Hey, good point
Mickey Kaus points out how a third-party presidential candidate pretty much needs a majority (270 majority votes) to win:
the real problem is the House of Representatives which will choose the President from among the top three in electoral votes unless one of the three candidates gets an absolute majority of all electoral votes. Thus, if each of the major party candidates can simply scrape together one-fourth of the total electoral votes, the election will be decided by the House, each state delegation casting a single vote with the votes of 26 state delegations necessary to a win. Regardless of how their district and states vote, there will be very strong party pressure on both Republican and Democratic members of Congress to cast a party vote. There will be no Independent party members in the House, making it virtually impossible for McCain to assemble 26 states even assuming he runs first by a significant margin.
I never thought of that. Man, there goes my plan for a Party party ("Anyone Who's Cool With Shit.") Back to the drawing board: we'll think of something.
Comments
Yeah, but imagine the backlash if the House defied the will of the people like that. The 3rd party guy would most likely have a plurality, maybe even majority, of popular votes, and the House would be going against the votes of their constituents. It'd be like 1824 all over again. Without Henry Clay.
Posted by: Matt | June 15, 2005 8:30 AM