Calvin Hecker - 3/4/14 Free-Response Question One 1.

Discuss third parties and the challenges they face in winning elections. In your discussion, explain three reasons third parties have difficulty in our political system. 2. Identify one third party candidate who received a significant number of popular votes but no electoral votes. 3. Identify one third party candidate who received significant popular and electoral votes

Third parties are a stunning example of the backbone of the United States political process and the troubles that they face in the bipartisan system evinces the problems inherent in the system. Third parties, due to the nature of the first-past-the-post system, problems with campaign funding, and the current popularity of the two main parties (Democrat and Republican) will not be rising in the united states any time soon.

First of all, the first-past-the-post system ensures a competition between two candidates. Like I mentioned in an earlier report, if you were to have 1000 votes to delegate between three presidential candidates, the third, less popular, party would only succeed in taking votes away from the other two. This phenomena can be seen throughout the history of the United States presidential election. Take, for example, Theodore Roosevelts Bull Moose (Progressive) party run back in 1912. He, Roosevelt, was able to obtain a staggering 22.7% of the popular vote and 88 electoral votes; this being quite a victory for third parties, even though he did not win. What he did accomplish, however, was to take points away mainly from the Republican party, headed by Taft, at the time. On the other hand, semi-popular third party candidates can have little effect on the presidential election. Take for example Ralph Nader (a very admirable man, in my opinion) of the Green party. He (Nader) was able to achieve 1% of the popular vote (a very significant amount when compared to the third party results of basically any other election), but absolutely no electoral votes.

Secondly, another challenge that third parties face is the acquisition of campaign funds. Third parties, being less popular than the two main U.S. parties, almost always have merely a fraction of the campaign budget of the their major-league counterparts. Such reduction in funds leads to having less of an influence on said other candidates.

Thirdly, as briefly touched upon before, the popularity of the two main parties in comparison to the general population of most third parties is much larger. The third parties seem to be absolutely stuck in a rut of relative unpopularity. People seem to be less interested in forming their own opinions about third parties and more interested in following one of the two main parties - republican and democratic, respectively. In conclusion, whilst the third parties do have quite a bit of importance in the current

election system, without drastic changes there will be little to no possibility of a third party presidential candidate getting elected and holding the seat of power.