility — and gotten them more votes.
But the Libertarians and Greens face other hurdles, including our two-party tradition, our winner-take-all electoral system (which doesn’t reward “moral victories” by third parties) and the two major parties’ tendency to co-opt successful third-party messages.
For the Greens, who hope to coalesce support on the left, the Democrats’ populist shift — as reflected by the increased visibility for Sens. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio) — is a disaster.
On her website, Stein talks about the need to build a movement “to end unemployment and poverty; avert climate catastrophe; build a sustainable, just economy; and recognize the dignity and human rights of every person.” That sounds a lot like Sanders, doesn’t it? And, if that is the Democratic Party’s message, who needs the Greens?
The Libertarian Party has a potentially more interesting path to relevance, but supporters spend too much time fighting among themselves (purists vs. pragmatists) about what they believe and what kind of party they might become. In the end, the party rarely nominates a presidential candidate who has the personal qualities and campaign skills to appeal to voters who have not yet embraced the libertarian (and Libertarian) agenda.
The fracturing GOP and the divided Democratic Party may give the Libertarians and Greens yet another opportunity in four years to sell their wares to votes. But their “success’ this year does nothing to establish that the nation’s two “biggest” third parties really are in the national political conversation — or even that they deserve to be.
Source:- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/10/27/voters-may-not-like-either-trump-or-clinton-but-its-still-a-two-party-country/
