The 2000 Election

The 2000 election started with many candidates.   Of course there was the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, but there where also many third party candidates with ballot status. Their was a Constitution Party, Liberation Party, Natural Law Party, Prohibition Party, Reform Party and many others. The purpose of all these third parties was to influence the major parties on issues they may be ignoring or forgetting.   These third parties usually focus their entire campaign on one issue.   Usually a major party will take an idea from these small parties and the small parties have achieved their goal.   There is usually one smaller party that will advance from the primaries and become a real candidate in the presidential election.
"The primaries are used in over half of the state's to choose the national party conventions.   Each candidate who enters the election lists a slate of delegates who have promised to support the candidate at the convention.   Party members show their choice for the presidential nomination by voting for the slate of delegates committed two that candidate.   Primaries that select about two-thirds of the delegates are held the first six months of presidential election years" (Robert Agranoff, "Primary Elections")
In the democratic primaries you need 2,170 delegates to win and 434 delegates left to be allocated.   Bradley had 425 and Gore had 30,470.   In the Republican Party primaries you need 1,034 delegates to win and at 542 the left to be allocated.   Bush had 1,288, Keyes had 2, McCain had 233 and 1 was uncommitted.   Once the primaries were over we knew it was all about Al Gore and George W. Bush, with Ralph Nader running independently.
"In the 1940's about 85 percent of U.S voters reported a loyalty to one of the 2 major parties.   Today only about half the voters described themselves as democrats all or republicans.   Also, many people vote for candidates of more than one party.   These changes show that many citizens vote on the basis of... [continues]

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