A few months ago, the chattering classes were all a-tizzy over the prospect of a Michael Bloomberg third-party bid for the White House. Nothing much came of it, but we all had fun pontificating about the possibility (yours truly included -- 7/11/07). Since it was such an enjoyable exercise, I'd like to be the first to roll out another third-party scenario to provide fodder for the punditocracy (in case this turns out to be a slow news week).
After taking several recent announcements into consideration, I have gazed into my crystal ball and foreseen Ron Paul as the nominee of the Libertarian Party for 2008. Paul will be supported by droves of "family values" voters and will actually gain a respectable percentage of the popular vote. The Democratic nominee then waltzes into the White House, spikes the ball, and does an end-zone dance in the Oval Office.
Now, I realize I should have saved this for my Hallowe'en column (where I present nightmarish scenarios for both parties), since it would be absolutely disastrous for the Republican Party as a whole. But recent events forced my hand.
The first was Ron Paul's third-quarter fundraising total, a whopping five million dollars plus. That is nothing to be sneezed at, considering he outraised many candidates from both parties, and (going solely by fundraising) has effectively risen from "third-tier longshot" to "second tier" candidate within his own party. Of course, the mainstream media hasn't noticed this yet, but with five million bucks to spend Ron Paul's name is going to be on some airwaves soon -- as paid ads if not in the actual news.
The second thing which happened last week was James Dobson (president of Focus on the Family) announcing after a secretive meeting of right-wing Christian bigwigs that the Christian Right may very well back a third-party candidate if they deem the Republican nominee insufficiently zealous on their favorite issues. This is a shot across the bow to Rudy Giuliani, the current Republican frontrunner.
Some dismiss this talk as bluster. The soul-killing question reverberating around Washington is no doubt that old chestnut: "Who else are they going to vote for?" This question is often used by both parties when one of their constituent groups threatens to go off the reservation. Anti-war types enraged by Democrats? Who else are they going to vote for? Blacks annoyed that their votes are taken for granted by Democrats? Who else are they going to vote for? On the Democratic side, this is often followed in ominous tones with: "Look what happened with Ralph Nader." But this time, the question is coming from the Republican side of the aisle, with the same sneering little chuckle of laughter -- The religious right isn't happy with the presidential nominee? Who else are they going to vote for?
This is pure cynicism distilled from the entrenchment of the two-party system in American politics. The problem is, when you've identified yourself as a one-issue (or even handful-of-related-issues) voter, and the party doesn't nominate someone reliably on your side, what do you do? The evangelical right is terrified that Rudy Giuliani will win the nomination, because he's tolerant on almost all the things the religious right demands intolerance on: God, guns, and gays -- as well as the 800-pound gorilla in the room, abortion.
Time will tell whether (1) Giuliani even gets the nomination, and (2) whether the religious right will bolt the GOP en masse in the election or not. But assuming for the sake of argument that Rudy walks off with it in February, and the family values crowd isn't bluffing, it opens up another third-party scenario for the election.
Enter Ron Paul. Since if (1) is true and Paul loses to Giuliani, he will be free to be courted as a third-party candidate. This is about the point that everyone will realize the fact that Ron Paul has already run as a third-party candidate. In 1988, Ron Paul was the Libertarian Party's nominee for president. He's really a Libertarian in Republican clothing to begin with, so this wouldn't be an enormous philosophical political journey for him to make.
And while Ron Paul has been getting a lot of attention in the online world for his stance on the Iraq war (he's against it) and for other equally Libertarian viewpoints, something many people (especially on the left) haven't noticed is that Paul has unshakable bedrock-values anti-abortion views. These views will not change one iota, it should be noted. Ron Paul is a doctor -- an OB/GYN to be precise. Which means his views on the life of a fetus are not something he puts on as a cloak of convenience to get elected to office (like some Republicans I could mention), they are fundamental viewpoints he has held in his profession for his entire life.
If Ron Paul loses the nomination battle in the Republican Party, it is conceivable that the Libertarians would court him. Since he's already run as their nominee previously (and since he's got a better shot at it this time around due to the internet "buzz" which surrounds him), it is also conceivable that he would be open to the Libertarian Party's nomination.
Back to the religious right. Now, it's one thing to threaten to vote for a third party, but it actually takes a whopping amount of time, money, and effort to "create" a political party which gets on the ballot in all 50 states. Ross Perot created a political party out of whole cloth (and a bottomless checkbook), but then he was a billionaire to begin with. It's also one thing to threaten to "just stay home" on election day, and quite another to actually vote for someone else.
But what if the evangelical right was presented with a strongly anti-abortion candidate as the nominee of a party that was already on the ballot in every state? That would be a tremendous shortcut -- one which might indeed fracture the base of the Republican Party. The question is whether the family-values crowd can put up with Ron Paul's other policy stances, some of which may be a little unpalatable for such voters -- his anti-war stance, for instance. Or the Libertarian Party's stance on the War on Drugs, for instance (they're for legalizing everything).
It's hard to even estimate exactly what the religious right's strength is within the Republican Party in the first place, and harder still to estimate how many of them would bolt Rudy's nomination. But it's a pretty safe bet that a Ron Paul Libertarian candidacy would hurt Republicans more than it would hurt Democrats. Paul could get a respectable percentage of the popular vote, perhaps even on the scale of Ross Perot (who got 19% in 1992), but it's doubtful he could win any electoral college votes (Perot got zero, even with one-fifth of the total votes). Which would turn him into a spoiler for the Republican Party. He might even precipitate a general and fundamental shakeup within the GOP itself, between the fiscal conservatives and the social conservatives -- something moderate Republicans have been hoping will happen for years.
So while there are many caveats to my prediction, the following outcome should be seen as predestined. If Rudy is the GOP nominee, if Ron Paul is the Libertarian nominee, and if the evangelical leaders start supporting Paul -- then the result is an absolute lock on the White House for whoever the Democratic nominee happens to be (who will doubtlessly begin practicing end-zone dances the day after Ron Paul announces as the Libertarian candidate).
Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
