Tea Parties must be willing to vote third party

By Kevin Litten

As the Tax Day protests developed this week, let me review why the Tea Parties are here and where the movement is heading.

There is no central control. There are many Tea Party groups, each with a different motivation. They are not an actual political party as they don't run candidates.

Tea Parties hope to influence politicians without being involved in an actual political party. Their overall goal is to reboot government so that it reduces its size and corruption, out-of-control spending, unsustainable deficits, bloated government employee compensation and pensions, the cost of wars, and taxation without representation.

No major political party embraces their issues. If that offends any members of the Democratic or Republican parties, send me a list of your party's recent accomplishments to prove I'm wrong.

So why are Tea Parties forming? More voters don't belong to political parties. Most Americans don't even bother to vote. It is not that Americans are apathetic. A better answer might be that the choices the major parties provide are so awful, most voters stay home on Election Day. If they don't vote, no one can blame them for legitimizing a corrupt system.

Unfortunately, as more voters leave political parties, those that stay behind cause their parties to become more polarized. A small minority of party members select the candidates we vote on.

Some people believe the Tea Party movement should become a political party. If that happened, its candidates would need to address the entire range of issues. Most people just don't have the stomach for it as you can see by looking at how few people actually run the major parties.

The Tea Party movement's issues also could be absorbed by one or more of the major parties - “politics as usual.”

To have any influence, voters in the movement must be willing to vote against whoever opposes them. In many elections, that will mean voting third party. If third parties become a power in America, our nation could adopt instant runoff voting. It would be like having free market elections. The better candidates would rise to the top regardless of political affiliation. I believe a major third party would be a good thing for Americans.

If Tea Parties fade away, its highly motivated members will carry on their struggle.

If Tea Parties become big enough to upset the balance of power, politics as we know it will never be the same. I believe Tea Parties are changing America's political landscape for the better.

Kevin Litten of Cedar Rapids was the Libertarian candidate for Iowa governor in 2006 and is a founding member of the local Tea Party group, www.crteaparty.org