Hey, You Wanna Lose? Then Form a Third Party!

I was having a discussion tonight with our 17-year-old son about the political environment.  He was relaying to me a discussion he'd had in his government econ class about the independent party and the concept that supporting third parties by voting for their candidates gives them legitimacy and strengthens them.  As I explained to him what a terrible strategy that is and why, he proved my point by recalling a lesson learned about a time when a third party had the exact opposite result of what was intended.  Back in 1912, Teddy Roosevelt became very unhappy with William Taft and decided to seek the Republican nomination (again) for president.  He was unsuccessful, formed the Bull Moose party and, as their nominee, split the vote with Taft and put Woodrow Wilson in the White House.  Didn't work out too well, considering the downright disdain Wilson had for black people and his resulting push for segregation.  After being on the receiving end of a history lesson from my son, I told him about the 1992 presidential race trio and how we wound up gifted with 8 years of Bill Clinton as a result.

As Dick Armey said, "The tea party movement is not seeking a junior partnership with the Republican party, but a hostile takeover of it."  We are seeing the evidence everywhere in this country that the conservatives instinctively know massive clean-up of our politics is an absolute requirement for the survival of freedom and is going to require facing down the elites within the Republican party.  We have house cleaning to do everywhere.  We must take over the Republican machine on every single level of government, putting in candidates that will be loyal to reinstating freedom and integrity--we already are doing this and are celebrating victories, one after another because of it [read: NY-9 and NV-2.]  The respect the tea party has earned is being proven more and more all the time by things such as, CNN--of all things--partnering with the tea party to host a Republican presidential debate.  If they can't beat us, they may as well join us. Somehow I think there will be quite a few who will have to learn the lesson the hard way.