Third-Party Candidate Quotes

In 2012 there was a megafoolish, if well-funded, effort by a group called Americans Elect to raise an independent Cincinnatus to run for president via an Internet draft. It flopped, spectacularly.

Against these two [Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton] I would [vote], but I never voted for [Barack Obama]. I always voted third party - the ones who say their gonna jail the bankers.

Pat Buchanan's challenge to George H.W. Bush in 1992 helped elect Democrat Jimmy Carter.

As the longest serving Independent in the history of the United States Congress, as somebody who came into office by defeating an incumbent Democratic mayor in Burlington, Vermont, I know something about third party politics. And I respect Jill [Stein].

If Ross Perot runs, that's good for us. If he doesn't run, it's good for us.

With the millions of listeners to 'Coast to Coast AM,' I get constant feedback from people who are not happy with the current candidates. Maybe I will run for president in 2012.

I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, but I will not make that mistake again. The joke is over for Nader. He was funny once, but now he belongs to the dead.

Jill Stein, is - and I'll make it in a personal way - over eighty percent of the people when I ran for President knew about me but then I realized that when I was running, eighty percent of the people didn't even know I was running.

I would give the people of America to their first opportunity to elect a president who doesn't belong to either party since George Washington.

The 2016 presidential election is ripe for the emergence of a game-changing political leader who either dramatically reforms one of the existing parties or mounts an independent bid.

Ralph [ Nader] is an old friend of mine, and he does a useful job in displaying a position.

A lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a third party. But I believed in Obama's promises. He continued with the policies of his predecessor.

I saw Nader shortly before the election and - I voted him the time before, because I liked the sort of long-term strategy of building a viable third party. So, okay, we'll get enough votes, you get a little bit more money, and maybe, if there's continued growth, then maybe eventually there's hope for a viable, legitimate third party. I think the reason why I didn't vote for him last time was because we tried that and it didn't work. Ralph Nader is a very smart guy, and I think he's got a lot of good ideas.

I didn't realize that running as an independent would be perceived as a threat to the Democrats.

You mentioned Ross Perot. Mr. Perot jumped into the race at the last minute, had one issue that he ran on, the budget deficit, was in and out of the race a couple of times, and still got 20 million votes, didn't have the Internet.

A lot of disgruntled Democrats that don't like Obama - old-line Democrats, some of them even conservative - will never vote for a Republican ticket, but they will vote for me as an independent.

We vote for Perot. We think he's a great, marvelous, honest man. We send money to his campaign, even though he is one of the richest capitalists in our culture. Imagine, sending money to Perot! It's unbelievable, yet it's part of that worship of individuality.

If you had found the right candidate in 2000 or 2004, and you could have put that man or woman, given them ballot access in September of the election year, they could have won the election.

[Jill Stein] don't have to engage in soundbites here as you may have experienced with some of the mass media.

There is no question that I would be the better president. But as for the campaign, are Americans ready for a general election in which both major party candidates are ADD? Quite frankly, it could provide an opening for a third party candidate, maybe someone backed by the evil Koch brothers.

I think fully, that an independent candidate can't win in this country. The Constitution is structured for basically a two-party government, a two-party race.

A Green Party candidate would be very different from a Democrat or Republican and should be heard. I was the candidate first time a Green or any progressive third party has ever been in a national televised debate. I was in five of them. And the response from the public was overwhelming.

If you work through the existing structures you are going to be corrupted. By working through political system that poisons the atmosphere, even the progressive organizations, you can see it even nowadays in the US, where people on the "Left" are all caught in the electoral campaign and get into fierce arguments about should we support this third party candidate or that third party candidate. This is a sort of little piece of evidence that suggests that when you get into working through electoral politics you begin to corrupt your ideals.

You don't have to be wealthy to run for mayor. I'm a Green Party candidate running for mayor and I'm being taken seriously.

I told Mr. Nader today that a vote for Ralph Nader is really a vote for George Bush.