A Third-Party Run? Democrats Love the Idea

Republicans who are unhappy with the likely nomination of Donald Trump as their party’s presidential candidate and are looking for a third-party solution are “drinking Kool-Aid,” a prominent conservative columnist wrote Tuesday.

Robert Knight, a senior fellow for the American Civil Rights Union, wrote in an analysis opinion piece published by The Washington Times that Democrats are loving all the third-party talk they hear from #NeverTrump conservatives. Using 1992 and 2000 as examples, he showed how even a small third-party effort could result in Hillary Clinton becoming the 45th president of the United States:

Even a weak third-party candidate on the right would guarantee a Hillary Clinton presidency, just as Reform Party candidate Ross Perot’s 19 percent of the vote put Bill Clinton into the White House over George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Democrats love all the third party talk. They cleansed their side of this nonsense after the 2000 election, when Green Party candidate Ralph Nader won 2.7 million votes, including 97,421 votes in Florida, enabling George W. Bush to beat Al Gore.

Since that stinging loss, the Dems have crushed any nascent third party bid like a bug. Do you see Bernie Sanders threatening to run on a Democratic Socialist Party ticket if he loses the nomination to Hillary?

Suggesting a third-party conservative effort is “nonsense on stilts,” Knight said the larger number of dyed-in-the-wool “yellow dog” Democrats than similarly inclined Republicans gives them an advantage whenever a third-party effort is launched. Media bias, he added, would only make matters worse—and more difficult for a conservative third-party candidate.

Admitting that Trump would be somewhat of an unknown commodity, if elected, he instead focused readers’ attentions to what we largely know for certain about Clinton:

This November, the stakes are frighteningly high, with a choice between an upstart wild card on one side and a career liar, crook and socialist in all but name on the other. Nobody really knows what Donald Trump will do if elected, but there is no doubt about Hillary Clinton’s radical agenda, which will make even the Obama regime appear moderate.