Originally posted by They call me Doctor Doom.:
Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
Originally posted by They call me Doctor Doom.:
Originally posted by kosmo:
life long moderate conservatives who routinely voted Republicans, like my dad, to potential vote for another candidate.
My dad voted for Bush twice and can't bring himself to vote Repug again... he's going for Obama.
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it is at this point where a viable third party would be helpful. while it was conceivable that i wouldn't vote for mccain (namely if he picked romney), there was no way in hell that i would ever vote for obama. that leaves me with bob barr or whatever comes of this ron paul convention, and i simply disagree with them on a number of other issues. in other words, the democratic party and obama is not a viable alternative for what i believe in. now, i know vansmack will tell me that the republican party doesn't represent what i believe in either, which is a fair point, but i am simply not a democrat. [/b]
A third party will never win in this country, and therefore will only serve as a spoiler in elections.
The real answer is to infiltrate the Republican Party and take it back from the religious zealots. Republicans once advocated an approach of small government, fiscal responsibility, and minimal international interventionism, and relative libertarianist instincts with regards to personal issues. It is hard to imagine anything further from that than the modern Republicans.
The Democrats have their issues too, of course, but at least they are not dependent on a base of wild-eyed slackjaws. [/b]
Funny thing is, taking back the Republican party from the evangelical neo-cons is precisely what Ron Paul was all about. What he continues to be all about. Unfortunately, Paul himself is
not a good speaker, he handles interviews terribly, and he was too gung ho about emphasizing small government goals that were years if not decades away from being achievable. Hence he came off looking like a loon.
The Ron Paul phenomenon is part of why I'm more likely to vote 3rd party this year. There's a sizable minority out there that can be tapped to start a bit of a political uprising and perhaps even form a political party that is more Republican in the old school sense. Non-interventionist, limited government, fiscal responsibility, personal freedoms emphasized (which means gay marriage and abortion legal).
Political parties do change in America, where has the Whig party gone for example? Also, Prior to the 60's the south was known as the "solid south" and voted overwhelmingly Democrat. Republican party was party of Lincoln and freeing of the slaves. What turned the whole south red was LBJ and his "great society" reforms going horribly awry, together with his presiding over quite a lot of the desegregation and civil rights movements. White southerners deserted the Dems in droves and that's how the Republicans got saddled with the crazy evangelicals.
