How badly do we need a viable third party?

[redneckgaijin]

Louie Gohmert thinks there's a Muslim conspiracy to send pregnant women to America, induce labor so that the child is legally a US citizen, and then return to their home countries to raise the child to become a jihadi with an American passport.

Louie Gohmert was the first Republican elected in his area since Reconstruction. (His area being northeast Texas- Tyler, Longview, Marshall.)

And in the 2010 election, he has no Democratic opponent. Indeed, his two opponents- a Libertarian and an independent tea-party candidate- are to Gohmert's RIGHT on almost every issue.

And he's not alone.

U. S. House of Representatives races, according to Politics1.com:

DEMOCRATS RUNNING COMPLETELY UNOPPOSED- 2 (states: New York)

DEMOCRATS RUNNING WITH ONLY FRINGE PARTY OPPOSITION- 5 (states: California, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, Washington)

REPUBLICANS RUNNING COMPLETELY UNOPPOSED- 8 (states: Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma)

REPUBLICANS RUNNING WITH ONLY FRINGE PARTY OPPOSITION- 17 (states: Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia)

That's a total of 32 out of 435 seats- about 8% of the total- decided before the first ballot is cast. (Sorry, but it's true- even if the minor party candidates somehow found the money to get their candidate publicized, they're minor parties because of their fringe views; they drive voters away.)

(Incidentally, this also shows both the utter dominance of the Republican Party in much of the South and their generally better national organizational skills: they're challenging everything they can, while Democrats are letting over 10% of the current Republican crop skate back to office without a fight.)

I think I'll come back to this in a moment with my breakdown of how many competitive races there actually are... research time...