third ways

text by cathy aragon

illustrations provided by penmarq studios

here are the vote totals, per wikipedia, of the 2012 presidential election in the united states. obama - 65,915,796 romney - 60,933.500 Gary Johnson (Libertarian) – 1,115,886 Jill Stein (Green) – 404,901 Virgil Goode (Constitution) – 114,143 Roseanne Barr (Peace & Freedom) – 49,388 Rocky Anderson (Justice) – 35,699 Tom Hoefling (America’s Party) – 28,590 Randall Terry (Independent) – 12,895 Richard Duncan (Independent) – 12,108 Peta Lindsay (PSL) – 7,071 None of these Candidates – 5,753 Chuck Baldwin (Kansas Reform) – 4,704 Tom Stevens (Objectivist) – 4,013 Steven Alexander (Socialist) – 3,023 Will Christensen (Oregon Constitution) – 3,915 James Harris (Socialist Workers) – 3,432 Jim Carlson (Minnesota Grassroots) – 3,171 Merlin Miller (American Third Position) – 2,603 Sheila “Sam” Tittle (We The People) – 2,479 Jill Reed (Twelve Visions Party) – 2,373 Gloria La Riva (PSL) – 1,524 Jerry Litzel (Independent) – 1,196 Jerry White (Socialist Equality) – 1,133 Dean Morstad (Constitutional) – 1,108 Barbara Dale Washer (Mississippi Reform) – 955 Jeff Boss (Independent) – 888 Andre Barnett (Reform) – 795 Lowell “Jack” Fellure (Prohibition) – 503 as you see, the candidate of the prohibition party finished last. the prohibition party was a force in american politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and is credited with getting the ill-fated eighteenth amendment passed. next to last was the candidate of the reform party, the party formed by ross perot in 1992. perot himself got 19% of the popular vote in 1992 and 8% in 1996. third from the bottom was jeff boss, a conspiracy theorist who believes the 911 attacks were implemented by the national security agency. what would it take to do even worse than these? two parties which do not appear on the above list, probably because they did not field candidates and do not exist are: a feminist or womens separatist party and a world government party if you google "womens separatist" or "world government" you will find entries but no sign of any existing political parties putting up candidates. there was apparently a world government party in the united kingdom in the middle of the twentieth century. could either of these, if they existed, do better than the prohibition party? neither could plausibly assert, if they ran candidates, that they could achieve their objectives overnight, even if they won. but they could at least make womens separatism or world government stated long term goals, to be implemented as much as practically possible. in the case of world government , the candidate could pledge to ask congress to pass an amendment ceding all federal power to the united nations and inviting all other countries to do the same. for womens separatism, the candidate could propose that certain areas of the country - perhaps an area in each one of the fifty states - be set aside as self-governing states for women only, and men kept out, with the areas to be expanded as they filled up. how enthusiastically would such proposals be welcomed by the american electorate? estimate that between 140 million and 150 million votes will be cast in the 2016 election. could either the projected world government or womens party get 1000 votes ? could they get 500? could they get 100? ***