What if Congressman from Texas, Ron Paul ran as a third party candidate in 2008 and/or 2012, possibly as the Libertarian nominee? Would he steal a considerable amount of votes from John McCain and/or Mitt Romney or would he perform as badly as the Libertarian candidates of OTL? Just a thought I had during those election cycles. If in 2008, would he run again in 2012? If he were to be invited to the presidential debates against Barack Obama and McCain/Romney, how do you think he would perform?
Ron Paul Runs a Third Party Candidacy in 2008 and/or 2012
- Thread starter Montgomerie Ward
- Start date
He probably wouldn't do a whole lot better than Johnson did last time. After all, Paul is more of an Internet sensation than an actual candidate.
If by some chance he polled high enough to get into the debates, which would mean a lot of other things have to go differently, then I doubt he'd perform well except in the eyes of his supporters. He isn't the best debater, and he'd probably spend most of his time shouting anti-government platitudes and espousing states rights.
He'd almost certainly pull off more voters from McCain than Obama, but he may have been able to pull more equally in 2012. Regardless, a lot would have to go right for him to even be a successful third party candidate.
If by some chance he polled high enough to get into the debates, which would mean a lot of other things have to go differently, then I doubt he'd perform well except in the eyes of his supporters. He isn't the best debater, and he'd probably spend most of his time shouting anti-government platitudes and espousing states rights.
He'd almost certainly pull off more voters from McCain than Obama, but he may have been able to pull more equally in 2012. Regardless, a lot would have to go right for him to even be a successful third party candidate.
He polled in double digits in some 2012 polls. Now he probably wouldn't get that high, but he has the name recognition and popularity Johnson doesn't have to be able to win over a good portion of disaffected voters. I had him run in 'A Different Path' and he got nearly 10% of the vote. That was in different circumstances facing different candidates but I think a Paul third-party run could have gotten a good performance for the Libertarians, though not enough to vault him into the debates.
Quite often third party candidates do well in early polls, then fade as the actual election approaches. (The novelty factor wears off, and the "it's a wasted vote because he can't win" reasoning becomes dominant.) In 1980, "A Gallup poll taken from 13 June through 16 June had Anderson at his highest level of support to date, 26 percent.." http://www.noholdingbackbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Chapter_Eight_No_Holding_Back_Book.pdf
The Republicans would blame him for their loss the way they blamed Ross Perot in 1992 and Democrats blamed Ralph Nader in 2000.
It depends whether Obama wins a majority of all votes cast. If that's true, then they won't blame Ron Paul.
Romney blamed Obama's victory on things like bribery and fraud even though he won a majority of the vote. Obviously, Romney is a sore loser like his forerunner McCain, but the Republicans haven't been ones to accept the legitimacy of any Democratic president, regardless of whether or not they win a majority of the vote.
Indeed, but the defeat won't be blamed on Ron Paul if Obama wins a majority of the popular vote. They'll just blame it on fraud and shit.
He would have pulled enough of the Republican vote in 2008 to give Obama wins in Missouri (which only went for McCain by 0.13%) and possibly Montana (which McCain won by 2.26% and which should be a good state for a libertarian type--Ron Paul came in 2nd to Romney in their caucus that year). Otherwise not much of an effect, I'd imagine.