When I wasn’t looking, the Working Families Party seems to have actually become a semi-viable third party.

I remember back in the presidential election of 1976 when I had to choose between the Republican Gerald Ford and the Democrat Jimmy Carter, and I didn’t particularly like either one.

Well, actually I loathed Gerald Ford. I still can’t say for certain whether or not he and Tricky Dick entered into a Corrupt Bargain before Nixon picked Ford to replace the disgraced Spiro Agnew as his Vice-President, but I do know that Ford’s pardoning of Nixon set a terrible precedent that has ramifications to the present day, and I could never forgive him for it.

Meanwhile, though there were things that I genuinely liked about Carter, his wearing of his stupid Christianity on his sleeve really turned me off. I don’t mind what religion people practice in private (at least not too much), but I don’t think it belongs front and center in a presidential campaign. Bringing religion so prominently back to the political stage is something that I’ll never forgive Carter for.

But in the end, the Corrupt Bargain (whether real or not) overshadowed everything, and I cast my vote for Carter.

In 1980 I had a better choice. John Anderson had split off from the Republican Party and was running as an Independent. Four years of Carter had done nothing to endear him to me, and Reagan had so many minuses in his column, not least of which was his blatant appeal to racist voters, and his phony sunny nature, there was no way I was going to vote for him.

And I genuinely liked John Anderson and the policies that he espoused. 

Now if push had come to shove, and someone had asked which of Reagan and Carter I preferred, I would have said Carter. But I had looked at the polls and I was quite sure that Carter had no chance. I was also sure that if all the votes that were going to Anderson had gone to Carter instead, that was not enough for Carter to win. So I voted for Anderson. And in the event, the results for Pennsylvania were 49.59% for Reagan, 42.48% Carter, and 6.42% Anderson, so I felt that I was correct. Carter didn’t have a chance even without Anderson.

And that was my only third party protest vote.

Over the years there was a time when I thought that the Libertarian Party might have a home for me, but that was before I explored what they actually believe. Nope. No way. 

And there’s the Green Party, but while it sounds good in the abstract, in practice they seem to be a bunch of idiots.

In any case, ever since that supreme egotist Ralph Nader ran in the 2000 presidential election, and thus tipped the election to Junior Bush, I’ve pretty much soured on the idea of third parties and protest votes. Not when the Republican Party itself, ever since the ascendancy of Newt back in the early 90s changed the party from one that was genuinely interested in governing (however wrong-headed many of its policies night be) to one that only cared about winning, whatever the cost. The Republican Party itself is now Corrupt and has been for the past couple of decades.

So I pretty much stopped looking at third parties, although I did flirt with Bernie Sanders briefly during the Democratic primary a few years back.

Thus, I didn’t even look at the Working Families Party when I was deciding who to vote for in this recent election. And it appears that not only is that party something that I might find very congenial, but at least when it comes to the at-large City Council seats, it’s actually viable.

And for the first time in modern history, the Philadelphia City Council has no at-large Republican councilmembers.

Yippee ki yay [you know what comes next]!!!!!