I have never heard a winning candidate stand up on election

night and say the voters who stayed home have spoken and I need change my policies to attract them. Now if polling shows and issue will help them turn out more voters going forward they may change / take on that issue but that is different.

I get the idea of third party as a message. Of course I doubt anyone agrees in total with any party so what is the message. As an example I think many former small government Republicans are attracted to the Libertarian Party due to its promotion of small government and individual liberties. My guess is many of those same folks do not support abortion rights, or decriminalization of drugs / prositution. Looking at their platform they have the following statement

"In every matter, we advocate the consistent application of the principle of the non-initiation of coercion, physical force, or fraud. Our silence about any other particular government law, regulation, ordinance, directive, edict, control, regulatory agency, activity, or machination should not be construed to imply approval."

Taken literally this would prohibit the police form lying to a suspect to elicit a confession. I suspect many of the former Republicans on this Board would not like taking away the right of police to do that.

My final comment is despite the rise in the number of self identifying independents I dont see any thing to indicate a change in the research that most independents strongly lead one way or the other. I think many people like the attraction of a third party when they dont like the candidate from their "traditional" party. If you really want to send a message then by all means get involved in a third party but only voting for that party when you dont like the candidate will not change anything.