The Ron Paul Re-Love-Ution dodged a big bullet last night. Maybe literally. With President Barack Obama winning re-election so handily – he’s above 50 percent with the vote tallies in most swing states – Paul’s supporters have narrowly avoided being lumped in history with some of America’s worst third party blunderers.For those who didn’t get the poorly xeroxed memo, there are plenty of Ron Paul supporters who are still good and pissed that their guy lost the GOP primary. Rather than make common cause with Mitt Romney, they decided their principles were more precious than winning an election. And since Paul himself wasn’t willing to lead an independent insurrection, his supporters turned instead to professional crowd surfer Gary Johnson.And as far as Libertarian candidates go, Johnson is doing pretty well doubling or tripling the totals of his predecessor from 2008. In swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Iowa he’s got just under 1 percent of the vote. In New Mexico he’s getting 3.5 percent.Had Obama’s victory been a hair closer last night in a handful of states, it would be fair to compare Johnson (ne Paul) supporters to the Ralph Naderites of the 2000 election. Instead the Re-Love-ution lives on. Get ready for Rand Paul 2016.The Worst Third Party Blunders in Presidential PoliticsRalph Nader 2000: Nader has perennial been a marginal candidate, hovering at or below single digits. But he was popular with college kids and leftwing idealists who refused to sacrifice principle for party. The Green Party candidate and consumer protection advocate was able to siphon away enough votes in swing states (he got 2.7 percent nationally) to cost Al Gore the election.H. Ross Perot 1992: There was a time in the summer of 1992 when Perot actually had a chance of winning this race, with his combination of folksy humor, graphs and a one-two punch of opposing NAFTA and federal deficits. That was before he went ape-shit crazy, dropped out of the race, re-entered it and started talking about Republican operatives crashing his daughter’s wedding. 19 percent of Americans still voted for him.George Wallace 1968: Wallace represented wing of the Democratic Pary in favor of segregation, Jim Crow and the Vietnam War. Far from just being a “Southern Democrat”, Wallace appealed to young men, union and blue-collar workers in the North and Midwest. After losing the Democrat primary to Hubert Humphrey, Wallace formed the American Independent Party, with the notion that he could act as a power-broker by splitting the electoral college vote. Instead, he split off 5 southern states and 10 million which allowed Richard Nixon to win the race.Strom Thurmond 1948: Thurmond led a revolt of Southern Democrats (Dixiecrats) during the DNC Convention after President Harry Truman introduced civil rights language into the party’s normally pro-segregation platform. The goal was to the force election to be decided in the House of Representatives. Thurmond won four southern states, but Truman still beat Dewey.Theodore Roosevelt 1912:
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