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Other than as a protest vote, I always wonder why someone would vote for a 3rd party candidate like Perot or Nader. They never stand a chance of winning, so why bother?



They never stand a chance of winning...because people who would otherwise vote for that person believe they have no chance of winning. It's completely idiotic...the circular logic there is ridiculous.



No, the reason people believe they never have a chance of winning is because... drum roll ... they NEVER have a chance of winning.

Every third party candidate I can remember have almost always been one topic candidates. Now they may be red hot on that topic, but as in the case of Ralph Nader, for example, the office of POTUS is not a single issue position. As such, these candidates are usually so appallingly bad on areas outside their particular area of interest that quite rightly, they are rejected by a majority of the electorate.

Here's some data from Wikipedia:

2000 - Ralph Nader - Green party 2.7% of vote
1996 - Ross Perot - Reform Party 8% of vote
1992 - Ross Perot - Independent 18.9% of popular vote, but zero electoral votes
1980 - John Anderson Independent 6.6 % of vote
1980 - Ed Clark - Libertarian 1.1%
1972 - John Schmitz - American Indendent Party, 1.4%
1972 John Hospers - Libertarian 3,674 total votes, but did get 1 electoral vote when an elector pledged to vote for Richard Nixon voted for Hospers rather than for Nixon, who won the election
1968 - George Wallace - Independent Party 13.5% of vote
1948 - Strom Thurmond - States Rights Party 2.4% of vote.

Wikipedia's data goes back much farther, and if you are interested, you can read further here, but from my reading, every one of these guys follows the profile I describe above.

So, in recent history at least, my original point is verified: a vote for a third party candidate for POTUS is an exercise in futility, like it or not.

To the everlasting glory of the infantry...

Owain ab Arawn
KGB Supreme Knight
King's High Council