Actually, this pattern has generally been the sort of impact that third party campaigns have
fit throughout our history, and they generally have worked to defeat some of the basic
institutionalizations structured by the Framers to control faction and protect democracy
which have militated dualistic campaigns (Rainey 1975). That does not suggest that any or
many of them were conscious efforts toward such ends, but they resulted in such
developments, nonetheless.
Table VIII -- The Impact of Third Party Campaigns
(CQ Guide, 1984)
Election Candidate/Party Impact
1996 Perot led to defeat of Dole
1992 Perot led to defeat of Bush
1980 Anderson little change in vote result
1968 Wallace nearly cost Nixon the election
may have temporarily stalled realignment
1960 Harry Byrd gave Kennedy a narrow win over Nixon
1948 Henry Wallace Truman was able to defeat Dewey
Strom Thurmond
1924 Robert LaFollette/Progressives did not prevent Coolidge election
1916 Debs/Socialist helped re-elect Wilson
1912 Theodore Roosevelt/ cost Taft re-election, won for Wilson
Progressives
1892 Several Minor Candidacies led to defeat of Harrison
1888 Several Minor Candidacies nearly re-elected Cleveland
1884 Several Minor Candidacies led to Republican defeat
1876 Greenback took enough votes to nearly defeat Hayes
1860 Breckinridge, Bell helped divide nation
1856 Know-Nothings defeated first Republican candidate
1852 Free Soil helped elect Pierce
1848 Free Soil nearly cost Taylor the election
1844 Liberty caused Polk to win over Clay
Quite obviously, there must be some level of dissatisfaction with the 'traditional' two
leading contenders for such an effect to operate. And yet, given the realities of politics,
there is scarcely an election in which such sentiment will not be found. It is indeed a
function of the two party system, itself a result of the institutional structure of the
Republic, as Abramson among others has pointed up (1995), to provide a certain unifying
dynamic on the body politic through coalition building. Part of the genius of that process
is the forced coalition building it mandates for success at the polls, as Key argued(1964),
though it frequently leads to moans about the 'lesser of two evils.' While that does not
mean that third party efforts cannot be constructive, especially if neither of the two
primary groups provides the route the voters, or segments of them, would like, it does
seem that such campaigns have been rather disruptive of the process on the whole.
It is difficult to find any commentary on the 1960 election which is at variance with the
spin put on it by Congressional Quarterly's interpretation which counts the popular vote in
Alabama for Kennedy and for the unpledged slate of electors run by the state party(1984).
The bulk of voters cast their ballots for the unpledged slate. In the end, the party
apparatus and election went to Kennedy although few in the electorate intended that.
Without that shifting of numbers, Nixon actually won the popular vote nation-wide,
usually presented as a razor-thin Kennedy plurality due to the double counting of votes in
Alabama. It is true that even without the Alabama electors, Kennedy maintains a small
electoral college victory, but voting irregularities in both Illinois and Texas, where
Democrats won tiny pluralities, leave that in serious doubt. There were difficulties, too,
with electoral counts, and electoral count assignment, in 1976 in Ohio, Mississippi,
Missouri, and Wisconsin, which leave Carter's 'victory' in doubt. And the big 'win' for
Democrats in 1964 is without question attributable to the state of national shock over the
Kennedy assassination not a year earlier. Before the assassination, there were widespread
doubts that Kennedy could win re-election. It is also true that the campaign tactics of
Democrats in 1964 in regard to the negativity and misrepresentations about Barry
Goldwater contributed to the Johnson landslide (they also mark the beginning of the
contemporary mud-slinging campaign practices we hear so often bemoaned). Without
such factors, the only Democrat who has really 'won' the Presidency since the time of
Lincoln has been FDR, and in each of his four victories there were irregular circumstances
which militated the results.
VIII. Key's Electoral Web
We might be well-advised to consider the wisdom of limiting such 'choices' where they
undermine the coalition-structuring which V.O. Key called an electoral web (1964 )
holding our electoral culture together. An unhappy lesson is inherent in this analysis for
those who view the dualism of the 'normal' choice as a problem, whether that is described
as a 'lesser of two evils' or whatever. Anti-slavery forces opted to vote for more radical
abolitionist candidates, and thereby guaranteed the election of pro-slavery Democrats
repeatedly before the Civil War. In such terms, Clinton therefore can be added to such
monumental characters as Pierce, Buchanan, and Polk.
With reference to realignment theory, the current party system cycle(since 1968) has
been regularly marked by powerful, if somewhat artificial, divisions:
Table IX -- Electorally Divisive Issues of Current Party System
1968 Wallace 1980 Anderson 1992 Perot
1972 Vietnam 1984 Reaganomics 1996 Perot
1976 Watergate 1988 Homeless Crisis
That is not to suggest that there were not strong sentiments involved in most of those
situations. In Wallace's case, the tension of racial strife was quite powerful, but neither
should it be forgotten that he was a Democrat (if a somewhat peculiarized and Southern
one), and one that was part of the party apparatus that determined to abandon the wishes
of its electorate to vote as Mississippi did for Byrd in order to cast their electoral votes for
Kennedy (CQ Guide, 1984), and who tracked right back into the Democrat Party after his
one time excursion as an 'independent.' Curiouser still was the Vietnam based opposition
to Nixon in 1972. Much of it had suddenly discovered the issue only after it ceased to be a
Democratic War, and those who opposed the war even when it was being waged by LBJ
found comfortable quarters among Democrat circles.
Watergate clearly demonstrated some degree of misuse of power, but nothing CREEP
engaged in is unimaginable for the politics of LBJ, and it was largely a whip for liberals to
use against what they perceived as the Nixon threat to the dependency they were building
as the Great Society (actually, the economy may also have been a big force in the 1976
election). Watergate, in any event, pales against Whitewater, although the latter seems
surprisingly uninteresting to our new tradition of investigative journalism (which also came
into its 'own' about the time of Watergate), primarily on partisan purposes. As for John
Anderson, his impact in the 1980 race parallels Perot only in character. He did present an
option to those dissatisfied with Carter and the Democrat record, but not sufficient to re-
elect Carter. Even in 1984 and 1988, there were such 'issues.' (Carmines and Stimson,
1980) It is difficult to forget the misrepresentations which Reagan was lambasted with
(not dissimilar to the more successful fabrications about the 104th Congress), and Bush
was accosted by an endless stream of tales such as those around the 'homeless crisis' which
vanished into thin air when Clinton became President.
IX. Other People's Money
Given the historical record and its consequences, and because of the problem involved
where one person is able to manipulate the process due to his resources, it may be past
time that we consider adopting a constitutional amendment to structure a run-off election
where no candidate scores a majority of the popular vote. That, on the other hand,
probably would serve only to accelerate the expense of political campaigns. But there
absolutely have to be some changes made in campaign finance. Restricting the amount of
money that flows into campaigns or the amount that 'interests' may contribute is only
going to leave campaigns at a disadvantage in 'informing' the electorate, who would be left
more at the whims of the media which through its campaign of disinformation has actually
driven up the costs of information. One may quarrel at Perot's use of his fortune to attain
the position to have the impact he had in 1992 and 1996, but, at least in 1992, it was his
money. Every year there are tens of millions of other peoples' dollars spent by big labor to
propagate their leadership's brand of social democracy, but over the last year, it has been
much greater than that. Estimates have run as high as a half billion dollars spent by unions
to try to buy back the Congress and retain the hold on to the White House.
In addition to that, various other Democrat party organizations from the DNC to their
Congressional campaign committees and state and local organizations have violated the
spirit if not the letter of their own campaign finance reforms to the tune of more than a
half billion more of soft money. The ethical concerns also reach to the soft money fund-
raising practices they engaged in so as to be able to achieve those ends. Quite literally, the
Democrat apparati poured over a billion dollars of soft money into the 1996 campaign
effort! It was actually a 'permanent' campaign that began well back in '95 and has
continued in some forms even since the election. The GOP was not anywhere remotely
close to such levels of such expenditure. Much of the Democrat war chest was purloined
from workers' pockets. Some Teamster leaders have alleged that the union illegally sent
some $25 million into the Clinton re-election bid (campaign aids to James R. Hoffa, Jr. in
national news reports 11/96). But that did not limit the extent of Democrat creativity.
There have even been indications of drug money having been laundered in massive
amounts into the Democrat spending frenzy -- indications which reach inside the White
House, with major drug barons appearing there and elsewhere with the standard-bearers.
In the month following the election, having been caught in illegalities, the party returned
half a billion dollars illegally contributed to its coffers by drug dealers and wealthy
foreigners and foreign governments (including the Peoples' Republic of China), seeking at
minimum to create avenues of access. This is far in excess of the $120 million the
Republicans and $102 million the Democrats ostensibly officially had at their disposal in
soft money for 1996.
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