OPINION:
August is a great time for columnists to float fanciful ideas. The news cycle slows, vacationing readers have more patience. Enter a third-party candidate for president.
In 1992, Ross Perot, the most successful modern third-party contestant, managed only 19% of the vote. But he was leading in a June Gallop Poll shortly before he dropped out, only to reenter the race in October.
Like President Biden, then-President George H.W. Bush was bragging about great job creation, but Americans were dissatisfied with the economy. Voters had big questions about then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s character because of his draft record, extramarital affairs, and wife Hillary Clinton’s law practice dealings with the state of Arkansas.
Now Mr. Biden is viewed as too old.
Former President Donald Trump appears more vigorous, but he is forever stained by his actions on Jan. 6, 2021. Election denial doesn’t play well with most Americans, who are taught from the cradle that gracefully accepting disappointment is essential to the survival of the republic and simple good order.
Just as important, the intolerant, radicalized voting blocs of each major party paralyzing progress in Congress deeply frustrates Americans. They are becoming increasingly disenchanted with our two-party system.
An increasing number of Americans don’t view either one of the major parties as adequately reflecting their views. Political science research indicates if we had a parliamentary system, the two major parties would fracture into five or six — a progressive Sanders/Ocasio-Cortez party, a center-left Biden party, a center/business-oriented Bloomberg party, a traditional-conservative Pence party, and a conservative-populist Trump party, and perhaps a Green party focused on climate change.
Governments would be formed by cobbling coalitions, and in many ways, Mr. Biden did just that. After defeating Sen. Bernie Sanders and other progressives in the 2020 Democratic primaries, he embraced the hard left to write his platform, but just as much, he defeated Mr. Trump on character and conduct issues.
Now Mr. Biden’s hard-left agenda is as great an albatross as his age.
At 82, a man has a 1-in-3 chance of dying over a four-year period.
Biracial Vice President Kamala Harris is the embodiment of Mr. Biden’s progressive agenda, but she inspires little confidence. But he can no more dump her than advocate eliminating capital gains taxes without alienating progressives and encouraging enough Democrats not to vote to cost him the election.
After getting much of his agenda through Congress, deficits are at record levels, inflation is still too high, wages have not kept up, and the president gets terribly poor marks on the economy. His job approval ratings are lower than a snake’s belly.
Also, the blowback big business is getting on progressives’ cultural agenda — witness the Bud Light fiasco — indicates that Americans may be uneasy with a party that reduces every problem to a “justice” issue and attacks our nation’s founders and institutions as frauds.
According to a recent Economist/YouGov Poll, 43% of Americans feel a third major political party is necessary, compared with 29% who say it’s not. And 44% say they could vote for an independent candidate, while only 25% say no.
No Labels, which enjoys among its co-chairs prominent progressives Ben Chavis and former Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman and Republican former Govs. Larry Hogan and Pat McCrory, is planning a convention next spring — after the March primaries.
If a Biden-Trump rematch is the offing, they will likely engineer a campaign with a centrist ticket — for example, GOP New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia centrist Democrat.
They need an attractive platform. Ross Perot ran on a root canal Republican platform that was pro-business but with sharply higher taxes.
After COVID-19, ballooning deficits and inflation, voters want a dialogue based on unity, not pain. What the GOP House majority has not been able to formulate, and Mr. Biden’s West Wing wedded to identity politics can’t tolerate, is an agenda for One America.
Americans could be convinced they can’t get everything their various factions may want — immigration and labor force needs, abortion and protection of the unborn, affirmative action and merit, student loans/child care and lower taxes — but a presidency premised on fostering a sense of national purpose and simply compelling factions to compromise on major issues is absolutely necessary.
We can’t have a winner-take-all presidency that is either anti-“woke” or reduces all issues to race, gender and historical injustices.
A third-party candidate could win a plurality in the popular vote but not likely a majority of electoral votes. That would send the election to the House, where each state delegation gets one vote, and the Republicans have the edge.
But with enough GOP House members likely uneasy about Mr. Trump as president again, no one may win a majority on the first ballot. Then, as the election of John Quincy Adams demonstrated, the horse trading begins.
A fusion ticket like Messrs. Sununu and Manchin starts looking pretty good to form a centrist Cabinet from both parties.
• Peter Morici is an economist and emeritus business professor at the University of Maryland, and a national columnist.
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