My motivation: anything but Bush. But that aside, it would be nice to have an alternative who doesn't spend "...like a drunken sailor..." This way we get Dean or someone else who probably isn't retarded. It would be nice to live in a country that isn't run by Karl Rove. A 3rd party conservative would kill Dumya just like Perot helped defeat Dumya's daddy. Thanks for reading!
Wait until '08. Seriously, this political season may be an unhappy one for true believers on both sides. Conservatives feel abandoned by Bush, and offended by his legacy of big spending, big government, support for affirmative action and illegal alien amnesty. Liberals are once again doomed to see their hopes and dreams dashed by the cruelty of the "red states" voters, who will once again willfully defy the major media and vote for Bush.
Seriously, third parties are only good for canabalizing the voters on the same side of the political spectrum, and thus are counterproductive to their own interests. Case in point Ross Perot and Ralph Nader - both helped the other side of the political spectrum win. I would guess that third parties tend to be more pronounced when the two major parties are not meeting the expectations of their core constituents. Perot came on to challenge Bush 1 after his first term in office and after 12 years of Republicans in the White House. George Bush 1 was a moderate who turned conservative to appease Reagan but apparently the conservatives weren't inspired by what they saw. Nader came on to challenge Gore, after 8 years of Clinton in the White House, and the liberals again apparently were not inspired by what they saw. Now George Bush 2 is in the White House running for a second term, and this year there are no real third party ramblings, though Nader may still come out if he can get enough money to do so. With George Bush running as a taxcutting, free spending moderate who is tough on security, and assuming he stays the course, I wonder if the pump will be primed in 2008 for a third party challenge to the Republicans and thus a Democratic victory in 2008? The interesting thing is that in 2008, the Democrats will have both Hillary Clinton and Al Gore, yet the Republicans seem to lack an obvious leading contender. Which again points me to the conclusion that Bush should annoint someone for VP the 2nd time around who he wants to run for President in 2008. My personal choice would be Gingrich, who might even be able to reign in all the free-spending on Capital Hill.
Honestly, I don't see how anybody who considers him/her self a conservative can possibly vote Bush in '04. This Neo-Conservatism is a sad parody of the real thing. AAA, Pabst, Mav, etc...do you guys still intend to vote Bush this year? Call me over-optimistic, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Libertarian candidate picks up 5-10% of the vote. When faced with the grim choice between a Big-Government Socialist welfare turd, or a Big Government Neo-Fascist ...I just see no where else people could turn for a little sanity.
I agree. OK, we've had the immigration proposal, and the space program proposal. Looks like we are going to have a proposal per week through the election year. And it also looks like it is all intended for show. We won't really be going to the Moon and Mars and GW knows it, but it sounds good. g