With Donald Drumpf looking to be the nominee for the GOP, talk is already afoot about a third-party bid to prevent Drumpf from being the eventual president. The Huffington post had an article stating that Paul Ryan will choose the next president when a three-way race fails to see anyone receive a majority of the electoral votes.
While these are bold words, and some major political events will have to take place before that becomes a reality, it is at least fun to consider the possibilities for third party tickets. With that, here’s my all-star (or I guess you can say non-star) list of third party candidates I’d like to see run:
1. Team “If at first you don’t succeed…”
Some people are legitimately considering a Mitt Romney – Marco Rubio team to take the White House with support from the #NeverTrump movement. But this would literally be taking the age-old adage “if at first you do not succeed try, try again” just a little too far. Why would you pair together a previously-failed presidential candidate with another candidate who cannot even win his own home state?
But both of these men are favored by the Republican party establishment, and therefore they somehow factor into this conversation. But running a Romney, Rubio ticket would be a strange experiment in last-ditch politics and doing the same thing while expecting different results (read: insanity).
2. Team “Bad cop, good grandpa”
The 2016 primary race has enough characters to put together quite the list of humorous pairings. But a pairing that plays off of “bad cop, good cop” could see Ben Carson and Chris Christie uniting to save the day against Drumpf and his supporters.
In a way, this pairing does have its charm. Carson gives you the grandfatherly, academic tone that many supporters latched onto. And when Carson decides to take a nap, “bad cop” Christie is there to step in to shut down your bridge or talk about how he’ll sue you because he was an appointed U.S. attorney once.
But again, this pairing can be filed under the “we already tried that” list of candidates as destined to fail.
3. Team “Third Term Bern”
Yep that’s right, why don’t we pair Michelle Obama and Bernie Sanders together for a third party run? While this would certainly not accomplish the goal of stopping Drumpf, it would only increase Hillary Clinton’s chances of losing, it still is a fun prospect nonetheless.
And it wouldn’t necessarily be 100 percent out of the question. With Clinton running, Michelle Obama has been asked whether she will run for president. Her answer was no, but there are some out there who wish that Obama’s legacy could continue, and Michelle would be the only way to do that.
That, coupled with the fanatic support of Bernie Sanders’ campaign could get enough support behind this ticket for a third party shot, if his fans can’t tip him to the outright democratic nomination. While they would never get chosen by a Republican House in the event of no one winning a majority, it would at least make for a fun ride for all involved.
The sad part is that American politics has at least in part come to a punchline in this 2016 race. We have “the racist” Drumpf vs. “the felon” Hillary vs. the GOP establishment who are hell bent on keeping their own voters from deciding the nominee. It will be interesting to see what the punchline of this campaign is come November.
