Michael Goodwin : Americans don’t like third parties

It’s the Grand Illusion of activists and the Fool’s Gold of candidates all wrapped in one. The belief that masses of Americans will rise up with righteous indignation and demand radical political change ranks up there with faith in the Tooth Fairy. Michael Bloomberg and his billions have met their match.

The New York mayor’s resignation from the Republican Party was a clear sign he’s running for president as a third-party independent. His blasting Washington as “hooked on partisanship” and saying, “we do not have to settle for the same old politics” were straight out of the populist playbook.

And that’s the problem. No matter what the issues are or how much money the latest dreamer has, third- and fourth-party candidates inevitably become road kill. Even if their ideas catch on – think daffy Ross Perot in 1992 and the budget deficit – they end up with no place to go on Inauguration Day.

In the last 100 years, only Teddy Roosevelt in 1912, running on the Progressive Party, pulled more votes than either the Democratic or Republican nominee. Roosevelt’s 27 percent was good enough for second, behind winner Woodrow Wilson, with GOP incumbent William Howard Taft finishing third.

TR had already served nearly two terms as president – and still couldn’t win on the third-party line! Since then, only a few have gotten more than 3 percent and none has pulled more than Perot’s 19 percent. Since 1968, when George Wallace got 46 electoral votes, no third-party candidate has won even one.

The record is what it is for good reason. Quite simply, the two-party system fends off every assault because the public wants it that way. The vast, vast majority of voters go into the booth and pull the lever or punch the chad for a Democrat or a Republican. No matter how much they moan about the choices the two parties offer, most end up picking one of them.

People like Bloomberg essentially argue that voters are wrong for doing so. Which is why they never win. Democrats and Republicans win because, more or less, they give people what they want, a reasonable tradeoff in a democracy.

And who is to say the voters are wrong? America remains the freest, most affluent, most appealing country in the history of the world. Every time I see a story about Japan, where the population is dying of old age, I am reminded that, whatever our problems here, we are still where the world wants to live.

Or take Israel, with its fractured multiparty system. When neither major party gets a majority, which is most of the time, the leader entices a minor party to join the coalition with all kinds of special favors and spending. At its worst, that’s a messy, ineffective system that holds the nation hostage to a few bit players.

That’s not to deny that people outside the two-party system like Bloomberg have an appeal, just as the fan of every baseball team believes in the spring that anything is possible. But just as talent shows over a long season, ideas and personalities matter in politics. Especially as the going gets tough, as it will with the problems Bloomberg says Washington is ducking: “health care, Social Security, budget deficits, global warming, immigration.”

What would Bloomberg do as president? If the New York experience teaches anything, he will attack problems by spending more money and raising taxes. He has argued that he is really a conservative because he believes people want services and that to give them, you have to pay for them.

By that measure, fixing Social Security – tax hikes. Health care, immigration, global warming – tax hikes. Now, that may be straight-shooting by Bloomberg’s definition, but he’ll be history as soon as enough people, even those in Blue States, figure out his liberal game plan.

The most Bloomberg can realistically hope for is to prod, by sheer force of his persistence and bank account, the major nominees to co-opt one or two of his top issues. That’s not an insignificant accomplishment, and it may well be a true public service. The test will be whether that will be enough to scratch the political itch that’s bugging Mayor Mike.