Concord Party

These people are trying to create a new political party. I'm interested enough to watch it and see where they go with certain issues, because while they're still debating their platforms, I can understand their initial reason for trying it - that they're fed up with both current parties.

Likely their positions on major issues will not be close enough to mine to matter in that way, but while they're still fleshing it out, it does lead me to wonder. How difficult would it be to actually start another party, once that would stand more chance than any current third party of your choice? I've long held that we need more than the two options we currently have (because until any third party candidate does well, we really only have two options). This could partly be changed by the way many people vote, but while we're at it, why not have at least one more major party?

The problem here - and anyone who has every talked to me about trying to make some sort of nation-wide change in any form knows what I am about to say - is the number of obstacles involved in getting real change in a nation this size. Money aside (and that's a big aside, but let's assume that if everything else works out, the people involved can pool together the money to fund it), I'd have to find enough people who agreed with me on the major positions. Enough people that the whole rest of the nation would take notice. There could be some leeway for debate on minor issues, if we all agreed they were minor issues, where I could live with the outcome either way. But life issues, environment issues, others that other people would consider larger items, would all have to meet with enough widespread agreement to become an actual competitor against the Republicans and Democrats. At this point we can come back to the problem of money, but let's just say that we'd need a lot of it and it isn't easy to get. The harder part would be the money involved in actually getting the idea out there to begin with, unless you count on word of mouth instead of any sort of advertising. It's easier with the internet but, with the number of sites out there, still involves "word of mouth" online. A continous series of people caring enough to link to it, agreeing with it, and caring enough to be informed about the matters and help in small or greater ways. I think I might be just insane enough to try someday, if I decided I needed to - but could I really make it work, or could anyone else? Will these people manage? Whether or not I end up agreeing with the positions they take, it is an interesting test to see if this can indeed be done. And if it can, who knows.. perhaps I'll make my bid next.

Now if they would just listen to my ideas on how the whole system should change to stop giving preference to the main party candidates, the whole issue could be avoided.. but that's a matter for a different time.