Reply #5: It wouldn't mean anything. [View All]

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

I personally loathe the two party system, but that's the reality we face. There's exactly one scenario that would threaten the system, and here it is (brace yourselves for this one):

John McCain running as an Independent/Third Party candidate.

If McCain ran as a 3rd Partier, there would be great potential for no one candidate obtaining more than 270 electoral votes. Democrats and Republicans alike would wind up abandoning their party to vote for him, and one could easily see him winning a number of "purple" and red-leaning states. Granted, I think the results would be much different today, but let's use 2004 for an example.

If McCain ran 3rd party in 2004, there's a strong chance he'd wind up taking Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Montana, Iowa, Ohio, and Michigan. I'm guessing he'd win a few more too, but we'll just leave it at that for now (the numbers work out tidier this way). That'd drop Bush to 234, drop Kerry to 234, and give McCain 70. Now, that clearly wouldn't be enough to give him the election, or even serious consideration, however, what it would do is send the election to the House of Representatives, where a very serious discussion would be forced to take place.

The Members of the House would each cast their vote for President and it would be a simple winner-take-all. The dilemma would be this: does a Congressman stay loyal to his/her party or do they stay loyal to their constituents and vote the way they did?

This would obviously not be such an easy choice for lot of them to make, and I gather they'd wind up with just enough for Bush to win anyway, but it's easy to see how serious the implications would be if a serious third party candidate wound up running.