Friday, 24 September 2010
The "Tea Party" Candidate for the Senate Seat of Delaware - Christine O'Donnell
It's just a short step from believing "The Flintstones" is a docudrama - for she's a Young Earth Creationist who believes the Earth is only 6,000 years old - to believing that "Pinky and the Brain" is too.
She's not the only Right-Wing Politician whose views can charitably be described as "eccentric" though. There's also the (unfortunately not inimitable) Sally Kern.
Ho-kayyy.... So let's take a look on the Left. The Far Left. Until the Tea Bag movement started, the only credible third force in US politics, the Greens. And their Leader, Cynthia McKinney.
There are two possible conclusions: the first is that some US politicians have a few roos loose in the top paddock, so to speak. In fact, whole mobs of them.
The second, which I think is far more likely, is that they're telling the rubes what they want to hear. Nah, that's more of a Shellbyville idea....
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4 comments:
Ya gotta love that 1st Amendment! :-)
Here's an interesting article about the whole originalism, etc, thing: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/opinion/24chernow.html?
Carolyn Ann
I recommend we award this mouse the status of Honorary Human.
When were the Greens viable again? Or are you referring to a few localities (ex: Washington D.C.), where they are the only significant opposition party?
The Tea Party isn't a political party, as far as I'm aware. It might eventually become one, but at the moment, it seems that their efforts are more towards getting their favored candidates elected as Republicans.
If you're looking for a not particularly viable far-right political party in the U.S., I'd probably look at the Constitution Party (warning: they operate under a number of different names).
I realize that I commented as if this were a U.S. political blog; as it is not, I'll clarify my remarks.
The Green party (with its predecessors) has never been a viable political party in the U.S.A. Few parties other than the Republican Party or the Democratic party have been viable parties since our Civil War, and due to the strictures created by these two parties, it's unlikely that (barring another civil war) we'll have anything other than these two parties, other than locally (particularly where one of the major parties is effectively absent) or for very brief time periods.
In the extremely unlikely chance that another party comes to prominence, it will quickly kill off one of those two parties.
Taking the example of the Green party, last election McKinney was its nominee for president. The Green party received 0 electoral college votes and 0.12% of the popular vote. She was beaten by an independent, a Libertarian, and a member of the Constitution party.
In my particular state, none of them were on the ballot (thus they couldn't realistically get any of our electoral votes). All parties but the Republican and Democratic parties combined received less than 1.5% of the popular vote, and 0 electoral votes.
Or even taking it at its strongest point, in 2000, the Green party received 2.74% of the vote, with 0 electoral college votes. All third parties combined received less than 3.8% of the vote that year, with 0 electoral votes. Had Nader (the Green Party's candidate that year) received a plurality of the vote, he still wouldn't have won - he wasn't on the ballot in 7 states.
To put it another way, 98% of our present Senate are members of either the Republican or Democratic party.
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