Twelve years after third party candidate Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the 2000 election, a third-party candidate could be poised to cost Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney some crucial votes in Virginia, where the presidential election looks to be a virtual dead heat between Romney and President Barack Obama.
A virtually unknown presidential candidate in Virginia could derail Mitt Romney’s bid for president. But how rare is it for a third-party candidate to influence a race for president?Currently, Virgil Goode, a candidate running in Virginia, has about 9 percent of the projected vote in the upcoming November election, according to polling data.
With Mitt Romney needing Virginia—especially if President Barack Obama can take Ohio or Florida—Goode could become the little-known spoiler in the national election.
The former congressman has a strong enough following in rural Virginia to take votes away from Romney, and Goode has no plans to end his low-budget campaign.
Speaking with a TV station in Lynchburg, Goode said he wanted to take votes away from both candidates. He hopes to be added to a ballot in late August, as a Constitution Party candidate.
Duly noted, not likely to be a factor. Everyone knew Ralph Nader, Nobody Knows the Trouble this Guy can Cause, because nobody knows him.
If progressives, liberals, and plain Democrats give this any more than the passing notice it is getting right here and now, they might think him to be important. He is not.
Mr. Romney is, and ALL the attentions of Democrats needs to flow against him, not poor Virgil.
I might also mention that Mr. Romney, and Republicans everywhere are the Opposition, the Political Opposition, not the Enemy, or small-e enemy, either. This is an election between Americans with ideological differences, and nothing else. We may ascribe inferior motives to the oppositions’ points of view, but they are not the Enemy’s points.
Except if and when they deliberately sabotage the economy to avoid having improved economic conditions on the Dem’s watch, like lately. This is unpatriotic, and is a strategy that does help the Enemies of America, whoever they are. Probably the enemy owns a lot of US Treasury bonds or trades with us, or sells us oil, or cheap clothes, or fabric softener, or ping-pong paddles.
MBB
He’s a former congressman from Virginia who represented the southern, Appalachian part of the state that hates Obama, but doesn’t really trust Romney. So yeah, the older people he represented in Congress DO know him, and if they vote for him instead of Romney, that could definitely tip Virginia to Obama.
You’re probably right that he won’t have much influence in other states besides Virginia. So, even though he’s on the ballot here in Wisconsin, he probably won’t gain that much of a following.
The real crimes in that election happened in Florida. The rigging of the ballots and voter lists by the state of Florida was central to rigging the election. Black people scrubbed from voter lists just in the nick of time to prevent them from voting for Gore, incomprehensible ballots where a vote for Gore became a vote for Patrick Buchanan. It added just enough confusion at the start that the legal battles and “Brooks Brothers riots” outside the recount centers, and everything up to the fateful U.S. Supreme Court Bush v. Gore decision so thoroughly clouded the issues that Bush was put in power.
And everything’s been fine since then!
@ Jason Haas- Florida and Ohio. Remember Mike Connell?
After the voter suppression in Pennsylvania, http://www.sacbee.com/2012/08/15/4729138/pennsylvania-supreme-court-must.html
go Virgil!
Please….The Scalia-Thomas bully US Supreme Court undemocratically stopped the full state vote recount decreed by the Florida Supreme Court cost the election not a Progressive liberal third party candidate.
I think jason Haas was being facetious. But, Mike Connell went to his grave in someone’s back yard before we knew if he was going to be a patriotic American or just another perjure himself. and Kenneth Blackwell, has been paid for his crimes in office with a cushy Republican think (really a misnomer) tank.
FORMER Congressman VIRGIL GOODE would be the ONLY real choice for President.
Since RON PAUL is out of the race now, that leaves Virgil Goode as “PLAN – B “.
Any vote for Romney (aka: Romneycare, aka: Obamney) or Obama, is truly a WASTED VOTE.
Virgil Goode is the ONLY military veteran in the
race. He deserves consideration from other
veterans organizations. Many voters -
Ron Paulers, independents, disgruntled Dems and GOP members etc., will vote for Virg,
with their ONE PRECIOUS VOTE.
Just recently, the National Veterans Coalition
( http://www.nvets.org ) awarded Virgil Goode the
AMERICA FIRST award.
Not all of us are drinking the GOP koolade
and we refuse to accept ANY snake oil from
the republicrats.
Larry Breazeale, Msgt., USAF (ret.)
Vietnam/Desert Storm veteran,
Deputy Sheriff LASD (ret.)
National Veterans Coalition
http://www.nvets.org