Voting third-party in 2016 meant choosing The Green Party's Jill Stein, the Libertarian Party's Gary Johnson, or Independent Candidate Evan McMullion.
People may like what third-party candidates say, because often they are the only ones saying anything, but they usually won't vote for someone who doesn't have a chance. Since third-party candidates are not in the news, they are considered to be not really in the race; and since they are not in the race, this justifies treating them as if they are not news.
The only way to win the White House, in my view, is to become a nominee of either the Republican or the Democrat Party, and simply running to be a spoiler would not give the American people, I think, the chance to express their own views about Mr. Trump or about Secretary Clinton.
The two-party system is a bad joke on the American people; when it comes to Republicans and Democrats remember they are two sides of the same coin. Voting for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil and not an answer to our problems. A vote for a Republican or a Democrat will not fix anything and is a wasted vote.
I am totally a fringe candidate, and so is Bill Weld: you know, two Republican governors serving in heavily blue states, outspoken, small government guys, outspoken on the social liberal side. We're fringe, totally. We're fringe.
We tend in this country to talk about Democrats and Republicans, and think there's little group over there called Independents that's maybe 2%. That is not the case, and it has not been the case for most of modern American history.
The War Party has two wings: the Democrats and the Republicans. All others are outsiders, whose ability to storm the gates is 'legally' restricted by a nearly impassable series of bureaucratic obstacles designed to keep them out while still maintaining the 'democratic' illusion, i.e. the phony two-party system, which is in reality a single entity.
Why should the Democratic and Republican parties be in charge of the debates, especially at a time when the largest block of voters has repudiated the Democratic and Republican parties? Why are they still in charge?
If Clinton is elected or if Trump is going to get elected, I think the polarization in Congress will be greater than ever. Nothing is going to get done. It is going to be so ugly, so partisan, so back-biting. Well what if you elect a couple of Libertarians?
If Ralph Nader runs, President Bush is going to be re-elected, and if Ralph Nader doesn't run, President Bush is going to be re-elected. We're going to run on the president's strong and principled leadership and his positive agenda for a second term.
I think that ... none of [the candidates in he third party] have the courage to do what's right for the country. And I have, now, two grandchildren, which I didn't have before. I'd like to leave them a better world.
There is a very long list of parties in this year's election, some of the parties I have never heard of.
I do think there is every potential in 2010 and 2012 to begin to see independent candidates who are capturing a significant percentage of the vote and even win.
It's nice to have a lot of people in the field. Independent, third party, Libertarian, Reform and other party candidates can do what they want to do. I welcome them to the race.
There's no way that a third party wins without being in the presidential debates. I think the vast majority of Americans are Libertarian; they just don't know it.
When we support or vote for candidates outside the two major political parties we are immediately lectured about wasting our vote or making it easier for the less desirable of the two major candidates to claim victory. These lies are repeated every election and they must be ignored. You never waste your vote if you vote your conscience.
Actually, I believe there are more independents than either Republicans or Democrats, and yet those are the... that is the choice we have on the party ballot.
The recent AP poll that came out last month said that approximately 90% of the American people felt that the two-party system was failing us in the presidential election.
A Green Party candidate would be very different from a Democrat or Republican and should be heard.
I agree that the two-party system stomps on any kind of competition. A great first step is to open the presidential debates to all qualified candidates, including the Libertarians. If that happens, the Libertarian party will experience unprecedented growth.
What does it say about our country when people are so desperate for an alternative to our one-party state masquerading as a two-party state that they'll even elect a professional wrestler governor?
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.
If the 2016 election is any indication, every four years, millions more Americans will continue backing away from their own parties to choose a third party instead.
The Clinton era is over. I think that there would even have been a certain amount of rejoicing among some Republicans if Gore had won or if Ralph Nader had won or if Satan had won.
If the 1992 and 2000 elections were any guide, third-party candidates are death on the mainstream parties with which they're most naturally aligned.
