Thanks to  TDGoddard's PoliticalWire and his posting on breakingblue--and the WSJ for originally carrying the story-- on Greenspan's prediction of the rise of a third party because:

"the two American parties now as controlled by their extreme wings, even though the voting public is far more centrist... He described the leadership of the parties as 'bimodal', meaning clustered at the extreme ideological ends, whereas the voting public was 'monomodal', meaning clustered near the middle."

"Such situations, he said, create an opening for a third-party candidate who appeals to the center. That, he said, could prompt the candidates of the other two parties to move back to the center, for fear of losing. He said the U.S. political system makes it difficult for a third-party candidate to win."

More after the jump

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In a perfect world, third party candidates would be advocates for change. By championing issues and causes too politically radioactive for the two major parties to confront, third party candidates would expose voters to innovative policy thinking anathema to establishment lawmakers.

But this is not a perfect world. In the real world, third party candidates are mere spoilers. How many times have we heard Ralph Nader blamed for Al Gore's loss in 2000? How many times have we witnessed Democrats salivate at the thought of radical rightists like Roy Moore or Jim Gilchrist wrecking Republican chances? There isn't necessarily anything wrong with this.  Without instant runoff voting or proportional representation, third party candidates don't stand much of a realistic chance of doing anything but helping to shape the debate. And taking advantage of that system is part of the game, even if one I personally find slightly discomforting.

One system I've always been a huge fan of is New York's fusion voting. For those of you unfamiliar, candidates in the state can run on multiple party lines. The state's Conservative and Working Families Parties typically endorse the Republican and Democratic candidates, respectively, but have also been known to shake up elections by endorsing their own candidate.

Why would anyone vote for a major party candidate on a third party line? Well, by supporting Eliot Spitzer as a Working Families Party candidate rather than as a Democrat, for example, voters send the message that the issues Working Families champions -- universal healthcare, a living wage, strong labor protection -- are very important to a significant segment of their base. It also gives independent voters an excuse to vote for major party candidates that they might not otherwise vote for. For example, CWA polling showed that 80% of New York independents who voted for Hillary Clinton did so by voting for her on the Working Families line.

In the latest issue of The Nation (subscription only), Alyssa Katz writes about New York's Working Families Party and the efforts currently underway to bring fusion voting to states like New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Maine.

The Maine legislature held a hearing earlier this year on a bill that would bring New York-style fusion to the state. There's interest in fusion, explains State Representative Hannah Pingree of North Haven, who introduced the bill, because the Green Party has repeatedly spoiled races for Democrats, siphoning off enough votes to let Republicans win. Democrats control the Statehouse, but by a slim margin. As she works to acquaint her colleagues with fusion, Pingree also has to acknowledge that the benefits may not flow just to Democrats. "People look at this as a way to promote the left, but it also could be a way for conservatives to advance as well," she notes. That concern is particularly acute among progressive leaders considering adopting fusion in Oregon, a state with an active radical right.

I can understand the concern about the right using fusion to their advantage as well. But with the Republican Party already skewing so far to the right, it's hard to imagine that a conservative third party could pull the GOP much further and still win elections. And to the extent that progressive third parties can support progressive Democrats, I'd argue that the risk is worth it. Eric Schneiderman, a New York Democratic state Senator makes a compelling argument about this.

He believes the party is important to progressives' national prospects. "There's a lot of concern among progressive activists that the Democratic Party is too much in the grip of consultants who are always suggesting that they slide to the right and take conservative positions to accommodate swing voters, rather than exciting our own beliefs and animating people," says Schneiderman. "The hope is that the Working Families Party can empower progressive Democrats within the Democratic Party."

Fusion may not be a silver bullet. And it may not be a realistic proposal for every state. But it's an interesting alternative and one that I think reform-minded Democrats should give some thought to.

In the Los Angles Times, Ron Brownstein, via Joe Trippi, speculates on the how the Internet could fuel a future major third-party / independent Presidential run: MoveOn, and groups like it on the left and right, chisel at the power of the major political parties by providing an alternative source of campaign funds and volunteers. But otherwise, the two parties that have defined American political life since the 1850s have been largely immune from the centrifugal current of the Internet era.

Joe Trippi, a principal architect of Howard Dean's breakthrough Internet strategy in the 2004 Democratic presidential campaign, is one of many analysts who believe that may soon change. The Internet, he says, could ignite a serious third-party presidential bid in 2008.

"This is a very disruptive technology," says Trippi. "And it is going to be very destabilizing to the political establishment of both parties."

The Internet could allow an independent candidate to more easily identify an audience and financial base, just as it has allowed blogs like the liberal Daily Kos or conservative InstaPundit to find a community of like-minded readers. More precisely, the Internet has allowed readers to find those blogs. And because the audience mostly finds the product, rather than the other way around, the cost of entering the market is radically reduced.

Trippi believes an independent presidential candidate who struck a chord could organize support through the Internet just as inexpensively. "Somebody could come along and raise $200 million and have 600,000 people on the streets working for them without any party structure in the blink of an eye," he says.

It might not be quite that simple. But the two parties are pursuing strategies that create an opening in the center of the electorate, even as the Internet makes it easier for a new competitor to fill it.

This is clearly based on the transaction cost theories of economist Ronald Coase's, which Everett Elrich used in 2003 to boldly predict that a third-party Presidential candidate will win by 2040. Simply put, the lower the cost of information collection, the smaller the necessary size of an organization. So, since the Internet makes information gathering than any pervious medium, it also makes it possible for a smaller political organization than either the Democratic or Republican parties to collect the necessary information to win the Presidency.

Anyway, that is the theory. There are some other major hurdles to a serious third party challenge, however. First among them is that right now the country isn't exactly too high on third parties, even when compared to recent years. A Pew poll from October 15-19, 2003 shows this trend:

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This is worth a read, not only for Greens, but for anyone who is interested in politics. It is an academic papaer entitled Ralph Nader and the Green Party: The Double-Edged Sword of a Candidate, Campaign-Centered Strategy:ABSTRACT:
Despite early optimistic assessments, the Green Party seems unlikely to have the sort of impact in the United States as it has in Western Europe. Fundamentally, like other minor parties, the Green Party will unlikely be able to overcome the traditional institutional and social-cultural constraints on third party success in the United States. However, the 2004 elections suggest that the Green Party is also suffering from the failure of a short-term strategy in supporting the celebrity candidacy of Ralph Nader in the 2000 presidential election rather than investing in long-term party-building to encourage local candidates to run office. Certainly, making a party that was supposed to be about broad grassroots development focused upon a single candidate was a big risk for the Greens in 2000. At the time, the Greens had very little development and infrastructure, either locally or on a national level, and they sought Nader as a means to quickly vault them into "major third party" status, or something.

Obviously, that risk that did not pay off, as Nader failed to achieve the national 5% barrier. Also, the first major splash the Greens made to most lefties in America was as the party that helped Gore lose in 2000. Whether or not that view was justified, that was the impression they gave to most of their "potential" members.

Further, the resurgent Demcoratic grassroots haven't helped the Greens much, either. Nader voters from 1996 and 2000 are vastly over-represented in the Democratic blogopshere. It now seems even less likely than ever that a major left-wing party could arise in this country.

Bush Appointees Help Murder Terri Schiavo
GOP Cannot Be Trusted on Life

I've been keeping an eye out on the 11% "culture of lifers"at freeperville that the Bush brothers have lost over this little GOP catastrophe. The MSM and the Republican bloggers might be ignoring it, but the online theocons are having a bit of an identity crisis. No longer is the Republican Party seen as religion, and so, where the online thecon activists will settle remains in question:

To be sure, the majority of them will stay in the Republican Party (though I predict a 'sitting on their hands' problem for the GOP in '06), but not the hardcore activist types. They want to stay involved in politics. It's to places like America First Party is where they are headed. Their platform is here, for the curious.