最勁既1992年既獨立人士Perot
取全國18%既votes
可惜係winners take all system下,
一張electoral vote都得唔到..
Even in the 1992 presidential election, when Reform Party candidate Ross Perot won an incredible 18.9% of the votes, the party did not receive even a single seat in Congress for their effort. Similarly, despite regular losses at state and federal level, Libertarian and Green parties’ candidates regularly win a significant share of the votes but cannot be awarded with any representation at state legislatures and Congress. Compare that to the third highest performing party in the 2013 Bundestag election in Germany, Die Linke (The Left). The party earned 64 of the 631 seats in the Bundestag after winning just eight percent of the votes.
As long as the country practices a first-past-the-post voting system, third parties will never gain sufficient strength to enable its candidates to win the presidency. Polling exclusions, presidential debate participation and ballot access legislations also create additional barriers to third-party candidacies. This is the harsh truth. However, third party candidates have played the spoiler role successfully before.
• In 1848, former president Martin van Buren failed to win the Democratic nomination. With the support of the abolitionist elements from the Democratic Party, van Buren established the Free Soil Party and ran as a third-party candidate. He only secured 10% of the votes, but it siphoned enough votes away from Democratic candidate Lewis Cass to enable Whig candidate Zachary Taylor to win the presidency.
• In 1856, another spurned former Democratic president Millard Fillmore ran under The Know-Nothing Party banner and won 21.5% of the votes - and eight states. He took away sufficient votes from John C. Frémont of the Republican Party, who was also running on the abolitionist platform.
• In 1860, two third-party candidates, John Bell and John C. Breckinridge, won 30.7% of the votes to ensure the victory of Abraham Lincoln (who only managed to win 39.65% of the votes, the second lowest in history).
• In 1912, former president Teddy Roosevelt’s third-party run under the Progressive Party ticket outperformed that of the incumbent Republican president, William Taft, consigning the latter to a humiliating third-place finish.
• In 1924, the Progressive Party again played the spoiler role, but this time, its candidate Robert M. La Follette took advantage of the split in the Democratic Party to win 16.6% of the votes and gifted the election to Republican Calvin Coolidge.
• In 1968, American Independent Party candidate George Wallace, a former Democratic governor of Alabama, won 13.5% of the votes and the electoral votes of five states (46). It ultimately proved insufficient to derail Republican Richard Nixon’s eventual victory. However, Wallace’s candidacy is significant because he is the last third-party candidate to carry a state in a presidential election.
• In 1992, Ross Perot’s candidacy under the Reform Party very nearly upset the formbooks. By the middle of the year, Perot was actually leading the race in a few polls. However, he withdrew from the race in July allegedly due to homophobic threats made against his daughter. He reentered the race in October, and still managed to secure almost nineteen percent of the votes, mostly from the southern, Deep South and Bible belt states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li ... ed_States_elections
Dr. Jill Stein, a Harvard-trained physician, has emerged as the favorite protest candidate of the progressive grassroots. Her stances on single-payer health care, campaign finance reforms and student loan debt forgiveness, and her refusal to accept money from corporate donors have resonated with millennials. Dr. Stein’s current polling numbers suggest that she is well on track to match – and even surpass – Ralph Nader’s performance in 2000 presidential election.
2016 Libertarian Presidential Nominee
Former Governor of New Mexico
The Ross Perot presidential campaign of 1992 began when Texas industrialist Ross Perot opened the possibility of running for President of the United States in the election of 1992 as an independent candidate on the February 20, 1992 edition of Larry King Live. Though he had never served as a public official, Perot had experience as the head of several successful corporations and had been involved in public affairs for the previous three decades. Spawned by the American dissatisfaction with the political system, grassroots organizations sprang up in every state to help Perot achieve ballot access following his announcement. James Stockdale, a retired United States Navy vice admiral, was Perot's vice presidential running mate.
Governor Veto, as Gary Johnson was not-so-fondly known during his two terms as governor of New Mexico, has an enviable track record of success both in the private and public sector, an accomplishment that very few politicians can boast off. The fiscally conservative and socially liberal former construction company owner is seeking to build on his record breaking performance in 2012 by elevating the Libertarian Party to major party status in this election cycle.