I used to die in on my mind third party candidates.

This week North Carolina became the 10th state to recognize no labels as a political party.

An unprofit argues there is a moderate majority in America ready to move away from the two party

position and is towing with offering a presidential ticket in the 2024 election to tap into that power.

As I go around the country and I talk to people, I get asked all the time, why can't we have a third party, why isn't there an alternative, why can't there be one?

That's Gerald Sime, who retired last year from Israel as executive Washington editor with the Wall Street Journal.

He recently wrote an essay to the paper about the history of third parties and why this might be the election we see one breakthrough.

Jerry, before we get to what's happening now, let's talk first about third party and independent candidates of the past.

For example, 1912, 1968, there are other examples, but let's talk about those first.

Well, I think the reality is that these do not succeed in our system.

That's just the historical record here.

As I said in the piece, the history is pretty easy to summarize.

It's high expectations followed by dashed hopes and that's kind of the story of all these.

If you go back to Teddy Roosevelt, a former president, tried in the early and the 20th century, he couldn't make it work.

And then you had George Wallace, who actually won five states and 13% of the vote in 68, but he didn't really affect the outcome of that election.

And then you have the examples more recently, Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996.

Ross Perot actually led the polls for a while in 1992, but he ended up with 19% of the vote, a pretty credible showing, but won no states and therefore won no electoral votes.

And John Anderson earlier in 1980 had high expectations.

He was going to be a different kind of Republican, a non-Ragan Republican.

Again, started out strong, fizzled at the end, ended up with 6% of the vote.

And then since then, you've had spoilers, Jill Stein and Ralph Nader, most prominently, who showed up won a very small percentage of the national vote, but won just enough to probably tilt both the 2000 and 2016 elections away from the Democrats.

So this is not a long string of success.

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