Here's why advocating third party votes for president annoys me.

[Jim Lane]

87. You left out the best argument against third parties

The best argument is: primaries.

If you have the votes to elect someone on the Green Party line or the Justice Party line or whatever, then you have the votes to enter and win the Democratic primary and then win the general election as a Democrat -- even if a lot of the established Democratic officeholders dislike you and try to stop you.

It doesn't work the other way, though. There are millions of voters who have long-established loyalty to the Democratic Party and who will generally vote Democratic unless they see a good reason not to. Therefore, there are many elections where a progressive would win as a Democrat but would lose as a third-party candidate.

The Progressive Party didn't have the luxury of working through primaries. In 1912, Roosevelt couldn't win the Republican nomination because the convention was under the control of the party establishment, which favored Taft. Today, the Democratic Party establishment has no such stranglehold on the process. About 80% of the convention delegates are chosen in primaries or caucuses, and even the superdelegates can be challenged in primaries, albeit in earlier years. Democratic Party candidates for other offices are also chosen by the voters, not the hierarchs.

The third-party route provides the ego satisfaction of being a candidate in the general election without having to do all that hard work of persuading large numbers of people to vote for you. There's no long-term success in it, though.