A simple poll

[hollodero]

(10-27-2016, 11:55 AM)Benton Wrote: Parties are about members. Go back to the Republican shift in the 60s with the southern strategy. They were running out of supporters, the population was changing and more people were supporting the direction of the Democrats. Republican strategists realized they needed to expand their base, so the southern strategy was born — bring in white, southern people unhappy with desegregation and rising minority population. That's been a big party of the party's base... until now.

Chunks of the Republican party are breaking off. Evangelicals are unhappy. Angry isolationists are unhappy. Small business owners are unhappy.

The same thing has happened to both parties before where large groups went in a different direction, effecting a change of course as parties go off or come together. If enough people show enough dissatisfaction, either the parties will respond by adapting or they'll shrink and get absorbed into another party.

Stein (or whoever) voters won't be kicking themselves. These are already the people who realize neither candidate is going to make a good president.

All of that might be true (I do not doubt this analysis) - but doesn't change what I said. When a party loses votes to the other, it will shift positions. Sure. Doesn't change the fact that only two candidates can become president in an election and it's not really meaningful to vote for neither of them.

Third party voters won't kick themselves as long as they truely believe either candidate is equally bad (not just "bad", but equally bad). As soon as you feel one candidate is even worse than the other, voting third party doesn't seem reasonable.