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Support for Libertarian Gary Johnson continues to grow, according to the newest poll by NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist. The poll shows double-digit strength in both Virginia and Colorado. While Johnson has had an average national showing of 10 percent for several months (polling as high as 13 percent in one poll), the nature of a federal republic makes each state's results all that really matters. A double-digit showing in two hotly contested battleground states represents a huge impact on

third par·ty noun: a person or group besides the two primarily involved in a situation, especially a dispute. Almost since the beginning of the American Republic, voters have had a third choice. A party that wasn’t ruled by the power classes, the Democrats and Republicans. A party that truly felt of the people, by the people, and for the people. In today’s rough-and-tumble political climate, it can be argued that never before has the country needed a third choice for president more desperately

To date, seventeen Democratic State Conventions, one legislative district convention, and one county convention have voted to either abolish or reform superdelegates. Following frustration voiced by Bernie Sanders and his supporters, Maine was the first state to pass a resolution at their convention in early May, followed closely by Alaska.Delegates Awarded to Democratic Candidates | InsideGov Since then, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, We

With many voters disappointed with their choices for president in the presumptive nominees of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, many are considering alternative candidates. Thus far, the greatest beneficiary of this disappointment has been Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, who is consistently polling in double digits in three-way contests with Clinton and Trump. Johnson's growing popularity is alarming many conservatives, who fear that Johnson could play the role of "spoiler" by siphoni

Too often in American history, we romanticize about a past that never happened. One of these beliefs, that the Founding Fathers were a group of inexperienced politicians, is particularly damaging in modern politics when we consider placing inexperienced business leaders into positions of authority. Reality was that all of the Founding Fathers who eventually became president were very active in politics from a young age. For example, George Washington was active in the House of Burgesses, Virgi

Now that the major parties have all but decided who their nominees will be – with the official nominations coming this July – leaders in both parties are eager to unify their respective bases and discourage voters from considering independent and third party alternatives. Yet this task will prove especially difficult this election season, as the presumptive nominees, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, both have unfavorability ratings above 50 percent. Many members of both parties are dissatisfi

By sheer statistical coincidence, the percentage of Americans who self-identify as independents (approximately 40 percent) is nearly identical to the percentage of Americans who self-identify as moderates. This coincidence has nurtured a common misunderstanding: that independents are mostly moderates who want members of both parties to move toward the center. But a growing body of literature studying the precise political attitudes of the public – and especially moderates and independents – is

Let’s be clear here. Major-party primaries in the US are absurd. Parties in most countries select their nominees privately and pay for it on their own dime. That’s not surprising either considering that political parties are private organizations. In the US, however, parties do their primaries publicly. That may sound nice, but as private organizations, US parties get to make their own rules. These rules conveniently include who gets to vote and how those votes are counted. The benefits to ma

Faye Flam, who has written for Science Magazine and continues to write about science, mathematics, and medicine, recently explained in detail  a number of reasons why nature isn't as simple as some people believe, as exemplified by the contentious debate over transgender access to bathrooms. North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory has been attempting damage control after backlash from a bill requiring transgender people to use public bathrooms matching the gender on their birth certificate in schoo

The political commentator Michael Kinsley once quipped that in Washington, "the scandal isn't what's illegal, the scandal is what's legal." President Obama echoed this sentiment last week during his comments on the Panama Papers – the 11.5 million leaked files released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) that have disclosed how the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca set up shell companies to help wealthy individuals avoid paying domestic taxes. “There is no doub