Third Party Rumblings...

Want to hear a crazy idea that maybe not so crazy?

It turns out that Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska republican, and Mayor Bloomberg, a former democrat and now republican mayor of the biggest city in the country, are contemplating starting a third party.

Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, and Bloomberg have already declared their independence. And just yesterday, Bloomberg showed his green roots when he ruled that all cabs driving in New York, more than 13,000 of them, must convert to gas efficient vehicles within the next five years.

Might this rumor be tossed aside as the ravings of a couple of lunatics?

No, because when somebody has billions of dollars in his war chest to drive his point home and controls a media empire, we should all pay attention.

Moreover, a candidate like Chuck Hagel appeals to both sides since he was one of the first republican senators to publicly differ with the Administration’s position on Iraq in what appeared to be either the smartest thing any candidate could do or a sure path to political suicide. Interestingly, not one of today’s republican candidates takes issue with Bush’s stand on Iraq. Is Chuck right and the rest of the party wrong?

There is evidence of that if you consider the lop-sided vote in the mid-terms.

Of course, we all know that third parties don’t stand a ghost of a chance.

But wait a minute, a recent study may actually raise the question as to whether it may actually give the lie to that proposition. Here’s why:
It showed the Democrats polling at 32% and the Republicans ten points less then the democrats.

So what’s the big deal? The big deal is this: For the first time in memory, there are more voters who identify themselves as Independents as opposed to Republican or Democrat by a significant margin.

That would seem to auger well for the formation of a third party—especially with a high profile candidate like Chuck Hagel who has stood tall on rejecting Iraq policy and a popular mayor with deep pockets.

On top of that, so far both parties are not faring well in the big lead ups to the Primaries and with five hundred days to go before the election, it may just turn out that more than half of them burn out before the final rounds.

So, let’s not be too quick to rule out what on first blush looks like one of the dumbest ideas to come down the pike this year and adapt a wait a see attitude. Perhaps, too, a third party may just wake democrats from their lethargy.

In contemplating the third party idea, what we do know is that they usually hurt democratic efforts. Therefore. We’d have to ask ourselves whether democrats would shift sides, jump ship? How would middle of the road republicans, who are generally turned off by a party that has jettisoned its values and moved away from conventional republican positions, respond to such an idea?

Certainly, if nothing else, a third party would stir the pot.

Good or bad? Well leave it for you, the voter, to decide.

Les Aaron
The Armchair Curudgeon