I still can't seem to rid my mind of the images of those protesters, and their angry signs, from BarbinMD's front page diary yesterday on a GOP sponsored bill to honor the teabaggers. Those signs speak to an ugly, angry feeling in the land that something is wrong, and that nobody seems inclined to put it right. I'll grant you that those people represent a minority of Americans, but hird party presidential runs have always tapped into the zeitgeist of a minority that feels alienated from the political status quo of the time. You can look into the faces of those people and see their anger, and if the energy behind this movement doesn't dissipate over the next 18 months, I see another 3rd party candidate coming to the fore to tap into that energy and make a run in 2012.
I have no idea who that person might be, but if it happens, it may be someone surprising. Besides the obvious discontent on the right, there's also a growing disenhantment and impatience on the left. Perhaps not here, so much, though you don't have to look very hard to find it here as well.
A look back at the social, economic and political conditions that spawned the last two 3rd party runs which had any impact is illuminating.
In 1968 George Wallace exploded onto the national scene and managed to siphon enough votes away from Hubert Humphrey to throw the election to Richard Nixon. His candidacy, and the sense of alienation he tapped into, changed the course of the modern Republican Party. To be sure, the political geography of the Democratic Party was completely different in 1968, when we still had many elected officials in the South. That region has gone almost entirely to the GOP in the years since Wallace's run.
Most political historians attribute Wallace's ability to attract the support that he did to the social turbulence of the Sixties. Young people were demonstrating loudly against the war, flags were being burned, there were race riots in major cities across the country. There was Timothy Leary and Rosa Parks, RFK and MLK, Abbie Hoffman and Huey Newton. For Joe Lunchbucket, the world was turning upside down.
I wonder if President Obama hasn't, simply by his having won the election last fall, somehow ripped the scab off of that racial sore for a lot of people. Those signs the Teabaggers hold up would certainly suggest so. Add to that the long simmering angst over immigration across the country. Back when Congress was considering the last attempt at comprehensive Immigration Reform during Bush's term, the news showed large, raucus rallies in Los Angeles and some other cities, with many of the demonstrators waving not American flags, but Mexican flags. Those images didn't garner the movement many new supporters in the hinterland. Then there is the GLBT movement, and the news images of mass wedding ceremonies between same sex couples in various states.
I'm not in any way being critical of those movements. I'm only pointing out that for many people with whom we don't agree, those movements and images are equally jarring to their senses. The fact that initiatives banning same sex marriage have enjoyed the success at the ballot box that they have tells me that there are a lot more people out there who feel threatened by this than the ones who are most visible.
In 1992 Ross Perot made a big splash, and his run for president threw the election to the Democrat, Bill Clinton. Race and social issues weren't what propelled his campaign, however. It was a deep recession and a burgeoning federal deficit, set against the backdrop of the meltdown in the Savings & Loan Industry and corporate greed and ruthlessness. There was Michael Milken, the Keating Five, Corporate Raiders, Gordon Gecko, and a president who had never seemed more out of touch when he first came across a barcode scanner at the grocery store.
Does any of that sound familiar? Out of touch politicians, corporate greed? Ballooning deficits? Wall Street bailouts? Obscene executive bonuses amidst a brutal and lengthy recession?
There's a whole lot of alienation out there, and a sense on both sides of the political spectrum that our elected officials can't or wont address OUR needs, or only do so when they are dragged kicking and screaming. We have a confluence of all of those conditions which gave rise to a viable 3rd party presidential candidate. There's race, changing social norms, corporate greed, economic insecurity, and political leadership that is widely viewed as beholden to special interests and unresponsive to the cares or needs of the Middle Class.
If a 3rd party candidate does emerge, with enough credibility and support to garner, say, 15 to 20% of the vote, it is unclear to me which candidate in 2012 would most be hurt in the crossfire. But it will certainly be interesting.