Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin’s third party wouldn’t work

Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin now are talking about a third party, a totally conservative party. That won’t work.

The Reform Party, which grew out of Ross Perot’s 1992 run for the presidency, had recent history’s best chance for a principled, uncorrupted third party because it brought liberals and conservatives together. The unifying idea was not compromise for the sake of compromise, but to adopt the best ideas of right and left, and to find fundamental objectives everyone could agree on.

I was in on building that third party, and it almost took off. What might sound strange to some is that, in the Reform Party, liberals and conservatives as diverse as Lenora Fulani and Jesse Ventura were united firmly behind balanced budgets, congressional term limits, and reducing the undue influence of special interests.

Clean, responsible government. But we don’t hear about that kind of coalition building from Limbaugh and Palin. Theirs is a purely conservative message, and it is a nonstarter. A generally libertarian movement for clean, responsible government would have greater appeal and more impact.

For the record, the Reform Party had a problem that a Limbaugh-Palin party wouldn’t have to worry about. Our problem was that, with so many no-names in our organization, outsider Pat Buchanan in 2000 could hijack the party by the power of his celebrity, break the liberal-conservative coalition and toss the party to hell.

With celebrities at the top of the Limbaugh-Palin party, its platform would be much less vulnerable to a political infidel’s sabotage. The real weakness of a strictly conservative party would be its one-sidedness.

Frank Warner

Comments

[Larry Sheldon]

Republicans best stop worrying about third parties and start worying about being one of the three.

[Frank Warner]

Unfortunately, the two major parties have name recognition enough to survive the most horrible scandals.

[What?]

Jesse Ventura is a kook, always has been, always will be.

Saw him interviewed on Fox and he took a shot at Palin for quitting, which I suppose is fair. But Jesse wasn't exactly Jesse "the Brave". He didn't run for a 2nd term because he was obviously afraid he was gonna lose and lose badly. Jesse didn't give us people of MN the satifaction of throwing his arse out on the street.

[Frank Warner]

Ventura was a bit wild, which was a blessing and a curse. He would have been great as a party builder. He would not have been a credible national candidate.

His still-unexplained falling out with Perot helped weaken the Reform Party, and then Buchanan destroyed it.