JIm FUlner reviewed A reason to vote by Roth, Robert
4 stars
This book is more than it looks like. The Reason to vote mentioned in this book is the existence of "the newest and fasted growing party in America, the natural law party". The National Natural Law Party has ceased to exist for almost a decade now, yet this book is still relevant. In some ways more so. Roth does a great job showing what value third parties have had, and continue to have, even in our first past the poll system. Most of the larges changes in the history of our nations politics have been ideas first brought to the for-front by third parties. He shows how difficult it is to get your ideas out as a third party when most of the time is spent simply trying to retain ballot status. It also shows in great detail, with hindsight, WHY the Natural Law Party no longer exists. Even though …
This book is more than it looks like. The Reason to vote mentioned in this book is the existence of "the newest and fasted growing party in America, the natural law party". The National Natural Law Party has ceased to exist for almost a decade now, yet this book is still relevant. In some ways more so. Roth does a great job showing what value third parties have had, and continue to have, even in our first past the poll system. Most of the larges changes in the history of our nations politics have been ideas first brought to the for-front by third parties. He shows how difficult it is to get your ideas out as a third party when most of the time is spent simply trying to retain ballot status. It also shows in great detail, with hindsight, WHY the Natural Law Party no longer exists. Even though Roth explains the value of a third party as a third party in his early chapters, in his later chapters he shows the high ideals of the party and their truly deep thickheaded idea that they will become a major party, likely replacing one of the two old parties if they can't get a proportional representation past. This lofty goal is likely what caused them to fold. If you keep telling your supporters that you soon will be the mainstream, and some of their ideas now are, but you are stuck perpetually ending in 4th or lower position in the polls, your going to loose support. Now 14 years after this book was realized, only Michigan still has the NLP on the ballot. A book worth reading, some ideas worth considering, including at least the presentation of some I will include in my campaign for U.S. Senate. I recommend the read.