>>16
There are many things to evaluate which revolve around image to voters. Most importantly would be to develop a professional face to prove that the party does not exist purely for protest votes and would not make a mess of things if elected. The party values would need to be moderate enough not to be dismissed and different enough from the major parties so they aren't accused of attracting votes away from republicans or democrats. All of this is worthless if they cannot market themselves, achieving sufficient funds and making the most out of it is an issue, so is the thought behind their election strategy.
The libertarian and green parties generally achieve these main criteria whilst lacking a professional face on the national scale. Independants are much more succesful at gaining offices using their personal reputation and specialist knowledge amongst voters for the office they seek, though lack the national influence needed to expand their vision. If the green or libertarian party were to reform in order to attract a succesful independant and other prospective pillars of the community (lawyers, long standing civil servants, graduates etc..) they would achieve the level of professionalism needed. To achieve this it would require a lot of logical diplomatic mediation, perhaps the prospective pillars of the community could form a "think tank" and serve as mediators.
>>17
Yes. According to my criteria, by aligning his policies too close to the democrat party he lost votes to the democrat party and was accused of division. A succesful 3rd party leader would need to make allowances in favour of election strategy to prove that they are just that, a *3rd* party.
>>18
Last I heard Fed is increasing the money supply by injecting billions to bail out risky mortgage investors and keeping interest rates low. Here is a fresh news.google article.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/62/story.cfm?c_id=62&objectid=10458713
I believe the damage has already been done, the cause of the housing bubble dates back the dot com bubble in which interest rates were lowerred to increase market liquidity which unbalanced the economy and created the perfect environment for the housing bubble. Now the fed is attempting the same except in a more (but not totally) direct manner, once the stock market stabilises they ought to incrementally increase interest rates back to rational levels. I believe most of the losses are a combination of short term investors panic selling and many brokers who short sold stock earlier this year predicting the property bubble would burst in the summer.
>>19
Minus the war on terror, America's foreign policy could be perceived as more cooperative with emphasis on the philosophy of encouraging stability and economic growth through free trade. America wants it's 3rd world trading partners to forget the 80s, buckle down and sell them bananas in exchange for Chinese rates of growth. As for the war on terror, diplomacy doesn't seem to have been much of an issue.