By Jay Kim
The U.S. has successfully maintained a two-party system for the last 200 years despite twists and turns. In every presidential election, there was a candidate from a third party but none of them have succeeded.
In the 1992 presidential election, Ross Perot ran as an independent and received 18.9 percent of the popular vote. That was the highest in U.S. history for a candidate who was not from either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. Owing to this performance, Perot created the Reform Party in 1995, and ran again in the 1996 presidential election. However, he suffered a dismal loss with just 8 percent of the popular vote. After that, the Reform Party disappeared.
For the past 200 years, about sixty parties other than the two main parties have put up candidates in presidential elections but all of them have been utterly defeated. For 28 years, from the 1912 to the 1940 election, even the Communist Party continued to nominate presidential candidates but they were also crushed. The Communist Party still exists in the U.S. but it has become no more than a name.
Among the third parties, perhaps, the Libertarian Party and the Green Party are the ones that deserve some notice by most frequently putting up candidates. The Libertarian Party has fielded candidates in presidential elections more than seven consecutive times, and the Green Party has also put forward candidates in six presidential elections. These two parties have, of course, been crushed at the polls but their platforms drew the attention of many Americans. The Libertarian Party is politically farther to the right than the Republican Party. By contending that each individual has the right to make choices in his or her life and that the government should not interfere, the party almost argues for an absence of government. It claims that the role of a government is in areas such as defense, public safety and disease prevention, and areas like education, transportation and the environment should be left to individuals. It also says that individual income tax should be abolished, and that the government should be greatly reduced by getting rid of various government programs.
In contrast, the Green Party is more liberal than the Democratic Party. It claims that the space race should be stopped right away, every weapon of mass destruction should be destroyed, and rather peace should be sought. The Greens contend that when a company is sold, the workers of the firm, before others, should have the first right to buy it, and all employees should be granted at least a month of vacation per year. Furthermore, they contend that prisons should have schools for inmates to earn degrees and respect the rights of prisoners, and that the global environment should not be destroyed anymore and should be returned to its original state.
In this 2012 election, the Libertarian Party has nominated Gary Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico, as its presidential candidate, and the Green Party nominated physician Jill Stein. The probability of them winning is zero. Then, why do these parties keep putting up candidates, spending so much money, even though they have been soundly defeated every time? The reason is that they want their parties to remain in the minds of the American people, and they have a shallow hope that someday people will be disappointed with the two-party politics and elect a third-party candidate as president.
The American people have continued to support the two-party system of the conservative Republican Party and the liberal Democratic Party for the last 200 years. They want progress from the two sides’ opposing and holding each other in check. The reason is that, instead of crying out for reform, they want gradual change under a stable system.
Jay Kim is a former U.S. congressman. He serves as chairman of the Kim Chang Joon US-Korea Foundation. For more information, visit Kim’s website at www.jayckim.com.