What does it take to sink a political party?

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@OP: Money. Or the lack of it.

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For an idea of how difficult a party is to kill, the Prohibition party is still kicking about (though they only got 643 votes in in 2008)

That's as good as dead in my book, and therefore "sunk."

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{Most of this post was offtopic — Madrugada}

Why is Ralph Nader a "joke"? I haven't seen much of him in the media over here, but he seemed to be a Pretty Cool Guy with some decent proposals.

edited 20th Jan '11 4:45:46 PM by Madrugada

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I think an interesting take on first-past-the-post (that would, on topic incidentally, sink a *lot* of political parties) would be combine it with seating not by location but by income percentile. You do your taxes and it puts you in your percentile: with 100 seats, the 1st percentile (1% lowest earners) gets a seat, the 2nd percentile gets a seat, and so on. Of course, it'd never happen since I can't think of a single democracy on Earth willing to give the lower-middle class an effective supermajority, but hey.

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edited 20th Jan '11 4:55:50 PM by Madrugada

More parties simply means even less gets done than the normally incompetent Congress already does.

Au contraire. A party can be obstructionist in a two-party system because, if one party gets a solid majority, it can brute-force its agenda. In a multiparty system where no one party ever has a full majority, the only way to pass legislation is through cooperation and compromise. Therefore cooperation would have to happen; "block everything until you get a majority" would not be a viable strategy.

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edited 20th Jan '11 4:47:30 PM by Madrugada

No offense, Raw, but that's where you reveal your ignorance about American politics. Even if you do agree with him Ralph Nader is most certainly a political joke. His only major contribution has been splitting off enough votes from Gore to give Bush a close vote.

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edited 20th Jan '11 4:48:06 PM by Madrugada

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Why is he a "joke"? ou haven't aanswered it. Because the mass media don't take him seriously? Because his party can't pay for expensive campaigns?

edited 20th Jan '11 12:52:20 PM by RawPower