The UK under Labour avoided few of the indignities that America suffered under Bush and Cheney, so it doesn’t surprise me at all to see they have slipped into third-place in the polls. The Tories will be the main beneficiaries but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to punish Labour for poor financial regulation and senseless warmongering by moving to the right. Therefore, we can expect to see the Liberal Democrats get a major boost.
We don’t have a three-party system here. With the Democrats ascendent, the left in this country is a very broad coalition stretching far into the middle. Unhappy lefties have nowhere to go and are unlikely to rally around an independent candidate. But the right is another story. Without a single Republican representative from New England, there is a huge need for an alternative ideology to the southern-driven contemporary GOP. However, I don’t think a Ron Paul independent candidacy fits the bill. A more likely model is John B. Anderson, who launched a very credible independent candidacy in 1980.
There isn’t much of a bench in the GOP for such a candidate today. But imagine what would happen if Olympia Snowe decided to run for president as an independent. A business-friendly, pro-environment, pro-choice, Republican in the Nelson Rockefeller mode (and a woman from New England, as well) would certainly attract an interesting bisection of the national electorate.
One interesting thing to watch for would be whether Republican candidates for office in New England and northern/coastal suburbs would endorse Snowe or whomever (Huckabee, Romney, Jindal, Pawlenty) the Republicans nominate.
I think such a candidacy would do a lot more to divide the Republican Party than a Ron Paul campaign. It would put some cleavages in the Democrats’ coalition, too, with a not-insignificant number of women and tax-averse moderates lining up to make a statement. I think the overall effect would be positive.
Ron Paul, on the other hand, would have the potential for a bit of Perot-effect, where, for example, states like Montana suddenly become ripe-fruit for the Obama reelection campaign. It’s likely that Paul’s campaign would become a repository for some of the crazier fringe that has infected the GOP, but that would probably benefit Republicans down-ticket who would get a boost in turnout.
However you slice it, I’d be surprised if we don’t see a major third-party candidacy from the right (maybe more than one) in the 2012 election. The Republicans in Washington are making no moves to the center, and they cannot wage a serious run at the Electoral College with the cast of misfits they have now battling each other to be the most ideologically pure. The last time we had a truly lost cause presidential race was 1996, when Bob Dole never got any traction whatsoever. That was still the era of Perot’s Reform Party. I expect to see a new iteration in 2012. It will be different, but I can’t imagine that no one will step up to make a run at changing the nature of the Republican Party by splintering their shrinking coalition.