What If Hillary Clinton Ran as a Third Party Candidate?

Gotterdammerung for the Democrats?

Since the recent primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, the punditry and much of the Democratic Party has been writing off Hillary Clinton. However, if all else fails, she has one option left to her to keep hope alive. That option is to run on a third party ticket.

Crazy? Impossible? Perhaps, but such a move would fit Hillary Clinton's personality. 

The objection that running as a third party candidate would damage the Democratic Party would not impress Hillary Clinton. Neither Hillary nor for that matter Bill Clinton have been particularly loyal party people. For them the Democratic Party exists solely as a mechanism for their relentless, single minded pursuit of power. If the Democrats reject her as their nominee for President, the usefulness of the Democratic Party for that purpose would be at an end.

Hillary Clinton would also have the example of Teddy Roosevelt who, having failed to wrest the Republican nomination from Howard Taft, ran as a third party "Bull Moose" ticket in 1912. Roosevelt did not win the Presidency, but he ran second behind Woodrow Wilson, leaving the hapless Taft to run third. Roosevelt is still remembered as a great American statesman.

Hillary Clinton's enemies within the Democratic Party would point out that her running as a third party candidate would essentially ensure the election of John McCain. Hillary Clinton would reply, that it is possible, but so is running Barack Obama as a Democratic candidate. Hillary Clinton can point to polls that show that she runs better against McCain than does Obama. Obama only attracts "African Americans and egg heads," suggested Clinton advisor Paul Begala. If the Democrats choose Obama, an obvious loser as their candidate, then that is their look out.