166 PART Two • The PolITIcs of AmeRIcAn DemocRAcy
Splinter Party
A new party formed by a
dissident faction within
a major political party.
Often, splinter parties have
emerged when a particular
personality was at odds
with the major party.
Party Identification
Linking oneself to a
particular political party.
Straight-Ticket Voting
Voting exclusively for the
candidates of one party.Today’s active ideological parties include the Libertarian Party and the Green Party. As
you learned in Chapter 1, the Libertarian Party supports a laissez-faire (“let it be”) capital-
ist economic program, together with a hands-off policy on regulating matters of moral
conduct. The Green Party began as a grassroots environmentalist organization with affili-
ated political parties across North America and Western Europe. It was established in the
United States as a national party in 1996 and nominated Ralph Nader to run for president
in 2000. Nader campaigned against what he called “corporate greed,” advocated univer-
sal health insurance, and promoted environmental concerns. He ran again for president as
an independent in 2004 and 2008.
splinter Parties. Some of the most successful minor parties have been those that split
from major parties. The impetus for these splinter parties, or factions, has usually been
a situation in which a particular personality was at odds with the major party. The most
successful of these splinter parties was the “Bull Moose” Progressive Party, formed in 1912
to support Theodore Roosevelt for president. The Republican national convention of that
year denied Roosevelt the nomination, despite the fact that he had won most of the pri-
maries. He therefore left the GOP and ran against Republican “regular” William Howard
Taft in the general election. Although Roosevelt did not win the election, he did split the
Republican vote so that Democrat Woodrow Wilson became president.
Third parties have also been formed to back individual candidates who were not
rebelling against a particular party. H. Ross Perot, for example, who challenged Republican
George H. W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton for the presidency in 1992, had not previ-
ously been active in a major party. Perot’s supporters probably would have split their votes
between Bush and Clinton had Perot not been in the race. In theory, Perot ran in 1992 as
a nonparty independent. In practice, he had to create a campaign organization. By 1996,
Perot’s organization was formalized as the Reform Party.
The Impact of minor Parties. Third parties have rarely been able to affect American
politics by actually winning elections. (One exception is that third-party and indepen-
dent candidates have occasionally won races for state governorships—for example, Jesse
Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota on the Reform Party ticket in 1998.) Instead,
the impact of third parties has taken two forms. First, third parties can influence one of
the major parties to take up one or more issues. Second, third parties can determine the
outcome of a particular election by pulling votes from one of the major-party candidates
in what is called the “spoiler effect.”
The presidential elections of 2000 were one instance in which a minor party may have
altered the outcome. Green candidate Ralph Nader received almost one hundred thou-
sand votes in Florida, a majority of which would probably have gone to Democrat Al Gore
if Nader had not been in the race. The real question, however, is not whether the Nader
vote had an effect—clearly, it did—but whether the effect was important. The problem is
that in elections as close as the presidential elections of 2000, any factor with an impact
on the outcome can be said to have determined the results.The Rise of the Independents
Polls that track party identification show increasing numbers of voters who identify
themselves as independents. (See Figure 7–3 on the facing page.) Not only has the number
of independents grown over the last half century, but voters are also less willing to vote a
straight ticket—that is, to vote for all the candidates of one party. In the early twentieth
century, straight-ticket voting was nearly universal. By midcentury, 12 percent of voters
engaged in split-ticket voting. By the 1970s and 1980s, 25 to 30 percent of all ballots castwww
Helpful Web Sites
The two leading third
parties are the Libertarian
Party and the Green Party.
Find their Web sites by
searching on “libertarians”
and “green party,”
respectively.
Copyright 2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.