Third Party and Independent Daily discontinued

Unfortunately, this news blog has become inactive and I have been unable to get in touch with the Owner/Administrator in order to redo, or simply close it.
Therefore, anyone who ventures on here should be informed that this blog is now defunct and non-operational.

New Contributor

We have a new contributor here at Third Party and Independent Daily: Tiradefaction.  Tiradefaction is a regular commenter at Independent Political Report, Poli-Tea and other sites devoted to third party and independent political activism and advocacy, and is probably already familiar to many readers who peruse those forums as well.  Welcome aboard! 

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, folks.  Third Party and Independent Daily launched one year ago today.  Thanks to all our contributors and readers! 

New Contributor

As you might have noticed, there is another new contributor here at Third Party and Independent Daily, David L. Wetzell.  Dave maintains the blog A New Kind of Third Party, where he writes in support of strategic election reform.  In his most recent post there, he elaborates on the idea and concludes:

I simply don't buy any of the other solutions being proffered right now for the US's problems. The only way forward is to subvert the disastrously cut-throat rivalry between the two major parties that stems from the tendency of the US's political system to tilt to effective single-party rule . . . 

In his first post here at TPID, Dave provided an introduction to his ideas about how best to achieve that end, namely, by incorporating winner-doesn't-take-all elections into our existing US electoral system.  He'll be posting under the handle DLW.  Welcome aboard Dave!

2010 Elections Wrap-Up

The 2010 elections were a mixed bag for the third party and independent political movement.  Public discontent with the Democratic and Republican parties undoubtedly raised the profiles of third party and independent candidates for office across the country and at all levels of government.  Yet, that discontent did not translate into deep and widespread support for third party and independent alternatives to the false choice offered by the Democratic and Republican parties.  At the same time, however, there were quite a few notable successes:

• Rhode Island elected its first Independent governor, Lincoln Chafee.  
• In Maine, Eliot Cutler further demonstrated the viability of Independent politics, besting his Democratic rival for second place in a contest which the Independent ultimately lost by only a few percentage points. 
• In Colorado, Tom Tancredo's late entrance into the gubernatorial race significantly raised the national profile of the Constitution Party, and demonstrated the viability of third party politics, besting his Republican rival for second place in the race.
• Third parties gained or retained ballot access in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, and Wisconsin.  See this preliminary report at Ballot Access News.
• The Vermont Progressive Party has likely won seven seats to the state legislature.  
• Over 1,000,000 votes were cast for Libertarian candidates for US House across the country.
• Green Party candidates won a number of elections for local offices across the country. 
• Candidates of the Independent American Party of Nevada won four races for local offices.

I launched Third Party and Independent Daily at the beginning of this year in the expectation that 2010 would be an historic year for third party and independent politics in the United States.  And, as numerous studies have shown, it was.  But we still have a long way to go.

As a final note, I'd like to thank all of TPID's contributors for their many posts over the course of the year.  Be sure to check out their respective sites linked in the sidebar if you haven't already!  I would also like to thank the numerous candidates who took the time to respond to requests for comments or  interviews, including Dan La Botz, Eliot Cutler, Jake Towne, Daniel Reale, Jaimes Brown, and Darcy Richardson.  And, of course, many thanks to TPID's friends and readers across the country and throughout the third party and independent blogosphere!

New Contributor

As you may have noticed, there is a new contributor here at TPID, Solomon Kleinsmith.  Solomon is an independent advocate of moderate centrism and maintains the website Rise of the Center.  From the mission statement there:

A cursory view of support of the two party system over the last few decades shows a steady move away from the two parties, as they have become more controlled by narrow special interests and have moved farther away from the majority of Americans who stand in the center of the political spectrum. But it wasn’t until more recently that those who consider themselves unrepresented, or underrepresented, began to coalesce into a political force . . .

Voices of moderation are gaining a following in the political blogosphere, new thought leaders are bubbling up amongst the ranks of columnists and authors, and independent faces are showing up on television news. Perhaps the most telling that this groundswell is nearing a potential breakthrough into a full fledged movement is the increasing numbers of viable candidates running for offices, up and down the ballot, across the country.

Here at Rise of the Center, we’ll cover all of these things, show the partisan hacks that middle is anything but mushy and to encourage community among the centrist, moderate and independent thinking electorate.

Here at TPID, Solomon will be sharing posts from Rise of the Center and help keep an eye on the moderate movement.  Thanks for coming aboard, Solomon.

We're Now on Twitter!

Over the long weekend, I finally set up a Twitter account for Third Party and Independent Daily.  You can now follow us @thirdpartydaily!  All TPID headlines will now also now appear as individual tweets on our Twitter feed with a link back to the relevant post.

New Contributor

I'm pleased to welcome yet another new contributor to Third Party and Independent Daily.  Paulie has been a life member of the Libertarian Party since 2000 and is active in Libertarian ventures and causes across the country.  Perhaps you are already familiar with Paulie from his extensive contributions to IPR or any number of other sites devoted to third party and independent politics.  Though Paulie is at home in the Libertarian Party, he's also a close and keen observer of third party and independent politics across the board.  Welcome! 

New Contributor

As you might have noticed, there's a new contributor here at TPID. I'd like to welcome Cody Quirk on board. Cody is a member of the Independent American Party, the Nevada affiliate of the Constitution Party. He'll be covering Constitution Party news and views here at TPID. He's also launched a new blog this month, The Nevada Statesman.

New Site: Third Party and Independent Daily Headlines

Since the launch of Third Party and Independent Daily on January 1st and the creation of its individual news pages sections over the last few months, I have continued to experiment a bit with the resulting functionality, and am pleased to announce the creation of Third Party and Independent Daily Headlines! The site brings together feeds from TP&ID's news pages with those from Poli-Tea as well as other sites in the third party and independent blogosphere, providing what might be the most comprehensive overview of today's third party and independent political news on the web. Give it a look and let me know what you think if you're so inclined. Also, if you are interested in becoming a contributor to TPID, don't hesitate to send an email.

[Cross-posted from Poli-Tea.]

Third Party and Independent Daily's News Pages

Third Party and Independent Daily's News Pages (in the left sidebar) are shared Google Reader pages aggregating news and blog items from across the political web.  Each page synthesizes at least three feeds: a news search, a blog search and, when possible, at least one authoritative source on the given topic.

• The Constitution Party page integrates news and blog searches for 'Constitution Party,' as well as feeds from the party's discussion forum and Twitter page.

• The Green Party page integrates news and blog searches for 'Green Party' as well as feeds from the Green Party's press page and Green Party Watch.

• The Independents page aggregates news and blog searches for the terms "independent voter" and "independent candidate."

• The Libertarian Party page integrates news and blog searches for 'Libertarian Party' as well as a feed from the Libertarian Party blog.

• The Modern Whig Party page integrates news and blog searches for 'Modern Whig Party' as well as feeds from the party's official blog and Twitter page.

• The Pirate Party page integrates news and blog searches for 'Pirate Party' as well as the feed from the party's official blog.

• The Socialist Party page integrates news and blog searches for 'Socialist Party USA' as well as the feed from The Socialist Webzine.