Earlier this week, I wrote about a recent Rasmussen poll that seemed to indicate fertile ground for a third-party challenge from the right against Rudy Giuliani should he get the Republican nomination, a challenge that would most assuredly result in a Democrat winning the White House in 2008.
Over at The Right Wing Liberal, D.J. McGuire makes this point:
I know voters will have an alternative to Giuliani from the right; it’s called the Constitution Party, and it is virulently opposed to the liberation of Iraq. Ron Paul, should he choose to bolt, would have a decent chance of getting the CP nod.
I’m just not sure it hurts Giuliani.
Third parties have a history of wrecking political campaigns, but changing outcomes is far rarer. Traditionally, third parties begin as a breakaway faction of one of the two main parties, and are expected to do the most damage to the aggrieved major party. However, if the third party manages to catch the Zeitgeist, they end up pulling away voters from both parties. These third parties manage to do far better than even they expect, but as a consequence, the two parties positions end up relatively unchanged.
True, but the challenge that I’m thinking about would be more along the lines of George Wallace, Ross Perot, or Ralph Nadar than the Constitution Party. But it involves a few very big “ifs.” Specifically, it would require a conscious and public break from the GOP nominee by one or more prominent Christian Conservative leaders; men like James Dobson and Pat Robertson who have people who, for better or worse, listen to them and are likely to take seriously any endorsement that they might give. If a sufficient number of these people vote for a third party or stay home on Election Day, it will be difficult for Giuliani or any Republican to win in 2008.
It’s the same thing that happened to Bush 41 in `92 and Al Gore in 2000.
