There Is No Candidate X

John Derbyshire worries that a third-party candidate could hand 2004 to the Democrats. I don’t think there’s even a remote chance of that happening.

1992 was very different from today’s political climate. Clinton was running as a “new Democrat” – a centrist who was running on the key issue of the time – the economy. George H. W. Bush was caught on the tail end of a recession that he had done very little about. Lee Atwater had tragically passed away, which left Bush 41 without his key political strategist and confident. Bush’s team had no unified message, and Perot had been able to capture a groundswell of voters that left the Republicans divided.

2004 sees the Democrats running increasingly to the left with a level of increasingly shrill rhetoric that is turning off swing voters. George W. Bush has a unified message on national security, which is still the key issue in politics. He hasn’t been asleep on the economy either. By 2004 the economy and Iraq are both likely to be better than they are now. Bush has a lock on the conservative vote, even if there are some reservations.

In other words, there’s very little chance of a third-party candidate who can outspend Bush, chip away at his conservative base, and appear credible. In order for that to happen, there would have to be an event that would be unprecedent in American politics. Third parties only thrive in areas of political weakness – and despite some reservations about Bush by conservatives, I cannot think of anyone who could break that conservative vote.

Now, on the left there is a huge potential for a third-party revolt. The Democrats are running on a base of anti-Bush hysteria. They will have to go to the center for the general election. I would not be at all surprised that when that shift occurs the Democrats suddenly fragment. If Howard Dean loses the nomination to Wesley Clark I could see him running as a Green. I could easily see Nader re-entering the race. I could see a Hillary takeover that drives Deanites to the Greens.

The fact is that third-party movements don’t pop up out of nowhere. Perot’s Reform Party was build on a groundswell of xenophobic protectionism in the early 1990s. The trends were evident by the number of ostensible conservatives who did not like Bush. There is no such trend today. There is no groundswell of conservative opposition to Bush, and the Democrat’s shrill anti-Bush rhetoric only helps cement Bush’s standing among conservatives.

Furthermore, assuming Derbyshire’s scenario does come to pass, the Bush team could easily use their superior political machinery to capture the issue from that third-party candidate. Furthermore, immigration isn’t a hot-button issue in many states – although it could be in the future. If Bush felt that immigration was becoming a political threat he could easily initiate policies that would quickly reduce his vulnerability on this issue.

California provides an instructive example of this – McClintock was thought to be a spoiler for Arnold, but even in a two-Republican race Schwarzenegger had a more cohesive message and managed to take the election handily. In a time when serious issues of national security are at stake, how many conservatives are going to pull the voting lever for someone who would have little chance of winning and would likely hand the election to the Democrats?

American politics always settles on a two-party equilibrium, and always has for nearly 250 years of politics. That is a trend that is unlikely to be broken. Derbyshire assumes that immigration will be a key wedge issue, which seems unlikely, and that there’s enough political traction to make Bush vulnerable on the right. Neither of these assumptions are very likely, and while Bush will have to fight to win in 2004, some Candidate X is the last thing he should be worrying about.