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« Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on the current financial situation | Main | The teaching/research trade-off --- never believed it! »

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But not too extreme... or is the reason why 3rd party candidates don't have appeal more to do with the perceived impossibility of their getting elected?

It may be that many maverick candidates challenge the wrong assumptions and fail to offer a coherently stated alternate policy.

Example, third parties are ham-strung by ballot access restrictions and voters are sympathetic to those candidates' plight. How many candidates advocate the abolition of barriers to the ballot? I mean zero barriers. No constitutionally qualified citizen can be denied a place on the ballot. Typically candidates ask only that some exceptions be carved out or barriers be reduced to some minimal threshold. The candidates rarely attack the concept of discriminatory state licensing of political candidates - which is what ballot access barriers like petitions and filing fees are.

Third party and independent candidates ought to subject the entire election system to a rigorous critique in their campaigns and present explicit changes.

This approach could build their credibility when they move to other defining other more obviously ideological issues.

I really liked:

Murase, Hideaki. The Peacock's Tail: Why Is An Extremist So Sexy? The Japanese Economic Review Vol. 55, No. 3, September 2004 < http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1468-5876.2004.00284.x/abs/>

Which seems like a related article.

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