Dave Adams is pointing to a tactic similar to the one I inadvertently stumbled upon earlier in the week. It seems that the DCCC and Democrats across the country, are busily attacking third party candidates in their races as dangerous tea party conservatives. This obviously raises the profile of the third party candidate, and, if the plan works out, draws enough die-hards over to the candidate to split the vote sufficiently to allow the Democrat to come out on top.
I’d put this in the category of a dirty trick, but if it works, I can promise you’ll see more of it, on both sides.
To the best of my knowledge, this tactic is not new; indeed, I remember speculation that Bill Clinton privately encouraged Ross Perot to run against him, so that he could get the majority.
I would propose, though, that “viable” third-party candidates are the result of one of the two candidates failing to be a proper representative, either of ideals of a given party, or of the people themselves. (Here, I use “viable” to mean “able to attract a good portion of the voters.)
I would also add that such a tactic, while it may work, can also backfire: people who would otherwise support a given Democrat, but discover that he thinks Constitutional Restraints are out-dated, may decide “I’m not voting for this guy!” and thus lose votes. It may even cause further problems if these people say “I’ll vote for the person who will most likely to win, too!”.
Here in the CO4 I’ve received over a half a dozen of these. Too Extreme for Colorado. All from the DCCC. The ones I’ve received that I find interesting are those with a custom web page for me to go to. It’s also interesting as I don’t know who they’re from.