Donald K. Allen for President

Top of the Week

Monday, March 17, 2008

My wife was listening to Bill O’Reilly on Sirius radio last week when he said that we only have three candidates for president. Unlike Lou Dobbs, Tom Sullivan and several other commentators and talk show hosts, who believe in the possibility of a third party or independent, Mr. O’Reilly seems to have shut that door. This is exactly what our two-party system and the liberal media that supports it wants. They shouldn’t offer you any other choices, or the parties might fail in their mission to control our government.

Well, look at what our faithful party members have done and not done. Has President Bush secured our southern border? Did the Democratic Congress stop, or even slow down, earmarks? They signed onto NAFTA and Most Favored Nation status for China. Factories and jobs shutting down here and moving south and far, far east. That was no real help for our economy, but it has sure spurred the economies of these “partners.”

Political parties, as we know them, did not exist when our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, and the requirements for becoming president were simple: 35 years old, natural born citizen, and living in this country for the previous 14 years. When parties were formed the candidates they supported were expected to follow the tenets, doctrines, and goals of the party. The party actually became more important than the candidate, and we the people were third in line.

The parties would rather you not look for a third choice. At the very least, votes for a third candidate might dilute a party candidate’s vote total enough for them to lose to the opposition. That would be a “spoiler.” Worst case scenario for both parties would be for an independent to win this election. There would be no patronage jobs to reward the faithful, no Cabinet positions for the candidates who washed out of the primaries even though they spent millions of dollars. There would be a lot of disappointed Republicans and Democrats who were counting on good new jobs after the inauguration.

So why shouldn’t an independent, unaffiliated man like myself run for president to restore true independence to our country and government? You need only read Edmund Burke’s statement at the top of this page.