It takes 14 to Tango

Luke

The BBC have done a sterling job of summarising the policies of the two US presidential candidates.

There are twelve others that no one seems to mention. They haven't got a cat in hells chance of getting in though. I couldn’t find a betting agency that had the good will to bother advertising the odds of ‘The Outsiders'.

The shortest odds I managed to find this side of the pond were 200-1.

If there were a horse race with those odds for third place, the sport wouldn’t last very long. But then, horse racing isn’t backed up by a 200 year-old constitution.

In case you were wondering who else has thrown their hat into the draw, here’s the alternatives…

The four main outsiders are…

Ralph Nader - Independent
One man definitely not on Al Gore's Christmas card list. Some think that Nader cost that film-making, Nobel prize-winning, Internet-inventing, carbon-crunching Democrat the election back in 2000.

Gore needed just 543 votes to beat G 'Dubya' Bush in Florida and take the election. So, the story goes that, had Nader not run for the Greens, then most of his 97,000 or so votes would have gone to Swampy instead.

He's running again this election as an independent and will fail to get anywhere. Still, he might ruin Obama's chances yet.

According to Ralph, America needs to break the addiction to fossil fuel, create an environmentally friendly energy policy, crackdown on corporate crime, reform tax laws to favour the poorer, improve public health, create more jobs and remove media bias …better put the kettle on.

Bob Barr from the Libertarian Party
He says..."Every area of federal spending can and should be cut. Entitlements must be reformed and welfare should be cut". Fair enough, Bob.

Chuck Baldwin from the Constitution Party
Well, it looks like David Cameron is going to win the next election here in the UK. If he had the balls to make a video like this he’d get in on production value alone.



I want him to become the next leader of the free world, and make a video blog about it. He asks "Are you an American or a Globalist?"" I think the events of the last few weeks have answered that one, Chuck.

Cynthia McKinney - Green Party
She's one of those crazy people who actually believes the world is getting warmer.
The Greens have firm policies in mind and want a repeal of the Patriot Act. They are also looking at issues like reparations for ancestors of slaves, as well as higher welfare spending, full employment, electoral reform and would focus foreign policy on aid.
They’ll be delivering more food and less soldiers to foreign lands. No one really cares though, which is a shame because the Greens probably have the most concrete mandate of any of the parties.



Pick of the rest…

Gene Amondson- Prohibition Party
This guy is amazing. OK, he’s only really campaigning on one issue but check out his video...



Charles Jay- Boston Tea Party
The great thing about Americans is that they rarely mix their words. This is what the Boston Tea Party want...
"The Boston Tea Party supports reducing the size, scope and power of government at all levels and on all issues, and opposes increasing the size, scope and power of government at any level, for any purpose". 'Nuff said.

Thomas Stevens- Objectivist Party
They’re taking a slightly more cerebral approach to the whole thing, I don’t really think anyone will understand what the hell they’re on about though….

And who said the American political system was unrepresentative? (scoff, scoff).