TIME SEEMS RIGHT FOR A THIRD PARTY.

Byline: Brian Doherty 

THE specter of third parties is haunting the American political landscape this year, and its eerie noises are ringing convincingly for once.

Among the many signs:

The Republican Party might be heading for a schism involving the religious right and Buchananites conservative economic populism.

The left mumbles continuously that their interests are not truly represented by the Democratic Party.

Ross Perot's money is so far surmounting the considerable obstacles the political establishment places in the way of upstarts.

After Perot's success in 1992, the throw-the-bums-out fervor represented by the term limits movement, and 1994's congressional upheaval, conditions seem especially propitious for a true realignment in the ossified two-party system.

And it's not merely a desire for another party like the two we already have: a centrist party to capture unaffiliated voters. Those who want a center-left, generous government that isn't too bureaucratic, doesn't tax too much and isn't controlled by special interests want something that they can never have.

Polls indicate that roughly 20 percent of the electorate claim allegiance to neither major party. They are not waiting to be drawn into some new centrist third party. The dissatisfied agree on not much other than profound alienation from Republicans and Democrats and even from government itself.

Those 20 percent are ill-served by the two-party stranglehold on political ideas and elections. They don't get exposed to the ideas about government that might satisfy them.

But it can't be assumed that the 80 percent are totally happy either. Strong ideological schisms are growing within the major parties too, between libertarians and Buchananites for the Republicans, and between Naderites and Rainbow Coalitioners among the Democrats.

Perhaps only a party centrist who can split ideological differences between tens of millions of disparate voters has a real chance of winning. But to only think of a third party that can win is to misunderstand the important role of third parties in America's past and possibly future.

Historically, they have served three main purposes:

As repositories of cutting-edge ideologies that eventually succeed in changing the two big parties, such as the Free-Soil Party and the People's Party (Populists).

As temporary homes for single-interest splinter groups, such as the Constitutional Union Party and the State's Rights Party (Dixiecrats).

As rallying points for single individuals, such as George Wallace's American Independent Party.

New parties serving all three functions exist or can be detected on the horizon. Any or all of them can help solve the political disaffection of both the 20 percent and the 80 percent. But many barriers stand in their way, both political and ideological.

The most important political ones include restrictive ballot access laws that require spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and frustrating man-hours just getting on the ballot, and campaign finance laws that restrict individual donations to $1,000.

The existence of ideological think tanks and magazines of all varieties proves that there is money available for outside- the-mainstream political views. But it's much easier for, say, a Ralph Nader or a Harry Browne to find 50 wealthy like-minded people willing to give $100,000 than to find 5,000 people willing to give $1,000. Current campaign finance reform ideas will only solidify the two-party incumbent advantage.

The last element of citizen dissatisfaction that Congress wants to ease is the way legislators get and hold power; witness the ignominous fate of term limits.

But if throw-the-bums-out fervor mounts, and it shows no signs of fading, even that barrier's fall is within sight. Soon, there may be no way to keep office except by easing the barriers that let others in.

The most important ideological barrier is that third parties tend not to be taken seriously by the serious, accomplished people who could make them work, both as activists and voters.

But if, as seems likely, 1996 offers the voting public a respectable choice between Clinton/Gore and Dole/some governor from the Midwest, perhaps the Naderites and Rainbow Coalitioners and serious libertarians and serious Christians will realize that they aren't really going to get what they want from the two major parties.

The benefits of electorally and ideologically healthy third, fourth, and fifth parties accrue not just to those who get a chance, finally, to vote for something they really want. With a wider range of well-defined ideas fencing publicly, drawing attention from the media gatekeepers of information and debate, the level of understanding of the political choices facing us will rise.

This is vital if we are to solve many current problems, such as taxes, Social Security, Medicaid, declining education and inner-city decay. Those crises can't go unsolved forever. But the current two parties, as the weak-kneed aftermath of the revolutionary new Congress shows, are not ready to take on the necessary action for change.

From the turmoil another two party system will probably emerge. By encouraging healthy third, fourth, fifth, and sixth parties now, there is a better chance those two parties will represent interesting and valuable ideas about the future, especially ideas that take seriously, really seriously, the rolling back of the megastate the earlier revolution left us with.

MEMO: Brian Doherty is assistant editor of Reason magazine.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Ross Perot's money is so far surmounting the conside rable obstacles the political establishment places in the way of upstarts.

Associated Press