My Own Unorthodox Solution to The ‘Lesser of Two Evils’

In case you haven’t noticed, the American people are pretty fed up with the two-party system. They see the presidency being passed back and forth between the Bushes and the Clintons. Then they see pictures of George hugging Hillary, and saying Bill Clinton is his “brother from another mother.” Just too cozy.

But it’s more than that. Yes, each party has drawn up its stands on various issues—but things are seldom settled. After all, they’ll need those same issues unresolved—to run on for the next election! Even within the parties, there’s a range of opinion on issues. So I’m going to offer my own suggestion at the end of this article.

Not only are people sick of the parties. They’re even more sick of the “presumed candidates,” according to Politico.

Both candidates, however, have high unfavorability ratings — 56 percent for Clinton and 55 percent for Trump, and nearly six in 10 voters surveyed are dissatisfied with the option of choosing between just Clinton and Trump in November.

Fifty-five percent favor having an independent candidate challenge the Democratic front-runner and presumptive Republican nominee for president. An unprecedented 91 percent of voters 28 or younger favor having an independent on the ballot, and 65 percent of respondents are willing to support a candidate who isn’t Clinton or Trump.

According to Data Targeting’s ballot test, an independent candidate would start off with 21 percent of the vote.

The survey of 997 respondents was conducted May 12-15 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The full survey is available here.

The Politico article doesn’t mention that of those who don’t like either Trump or Hillary, an independent would be greatly preferred:

11% for Trump, 7% for Hillary, and 56% for an independent!

Also, Hillary’s unfavorability is even higher than Trump’s:

Among males, Hillary is unfavorable at 64%; Trump with women, 60%.
Among Republicans, Hillary is unfavorable at 78%; Trump with Dems, 71%.
Even among independents, Trump is only one percent more unfavorable, 58% to 57%.

So. . .whatever happened to the GOP drive for a third-party candidate? Romney has given up, according to Newsmax.

Mitt Romney is no longer trying to recruit a third-party candidate to challenge Republican presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump, Yahoo News reports.

The news site, quoting an unnamed source, reports Wednesday the former Massachusetts governor and 2012 GOP nominee remains “motivated to help the ‘stop Trump’ cause,” but is not calling or emailing any people still considering a run.

Meanwhile, William Krisol, who has worked the hardest to get a GOP third-party run, was recently called a “renegade Jew” by a Trump-friendly Breitbart columnist.

Breitbart columnist David Horowitz labeled conservative figurehead Bill Kristol a “Renegade Jew” for his push to keep presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump out of the White House.

Horowitz, who is Jewish, published a column on Sunday titled “Bill Kristol: Republican Spoiler, Renegade Jew Prepares Third Party Effort to block Trump’s Path to White House.” Within hours, the phrase “Renegade Jew” was trending on Twitter.

Yes, people want a third-party candidate. But who?

If Bernie Sanders were to run as the third-party candidate, he’d likely hand the White House to Trump; and if Ted Cruz were to run as a third-party candidate, he’d likely hand the White House to Hillary.

In a recent column, we pointed out that the GOP could nominate three candidates, just as the Whigs ran three candidates against Democrat Martin Van Buren, in 1836. Having three GOP candidates this year would probably prevent Hillary from getting 270 Electoral College votes, throwing the election into the House of Representatives, where one of the Republicans would certainly be anointed president.

BUT—that brings me to my own, unorthodox suggestion:

How about if BOTH parties nominate TWO candidates? Imagine if you had a choice between Trump, Hillary, Cruz, OR Bernie! For one thing, it would make the conventions less dangerous (politically AND physically). It would also keep everyone within the two-party process. At the same time, it would give voters a real choice, for a change.

Seriously, this would only require minor convention rule changes. However, party leaders would have to trust each other to follow through. After all, the GOP convention is more than a month before the Dems in July. If they nominated both Cruz and Trump, the Dems could renege a week later, leaving the GOP doomed. Also, the House of Representatives would have to agree to make the highest vote-getter the next president, even if that’s Bernie or Hillary.

Yep, four two-party tickets is the way to go this year! Doncha think?