I learned a couple of things yesterday:
1. Larry King is still alive –
King at the 2010 Emmys.
2. He’ll be hosting the Third Party Presidential Candidate Debate on October 23rd.
3. There’s a bunch of people running under third party tickets for president this year.
I guess I haven’t really thought about the whole third party thing this year. Usually in the last couple of decades there’s been a prominent third party candidate that gets national attention, is the butt of some jokes and is accused of being a spoiler for the losing party. First it was Ross Perot, then it was Ralph Nader and after that Ron Paul in 2008. I thought he would have kept carrying the torch this year but he’s been pretty quiet since losing the republican nomination –
Ron Paul posing at a campaign stop in 2011.
So there’s no big 3rd party contender this year to snatch up 2% of the vote but there’s still plenty of people running under endorsements from all sorts of crazy parties! Let’s get to meet them!
Gary Johnson
Not Ron Paul
Party: Libertarian.
Position: As former Governor of New Mexico, he cut taxes and spending and blah blah blah.
Weed?: Legalize it.
Chances of winning: Zip.
Jill Stein
Not Ralph Nader
Party: Green.
Position: Buncha hippie shit.
Weed?: Legalize it.
Chances of winning: As somebody who lost in campaigns for Mass. House, Secretary of Commonwealth and two nonconsecutive losing Gubernatorial campaigns, Jill has a real strong advantage of taking her experience in losing elections and bringing it to the national stage. She’s really going to lose this one hard.
Virgil Goode
Not Pat Buchanan.
Party: Constitution.
Position: Muslims=Bad. Seriously. Dude sent out a letter to his constituents when he was a Congressman about Keith Ellison swearing in on a Koran. “When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.”
Weed?: Unsure but he hangs with libertarians so he’d probably legalize it.
Chances of winning: Zilch.
Rocky Anderson
Not Green Lantern.
Party: Justice.
Wait, like the Justice League?: I fucking wish.
Position: Occupy Wall Street.
Weed?: Legalize it, duh.
Chances of winning: Zero.
There you have it! These four patriots will face off in a debate and it can be seen exlusively on ora.tv! Tune in on October 23rd where I’m sure Larry King will start every question with “Okay, let’s just pretend for a moment that you have a chance of winning. Now…”
Honestly, I hope they just spend the entire debate all talking about how they think weed is totally awesome.