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VAGUE
Third parties should back up proposals

Students who are heeding the advice to “make your voice heard” by voting are probably finding that the lower-profile third parties such as the Greens or Libertarians would fit their political needs better than the Republicans or Democrats.

That’s if third parties could articulate their policies better.

The Greens and Libertarians have some great ideas, but they can’t gain a foothold in U.S. politics because they propose buzz-words — not solutions.

The Green Party’s Web site states that it is committed to environmentalism, non-violence, social justice and grassroots organizing. This may sound good, but there aren’t any specific policies to go with these broad proposals.

For example, the Democratic candidate for Texas governor, Tony Sanchez, shows his support for Homeland Security by enunciating a five-point plan to detect and respond to terrorist threats to the state. By contrast, Green Party candidate Rahul Mahajan opposes it and says he would fight against “all manifestations of this assault on civil liberties, on democracy, and on people’s well-being that involve state policy in any way.”

That doesn’t tell us much about how he would achieve his objectives.

The Libertarian Party is similarly vague. The party claims to support “individual liberty and personal responsibility; a free-market economy of abundance and prosperity; and a foreign policy of non-intervention, peace and free trade.”

Third parties could gain more support if they marketed themselves better and were more pragmatic in applying their ideologies. Republicans and Democrats propose initiatives and bills, so why don’t third parties do the same? Only then would they gain the name-recognition they need to get votes.