What’s Up with the Other Candidates?

by: A.G. • November 17, 2008 

ELECTION ’08- News Feature

We all know about the Democrats and the Republicans, but did you know there are four other political parties that were part of this year’s election? Who are they and why aren’t they noticed, and why aren’t they as popular as the other two?

Well, it turns out that the other parties don’t get support from corporate America. It’s a “two-party system” so unfortunately the other parties are not recognized as much, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t learn about them!

Some of these “third parties” include the Green Party, the Reform, and the Libertarian. These are just a couple of them, there are many more you can learn about.

Probably one of the only times that there has been a third party candidate who was well recognized was back in 1992. His name was Henry Ross Perot. Who??

This was pretty epic because normally all people hear about is the Democratic and Republican parties. Perot was in the Independent party. President Bush (our current president’s father) was the Republican and Governor Bill Clinton was the Democrat.

Governor Clinton won the election and was the President until the year 2000.

Take a look at these websites and learn more about these third parties! Who knows, maybe you might find that you like what they believe in, and when you’re old enough to vote, these other parties will be more recognized.
Check out these links! (The websites below were also sources/resources for this story).

“Elections the American Way: Party System”
http://rs6.loc.gov/learn/features/election/partysys.html

“The American Presidency Project: Political Party Platforms”
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/platforms.php

“Wikipedia.org Entry: 1992 Presidential Election”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Perot#1992_presidential_candidacy
by Andrea Granera, 8th grade
Editor / THE LION LEDGER