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Additional Titles

LESSER OF TWO EVILS
PART 2 of 2

 

By Jon Christian Ryter

September 17, 2008

NewsWithViews.com

Like it or not, you now have a very real clear and candidly honest explanation of how the US political system actually works. The Founding Fathers didn't plan it that way. The money barons behind the party system did. The system mandates voting for the "lesser-of-two-evils"—because one of the two major party candidates is always going to win. That's why our political system is called "the two-party system." It wasn't named that because we only have two political parties since, clearly, we have many more than that. It was called the "two-party system" because, at the top of the ticket (indulge me while I repeat myself) only one of the two major party candidates can win—always!. Third party candidates (those who are graced with any meaningful media coverage) are the designated sieves whose job it is to drain off enough votes from the "lesser-of-two-evils" to guarantee that the "greater-of-two-evils" (i.e., those more snugly in bed with the barons of banking and business and the princes of industry) gets elected.

How do you change it? You must change the system from within by starting at the local level and electing mayors, city council members, county commissioners, then state legislators and governors. Once the people create a new political "foundation," they are ready build a political party by electing congressmen and senators—and, ultimately, presidents. In other words, "party building" begins from the bottom up. When you build a house, you don't start with the roof, you start with the basement.

When the GOP kicked off the Republican National Convention at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Sept. 1, 2008 disgruntled Ron Paul supporters, anti-Fed, anti-government, anti-tax anarchists and patriot movement activists met for an "alternative agenda" rally at the Target Center in Minneapolis a day later. Promoters of the rally claim they sold over 10 thousand tickets to the 7,500 seat auditorium, but according to the media that was counting, many of the seats remained empty throughout the rally, even when the rally's superstar, Dr. Paul, spoke.

Dr. Paul's "Rally for the Republic" pledged to bring the Republican Party back to its roots. In his speech, Dr. Paul called for an end to the income tax, the Federal Reserve and, he said, the military draft, which was suspended in April, 1975. (In 1980, President Jimmy Carter reinstated draft registration by Executive Order.) Several Republican delegates skipped the speechmaking at the GOP convention to attend the Rally for the Republic" When he spoke, former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura told the Paul loyalists that the two major parties were destroying the nation. The speakers denounced the use of paper money, the "Orwellian policies" of the current administration, the Federal Reserve, its chairman, and the war on drugs.

When you want to create a new political party structure within a two-party system you have to destroy one of the two parties already within that system to accomplish your task. Dr. Paul's Rally for the Republic" was not a wake-up call to revitalize the Republican Party, it was the opening salvo to destroy it from within by urging conservatives to desert the GOP standard-bearer and vote for third party candidates—Constitution Party Chuck Baldwin, Libertarian candidate Bob Barr, or Green Party candidates Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney. (Ron Paul made it clear it didn't matter which third party candidate they voted for since he knew none of them can win.) After all, you can't bake a cake until you break a couple of eggs. After the sweepers cleaned away the dregs of confetti and busted balloons from the floors of the Target Center and the Xcel Energy Center, the Ron Paul loyalists returned to their homes and tucked away their latest memories in scrapbooks and electronic images on their computers, content in the knowledge that the Ron Paul Revolution was alive and well.

The Palin-surge changed everyone's campaign tactics. In fact, Gov. Sarah Palin changed the entire dynamics of the election. The response by disgruntled and disillusioned Republicans, self-described Independents, moderate Democrats who were displeased with both Democratic nominee Barack Obama and GOP nominee McCain, and most of all, women of every stripe, was as instantaneous as it was overwhelming. Overnight the Palin Phenomenon catapulted the McCain-Palin team into the lead. The Palin-surge was not a convention bump. It was the reincarnation of the Reagan Revolution. As Obama's post-convention bounce died like a concrete basketball, a Washington Post-ABC News poll showed McCain-Palin surging from a 19 point deficit to a plus 7-point lead in the key battleground States. ABC News reported a 20-point swing towards McCain-Palin among white women. USA Today-Gallup showed Palin brought the ticket a 10-point advantage from likely voters. Polling from every source shows an incredible trend favoring McCain-Palin.

Prior to Palin, thousands of conservative voters (who sat out the Election of 2006 and allowed Congress to fall into the hands of the far left) decided, once again to either sit out the election or cast a meaningless protest vote for change in some other election some other time by voting for one third party candidate or another, knowing it would allow the far left to get an even tighter grip on Congress, and allow the far left to implement any draconian, totalitarian legislation it wants, without debate or compromise from the other side of the aisle.

By Friday, Aug. 29—the weekend before the GOP Convention, the Palin Phenomenon had taken hold. Obama's bounce dribbled out of the gate, and if you wanted to catch the bouncing ball, you would have had to reach down and pick it up off the floor. As Obama-Biden tried to breathe buoyancy into a bubble that had already burst, the "Rally for the Republic" discovered their foot soldiers were already marching to the beat of a different drum from within the Republican Party.

Ron Paul supporters, who also saw the reincarnation of Reagan in Sarah Palin, were sending checks and pledging to support the McCain-Palin ticket. The base of disenfranchised Republican or, at least, conservative voters were thinning out. Dr. Paul's claim that his loyal supporters "...represent a majority of the American people. We deserve to be in the debates," was a little thin. In reality, in 2004 the Constitution Party, with Baltimore lawyer Michael Peroutka heading the ticket and preacher Chuck Baldwin as his running mate, pulled 134 thousand votes nationwide. The Libertarian Party took around 438 thousand votes nationwide. Nader, clustered 464 thousand votes in 2004 running on both the Reform Party and Green Party tickets. Looking at these three tickets from 2004, the third candidates collectively took approximately 1,036,000 votes. This year, because of Sarah Palin, they will take somewhat less. Dr. Paul insists the independents who will cast their votes for all of the third party candidates, collectively, will be between 2 million and 3 million people. His numbers are pure hyperbole based on speculation and not statistics.

Ron Paul's strategy appears to be to group all of the third party candidates into one entity called "third party," and argue that because each of those candidates has an individual constituency, that "third party" should be allowed to join the debates. In the Election of 2004, voters cast a total of 122,105,050 votes. Less than 1% of the votes, or 1,036,000 of them, were cast by third party voters vying for the Constitution Party, Reform Party, Green Party or Libertarian Party. Breaking the totals down individually (since Ron Paul proposes that the actual candidates and not a surrogate representing "third party" be allowed to debate) we found that votes for the Constitution Party candidate totaled 0.001% (one thousandth of 1%) of the sum. Simply put, Chuck Baldwin is not a viable candidate. He's a political statement, and not a very loud one. In 2004, the Libertarian candidate took 0.0035% of the vote. He faired much better than the Constitution Party candidate, but he would have had to increase his vote-getting 300 times just to get 1% of the vote. Nader, running on two tickets in 2004, fared better—but not by much. His candidacies netted 0.00385% of the vote. Again, a political statement not a viable candidate. And while the voters are protesting the dual party Siamese twins, the greater-of-two-evils is ruining the country because conservatives split their vote and let a stakeholder with less than 50% of the vote win the election.

When Ron Paul addressed the media at the National Press Club on Sept. 10, he called upon the voters to reject both Barack Obama and John McCain and vote for any of the four third party candidates he was promoting: Baldwin, Nader, McKinney or Barr. (In all likelihood there will also be a Prohibition Party candidate, a Communist Party, USA candidate, a Socialist Workers Party candidate, a Natural Law Party candidate and, of course, Lyndon LaRouche will always be with us. "[Our electoral] system]," he said, "is driven by the conviction that only a major party candidate can win..." The statistics above prove conclusively that is the case. Without a nine-digit budget, it is virtually impossible for any presidential wanabee to even become a presidential hopeful. "Voters become convinced that [any vote other than a vote for a major party candidate] is a wasted vote. It's time for that conclusion to be challenged and to recognize that the only way to not to waste one's vote is to reject the two establishment candidates and join the majority, once called silent, and allow the voices of the people to be heard." Dr. Paul, who speaks collectively for less than 1% of both liberal and conservative voters, does not seem to realize that this constituency does not represent a "majority" even when you take off your shoes to count.

Libertarian candidate Bob Barr, who refused to be a part of Ron Paul's 'ship of fools," held his own press conference an hour later, said he decided not to join Paul's group for fear it would link him to the other candidates and "dilute" his candidacy in the upcoming election. Barr added that he did not oppose Paul's "statements of principle." However, to Barr, suggesting that those voters considering him could vote for any of the third party candidates was not an option he wanted to promote since he did not become the Libertarian candidate to make a political statement or to share the voting booth with Baldwin, or even worse, with environmentalist public citizen advocate Nader or socialist McKinney—or worse, citizen candidates on $100 budgets like self-employed technology researcher Jon Greenspon, trucker John K. Bootie or health insurance salesman John Blyth. I guess when your campaign is toilet-bound from the day you announce, being named "John" brings you halfway to your destination before your campaign starts. Layman candidates can count only on the votes of a handful disillusioned voters who would otherwise case their protest write-in votes for Beetle Bailey, Mickey Mouse or Homer Simpson.

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If you want to change the two party system, you must work within that system to change it. In 2004, over 122 million people cast their vote. One million of them threw their voice away because screams in a closet are heard by no one. Change is a generational thing. You don't implement change at the top of the pinnacle because while he has a powerful vote, the President still only has one vote. Congress has 535 votes. But to change who casts the votes in Congress, you must start at home. All politics is local. That's where it all starts. Jon Greenspon, John Bootie and John Blyth should not have been running for President. They should have been running for city council or Mayor. Granted, there's not much glory in those jobs, but that's where the political foundation of our nation is built. Control local politics and, eventually, you will control the White House. Don't fight the system—change it. For part one click below.

Click here for part -----> 1,

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Today, Jon is an advertising executive with the Washington Times. His website, www.jonchristianryter.com has helped him establish a network of mid-to senior-level Washington insiders who now provide him with a steady stream of material for use both in his books and in the investigative reports that are found on his website.

E-Mail: BAFFauthor@aol.com

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