The third-party candidate who could derail Mitt Romney

[morningfog]

A virtually unknown presidential candidate in Virginia could derail Mitt Romney’s bid for president. But how rare is it for a third-party candidate to influence a race for president?

Currently, Virgil Goode, a candidate running in Virginia, has about 9 percent of the projected vote in the upcoming November election, according to polling data.

With Mitt Romney needing Virginia—especially if President Barack Obama can take Ohio or Florida—Goode could become the little-known spoiler in the national election.

The former congressman has a strong enough following in rural Virginia to take votes away from Romney, and Goode has no plans to end his low-budget campaign.

http://news.yahoo.com/third-party-candidates-affected-presidential-history-101803297.html

[Bucky]

1. What a perfect name! "Hah, Ah'm Vurj'l Guud an' Ah repazint th' daysent folk."

The Teaholics will lap it up. Can I start a petition to put him on the ballot in Texas?

[Eksess]

2. How rare is it?

It can't be that rare, at least in my life-time. Ross Perot and Ralph Nader are 2 of the bigger names who had HUGE impacts on Presidential races. Especially considering that a good chunk of the votes they got were scavenged mostly from 1 of the 2 mainstream candidates, basically weakening the voter turnout for the mainstream candidate most like them.

[denverbill]

3. Frankly, I don't understand why pro-Obama PACs don't finance ads for these guys in swing states.

Most conservatives really don't care much for Rmoney. Get a handful of teabaggers to vote Libertarian or Constitution Party and it makes it a lot easier. I think it'd be worth spending $1 million or so in each swing state for ads for Constitution Party candidates, calling Romney an Obama-clone socialist. They can go nuts with the same attacks against Romney that pro-Obama PACs use and deflect the blame for the ads from Obama at the same time.

[Cappadonna]

4. RE : Frankly, I don't understand why pro-Obama PACs don't finance ads for these guys in swing states

Most conservatives really don't care much for Rmoney. Get a handful of teabaggers to vote Libertarian or Constitution Party and it makes it a lot easier.

The Obama campaign aren't afraid to hit hard - but they pretty much hate to fight dirty. And honestly, it would straight dirty pool for a Pro-Obama campaign to boost Gary Johnson or Virgil Goode just to troll Mitt Romney's chances. Also, the press would be all over that man like "white on rice" as they say in the south for pulling the same stunt Team Bush did back in '04 against John Kerry using the Naderites in swing states as spoilers.