Strategic Blueprint for a Centrist Third-Party Presidential Candidate

start out in striking distance in any three-way poll against Trump and a fill-in-the-blank Democratic flavor-of-the day candidate. The media and political class will predetermine irrelevance otherwise. A Democrat-leaning candidate would have to top the ideal third-party ticket. We need someone with a shot at snaking a plurality of the vote in the blue states Hillary Clinton won (227 electoral votes), but moderate enough to win a plurality in some combination of Trump states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan (another 119 votes). The right candidate may even to put North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana in play for a centrist bi-partisan ticket as well (totaling an electoral sweep of 464 elector votes). A right leaning candidate would meet the same fate as a primary challenger to Trump — for all intents and purposes we need to assume that 36% of voters won’t be cleaved from Trump under any circumstances and run to win around them. The deep red states would be off the table entirely. With the Trump reality show airing daily, voters are now expecting to take their politics with a side of entertainment. Heretofore, ratings will matter no matter how dry the policy topic. Surely Stephen Colbert would gladly sacrifice his executive producer Chris Licht to produce a daily comedic segment of this dream candidate interviewing Americans in truck stops and McDonald’s across the country. A few of the “Saturday Night Live” script writers could certainly be enticed to disguise serious debates as informative amusement. Any candidate must be committed to a near daily cadence of high quality, compelling video production. It will be especially crucial to keep the voters’ attention during what will be a raucous Democratic primary season. Rules governing access to the general election debate stage dictate that a candidate enjoy support of at least 15% of voters in the months leading up to the general election. This dream candidate would pledge to serve only four years and address all of the U.S.’s ticking time bombs like Social Security, Medicare, health care reform, climate change, money in politics, gerrymandering, and infrastructure investment in a single term. This one-and-done term decouples our candidate from the usual politics and gives them the power of promise and deliver decisive action. A four-year term pledge ensures governance independent of campaign finance concerns and HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_026501