With Stein announcing and Manchin implying...

[CincyDem]

…looks like someone is revving up the third party option in light of Tuesday’s decisive results for Dems in virtually race and issue.

It’s “throw it against the wall” time for republicans who have no policy solution for the gap between them and the American voters.

Remember in 2024, there is no such thing a voting to “send a message”. In a two party system, you either vote to win or vote to lose. Don’t get caught up in this thinking that a vote for Manchin, Stein, Kennedy, or some other wannabe third party person will teach Dems a lesson and somehow magically make things better.

Writing is on the wall…it’s Biden Trump. If ya ain’t voting for Biden, you’re voting for Trump…no matter where ya choose to put your check mark.

[Lovie777]

1. RWers money at it's fineness........

[lapfog_1]

2. so RFK jr flamed out as someone that can make Trump win

which became obvious when polling showed that he hurt Trump more than Biden.

Now Manchin and Jill Stein enter as some sort of "no labels" presidential bid to hurt Biden?

Seems likely. I wonder how much money the billionaires offered to Manchin?

[PortTack]

16. Lots!

F..king manchin!

[dchill]

19. I have plenty of labels for Manchin and Stein.

So "No Labels" ain't gonna fly.

[dutch777]

3. I agree but wonder what multiple third party candidates would do? Guess it depends who they are more attractive to...

..disaffected Dems or Repugs. I would love to see Christie enter as 3rd party to eat into Trumpian side of things. Kennedy may do the same. Not sure who would really support Manchin. Other than maybe No Labels and Kennedy, not sure who could raise enough and organize enough to get on many ballots and mount any sort of credible campaign.

[PortTack]

17. I think you're right. To start now and manage to get on all 50 ballots..not sure that's doable

Considering who manchin is. Mostly unknown to the average person plus the ground game they would have to have just isn’t there

[Cha]

4. stein jumps in to RF for Putin.. 2016 wasn't enough for that RF.

Link to tweet

[BannonsLiver]

5. I've always had my suspicions about Manchin and Putin

[CincyDem]

6. Yep. Here's the worrying thing to me...

…these third party folks muck up the electoral college to prevent Joe getting to 270. What’s it take?

A Michigan fueled by Tlaib supporters who don’t want trump but feel aggrieved by Biden. There’s 15.

A Virginia or a Georgia…there’s 13 or 16.

I think the learning for the right from 1/6/21 was that they had the right idea and the wrong execution. Instead of trying to claim trump won these “contested” states, they only have to show Biden didn’t. That gets it to the house to decide with one vote per delegation. Yeah…so South Dakota’s 450k residents have as much say in picking the president as California’s 40 million.

I can’t put my hands on the numbers right now but I’m pretty sure republicans control a majority of the delegations and, even if we flip the house in 2024, it’s likely republicans maintain the delegation majority.

I have no data to say these states don’t go Biden but who wants to take the f’cking chance with all that’s at stake. This can not go to the house.

[PortTack]

15. If the Dems control the house, then it won't go to the states one vote one state. That's the step beyond

[tinrobot]

23. Those were 2016 votes, though...

Most of them were Bernie voters who didn't want Hillary.

Very different dynamic this year.

[Cha]

29. Yes I know.. but she's still RF for Putin. She doesn't care about

The US Democracy.

I hope that sociopathic liar for Putin goes down in a pile of flames.

[Give Peace A Chance]

7. She's Putin's darling

Remember the dinner she attended with Michael Flynn.

[CincyDem]

8. Like it was yesterday. And she's never been held to account by the third party fans. n/t.

[erronis]

20. There are a lot of what we used to call "fellow travelers"

Money and blackmail can buy a lot of influence in the political process.

Now, almost all (r)epuglicons are controlled by domestic or foreign interests. They don't care about their duties to the citizens or the constitution. They do care about their non-taxable income and fears of being outed.

[Lonestarblue]

9. I wish the media (print, online, and broadcast) would do a better job explaining how third-party

votes are a dead end. We do not have a parliamentary system where minority parties might get a seat in Congress. I think it’s all but two states that also award electoral college votes by winner takes all, which means that no third party vote has any effect other than to be a spoiler for one of the major parties. Saying you’re casting a protest vote is just useless because absolutely no one in power pays the slightest bit of attention to those voters and what they want.

[erronis]

21. But it wouldn't serve the media's interests in debunking crazy stuff.

They all want to report on what "might happen" so our eyeballs and ad-clicks are registered.

To hell with any analysis in the MSM which is what 90+% of american's absorb.

[TwilightZone]

25. I don't see how that's the media's responsibility.

Voters need to educate themselves. If they don't understand something as simple as a third-party candidate who has no chance of winning being a wasted vote, it's not the media's job to convince them otherwise.

If they did, they would face accusations of bias, accusations which would be fully warranted.

People who cast protest votes fully understand that their votes are being wasted. It's more important for them to make a statement and brag about it to their friends than to influence election results.

[lees1975]

10. "Democrats: Trust the Courage of Your Convictions! "

"We keep hearing about how terrible things are for Democrats: how they've alienated working class whites, how President Joe Biden is destined to lose and how they can't do anything right. Yet in election after election, Democrats rack up victory after victory. If they keep winning, it might just get even the most fainthearted Democrats to finally trust the courage of their convictions." --Paul Waldman, Commentator for the Washington Post on MSNBC November 8, 2023

No third party candidate is going to counterfeit Democratic party convictions. Look at Tuesday's election, and this past summer's supreme court election in Wisconsin, at what the party has done since President Biden took the white house. All this moderate, moderately conservative, moderately progressive talk is intended to divide Democrats from their convictions, create doubt and elect a guy who, if the justice department does its job, had better not even be on the ballot.

No Manchin, Stein, West or Kennedy can top that. If you have convictions, you vote Biden. If you're a traitor or a wimp or a wussie or unamerican, you'll vote for one of them.

[GAJMac]

11. I fully agree

Freedom or fascism. Please choose wisely.

[mzmolly]

12. Not sure how many times this has

to be demonstrated but… even Nader has endorsed Biden.

[CincyDem]

13. I know. It's infuriating.

I get into these “has he done enough” conversations that are just crap. I think he shows this insight when he says “don’t care me to god, compare me to the other guy”.

[PortTack]

14. Republicans lining manchin's pockets. They know they can't win so once again let's get our ol friend

Manchin to throw a monkey wrench in the works.

It fucking passes me off that the pukes do this..but I despise manchin for going along. He knows how terrible the orange mass is and what it would do to our country and if he were to wins …and doesn’t give two shits!

[I_UndergroundPanther]

32. Manchin

Is scared of the people rejecting coal oil and gas in favor of a living planet.His coal mine might make him less money if people take climate change seriously. I bet he loves that republican climate change denial music to his greedy ears.

Manchin I still feel is with republicans on too many things and you know no labels has a lot of rich republican funders in it. Enough to make me suspicious.

Now that Manchin has declared himself independent will we be able to say what we really think about him?

And why the fuck is he running now? Greed or something worse. Fucking Manchin pisses me off.
If the orange scum wins because of him there will be no forgiveness.forever

[LeftInTX]

18. Manchin won't run for president. There is no proof.

Has he even implied that he's gonna run for president?

He has to make a decision on his US senate seat. There are campaign finance reports/fund raising/filing period/filing deadline all for the US senate seat. In Texas filing began on Monday, Nov 6 and ends Dec 11.

Not sure of WVA, but I'm pretty sure a filing calendar has something to do with his announcement.

"No Labels" only has ballot access in the following states: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida Hawaii, Nevada,[] North Carolina, Oregon, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Utah.

[tinrobot]

22. I think most Democrats are wise to Stein

My friends who voted for her in 2016 were disaffected Bernie fanatics who were pissed at Hillary (for no good reason). It wasn't so much a pro-Stein vote as an anti-Hillary vote.

I don't think that same dynamic is going to happen this time - at least with Stein.

I worry more about Manchin announcing and pulling votes from the middle.

[CincyDem]

27. yeah - the hilliary hate was strong in that one.

I had a friend who voted for Stein because he though the Clinton Foundation has screwed one of his businesses because they were giving away free vaccines somewhere in the world. Normally a very (very) sane thinker but I'll tell you...it made for some insanely crazy talks.

[kwolf68]

24. I am GENERALLY Pro Democracy

I believe if a third, fourth or fight party wants to run by all means. It gets other ideas out there.

However, this is NOT the time for this non-sense. This isn't a choice between Bill Clinton and George H Bush.

This is a choice between a pro-Democracy candidate who cares about America and a candidate who wants to destroy all of its institutions. THIS IS NOT the time for political theater. This is the time to back the candidate (President Biden) who is the resistance to a fascist takeover of our nation.

If your goal is to deliver this nation to an authoritarian who likely would BAN YOUR political party, then please do run as a third party in hoping to siphon votes from Biden.

[Blue Owl]

26. Somewhere a GOP mathematician is working overtime

Trying to find SOME way to siphon off votes from the Democrats

[Blue Owl]

28. Somewhere a GOP mathematician is working overtime

Trying to find SOME way to siphon off votes from the Democrats

[LaMouffette]

30. This clip featuring Rachel Maddow says it all.

[link:https://www.vicetv.com/en_us/video/rachel-maddow-on-jill-steins-russian-connection/58a4c715caa8768b1738b739|

Eff Jill Stein. Eff Joe Manchin. Oh, and eff Putin, too. That is all.

[elocs]

31. Never underestimate the ability of some on the Left to stupidly vote for a 3rd party candidate.

Here in Wisconsin in '16, Stein received more votes than Trump's margin of victory and it's a safe bet that most of her votes came from the Left at the expense of Hillary Clinton who never bothered to make even a single appearance here in WI in the general election campaign, so confident that she had WI in her pocket.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

38. Oh FFS

Stop with this ridiculous assertion about Hillary and Wisconsin.

1) She had a visit scheduled there but couldn't make it (having senior moment here for why).

2) There is zero evidence that going to the state would have affected the vote.

Really.

The results of this analysis do not clearly support either of the assumptions made by Clinton’s critics. In general, none of the presidential or vice presidential candidates – including Clinton – significantly influenced voting via campaign visits.

https://ecommons.udayton.edu/pol_fac_pub/116/

[elocs]

43. No, I won't stop, but I will ignore you. Sounds like a plan to me. n/t

[randr]

33. The wavering support for our guy is creating a void in the middle

[Paladin]

34. If we have a re-do of 2016, I'm gonna be REALLY unhappy. (nt)

[SouthernDem4ever]

35. This should be preached far and wide

People need to realize they are stuck in a two-party system right now and if they vote for fascists it will turn into a one party system that they won't like. You would think they would know that by now - but obviously they're stupid.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

39. Well, good luck getting that message through

To the type who would consider voting for this Putin stooge.

[SouthernDem4ever]

44. I no longer try, I just call em what they are

They have already decided they have to be beaten down and stepped on before they realize how stupid they are - and the idiots they vote for will end up doing just that. You think they'll wise up then?

[LiberalArkie]

36. The only people who will be fooled this time around are the "Democrats" who would not have voted for

Biden any way and voted for Trump in the last election.

Their only hope was the "Kennedy" name recognition. And that did not even work.

[elocs]

37. Too many on the Left can't seem to grasp the simple concept that American partisan politics is binary,

with the winner being either the Democratic candidate of the Republican one. So any member of the Left who chooses not to vote for Biden in the battleground states only helps Trump. It happened here in Wisconsin in '16 when Stein's vote total was greater than Trump's margin of victory and it's a safe bet that most of her votes came from the Left.

[sop]

40. Maybe Manchin can run with Sinema on the Obstructionist Party ticket?

[kimbutgar]

41. Just show those pictures of Jill stein with Putin all over left leaning sites and she's toast.

[Texin]

42. I see Jill Stein is still taking her marching orders from her good buddy, Vlad Putin.

I'm surprised Mike Flynn hasn't thrown his hat into the ring.