{"id":11706,"date":"2012-08-06T17:34:39","date_gmt":"2012-08-06T21:34:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=11706"},"modified":"2012-08-07T17:21:17","modified_gmt":"2012-08-07T21:21:17","slug":"how-could-a-third-party-candidate-affect-obamas-re-election-chances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2012\/08\/how-could-a-third-party-candidate-affect-obamas-re-election-chances","title":{"rendered":"How could a Third Party candidate affect Obama’s re-election chances?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Marine One takes off from the White House lawn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What if Barack Obama\u2019s poll numbers begin to lag? What if prominent black preachers or key Jewish leaders announce they cannot support him? What if it appears Obama\u00a0is losing\u00a0key swing states?<\/p>\n

Will the President\u2019s strategists began looking to conservatives\u00a0to keep him in the White House?<\/p>\n

Absurd?<\/em> Well, don\u2019t be so sure. Dissatisfied conservatives may be Obama\u2019s magic bullet. In 1992, Ross Perot siphoned off enough conservative support for George H.W. Bush to put Bill Clinton over the top. Of 103,758,177 votes cast, 58,848,371 or 57 percent, went to\u00a0Bush and Perot\u00a0\u2013 compared to Clinton\u2019s \u00a044,909,806, a mere 43 percent. But Clinton won the White House.<\/p>\n

\"\"
H. Ross Perot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Why? The conservative house was divided with 39,104,550 for Bush and 19,743,821 for Perot. So, Clinton took the oath on Inauguration Day.<\/p>\n

In 1996, Perot\u00a0handed Clinton a second term. Had Perot supporters voted for Republican challenger Robert Dole,\u00a0Clinton would have been defeated.\u00a0He would have won\u00a0the popular vote by the narrowest of margins, \u00a047,401,185 to 47,282,763, but Dole would have won several key states\u2019 electoral votes, such as Texas, to win 310 to 228, sending Clinton home to Arkansas.<\/p>\n

Four years later, it was Clinton\u2019s vice president, Al Gore, who lost to a third-party candidate, this time liberal Ralph Nader. Gore won the popular vote, but lost in the Electoral College. Had Nader supporters voted for Gore, the vice president would have won Florida and New Hampshire \u2013 and the presidency.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Ralph Nader<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s not as if it hasn’t happened before.\u00a0In 2008 Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr siphoned off enough conservative votes in North Carolina to give that\u00a0 historically Republican state to Obama. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party drew away hundreds of thousands of voters who would have supported incumbent William Howard Taft. With the Republican vote split between Teddy and Taft, Democrat Woodrow Wilson won\u00a0with only 41 percent of the vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThird party candidates can\u2019t win, but they can continue to divide,\u201d notes J.B. Williams of the website Conservative Crusader.<\/a> So, don\u2019t think that a third-party candidacy isn\u2019t a vital part of election planning this time around.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost Americans have never heard of Virgil Goode, a former party-switching congressman with a distinctive Virginia drawl who conceivably could decide the presidential election,\u201d writes Jim Kuhnhenn for the Huntington Post.<\/a><\/em> \u201cBut he is well known to President Barack Obama’s team of political advisers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVirgil Goode was a Democrat, an independent and a Republican before being nominated as the Constitution Party\u2019s nominee for Continued on Page 2<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What if Barack Obama\u2019s poll numbers begin to lag? What if prominent black preachers or key Jewish leaders announce they cannot support him? What if it appears Obama\u00a0is losing\u00a0key swing states? Will the President\u2019s strategists began looking to conservatives\u00a0to keep him in the White House? Absurd? Well, don\u2019t be so sure. Dissatisfied conservatives may be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2114,854],"tags":[33,2307,2116,171,2118,2236,2117,2115],"class_list":["post-11706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-democrat","category-republican","tag-barack-obama","tag-democrat","tag-electoral-college","tag-mitt-romney","tag-ralph-nader","tag-republican","tag-ross-perot","tag-virgil-goode"],"yoast_head":"\nHow could a Third Party candidate affect Obama's re-election chances?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2012\/08\/how-could-a-third-party-candidate-affect-obamas-re-election-chances\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How could a Third Party candidate affect Obama's re-election chances?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What if Barack Obama\u2019s poll numbers begin to lag? What if prominent black preachers or key Jewish leaders announce they cannot support him? What if it appears Obama\u00a0is losing\u00a0key swing states? Will the President\u2019s strategists began looking to conservatives\u00a0to keep him in the White House? Absurd? Well, don\u2019t be so sure. 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What if prominent black preachers or key Jewish leaders announce they cannot support him? What if it appears Obama\u00a0is losing\u00a0key swing states? Will the President\u2019s strategists began looking to conservatives\u00a0to keep him in the White House? Absurd? Well, don\u2019t be so sure. 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