Politics — Gridlock in Washington
Democrats and Republicans are almost
equally divided in the number of voters that support them—neither
party has a clear majority. Because the balance of power between the
major parties is so close, activists on the extreme Political Left and
on the extreme Political Right have disproportionate
influence over their respective parties.
In the 2000 Presidential election, George W. Bush defeated Al Gore by a very
small margin. The election was decided by one state: Florida, where the
votes were almost
even. Gore
had won the USA popular vote but the state electoral votes would decide
the winner.
It came down to whoever won Florida would be the next President of the
United States.
Florida was contested and the U.S. Supreme court had to
decide the winner: the Court gave it to George Bush.
However, the real story in Florida was the Third Party candidate Ralph Nader,
who ran on the Green Party ticket—an environmental extremist group ideologically
Left of the Democratic Party. George Bush defeated
Al Gore by 537 votes in Florida. But, Ralph Nader received 97,421 of the
Florida votes. If the Green Party had not challenged Al Gore on the Left,
Nader’s
votes would have gone to Al Gore and he would have easily won Florida and
George Bush would not have become the President of the United States.
A similar thing happened in the 1992 election when Bill Clinton Challenged
George Bush senior and won, causing Bush senior to lose his second term.
The story is similar to Al Gore’s. In 1992, Ross
Perot ran for president as an independent. He received 18% of the popular
vote—it is believed that more Republicans voted for Perot than did Democrats.
That gave Clinton the edge he needed to win the election.
Because of the threat of third party challenges, and because
otherwise the two major parties are pretty much evenly divided in voter
support, Democrats and Republicans will not take bold political actions
to help the country;
if they do, they risk provoking a Third Party challenge from extremists
within their own party which would hand the next election to the other
major party.
This sounds like maybe the USA has reached a point where its two-party system
is paralyzed.
Actually, under these conditions, the real power belongs to the independents—the
moderates, the centrists in the middle—willing to jump from one
party to the other, based on which party offers the best hope for the United
States of America.
At no time in the history of the United States has there been a greater need
for independent voters to step forward and show their support for American
Energy Independence.
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