By the time you read this, what most of America has known for months will be confirmed. Though some held out hope until the end, there was no delaying the inevitable. Ralph Nader lost, and he lost big. And Ron Paul didn’t get any votes either. Neither did Michael Bloomberg. Three candidates with name recognition, ideological draw and money, and none had any real impact on the election of 2008.

Hailed by Newsweek as the X-factor of the presidential race nearly a year ago, Bloomberg never materialized into a serious candidate. While Ron Paul made the Republican primaries interesting, he failed to impact the policies of either mainstream candidate, and even though my roommate may now be ready to rage against the machine and start the revolution, it doesn’t seem like the rest of the nation is. Finally, Ralph Nader didn’t even realize he was running until he opened the paper this morning.

So what happened? With three (well, maybe four) mavericks poised to change the face of presidential politics, now seemed as good a time as any for a viable third party to emerge. One would think the current climate of frustration and anger at the status quo would lend itself quite nicely to a strong showing by an independent candidate, but it didn’t.

Third parties are the exception, not the rule in presidential politics. It may not be rare for a third party to have a bearing on the outcome of a race (see Nader in 2000 or Perot in 1992), but for one to win an entire state nowadays would be crazier than Ted Kennedy passing on dessert.

In fact, since the two party system solidified in America, only three “outsider” candidates have managed to win electoral votes. The campaigns of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and George Wallace all have three things in common that reveal what it takes for a third party to be (somewhat) successful. First, all three were well-spoken and charismatic. We all know Lincoln and Roosevelt had a particular way with words, but Wallace’s quotes, such as, “You young people seem to know a lot of four-letter words. But I have two four-letter words you don’t know: S-O-A-P and W-O-R-K,” were in a league of their own.

Second, all three emerged in times of popular discontent and fractured political parties. Lincoln‘s Republicans rose from the ashes of the Whig party while Roosevelt and Wallace appealed to groups of disillusioned Republicans and Democrats, respectively. Finally, all three dealt with issues that were not adequately addressed by the politicians of the day. Slavery, progressive reform and segregation were all incredibly pertinent and complex issues in which the opinions of significant segments of the population were underrepresented. Due to this absence of leadership on all three, a new figure was able to step in and alter, if not take over, the national discourse.

So is there any issue today neglected enough to warrant the formation of a third party, yet still important enough to rally the masses? Issues like energy, global warming, health care, immigration and Iraq all merit fresh ideas, but both parties eagerly acknowledge their importance. However, no one has really mentioned the national debt.

Like slavery in the years leading up to 1860, everyone seems to agree there is a problem; it’s just that no one wants to do anything definitive about it. Maybe a third party candidate will have to, since our government is currently responsible for over $10.2 trillion in federal debt — more than $30,000 for every man, woman and child in America.

Some will argue this is nothing to get excited about. In fact, sometimes it can be good for the government to spend more than it takes in. Furthermore, even though we have significant debt, ours is still less than Nicaragua or Sudan when taken as a percentage of our GDP. Fine, but last time I checked we are not recovering from a civil war financed by a foreign government through the illegal sale of weapons to Iran, nor do we have armed men riding camels terrorizing the countryside.

For crying out loud, we owe everyone — including the Belgians — money, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let them hang that over my head for the rest of my life. If nobody on either side of the aisle can get it through their skulls, then I’m ready to join my roommate — and I’m brining my torch.

Joey Labuz ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in biomedical engineering.