Reasons why voting Libertarian (or another third party) is not "wasting" your vote.

[Final-Fan]

Shadow1980 said:

Final-Fan said:

While I agree with the point you are arguing, I have always thought that the budget reforms of the early 1990s were largely a reaction to Perot's success.  Do you think this is wrong?  If so, why? 

I don't really think one could say that Clinton's monetary policy was the result of Perot's stances on the federal budget, and it seems to be based on positions he held beforehand. Clinton was already talking about balanced budgets when he announced he was running back in October 1991, months before Perot announced he was running. Perot may have simply been a symptom of that early 90s blowback over Reagan-Bush-era deficits, not a cause of it. Also, Perot's stances on trade, one of his other signature platform positions, didn't really have much of an impact. Despite his warning about giant sucking sounds, NAFTA was passed with broad bipartisan support. Protectionism was effectively dead in the 90s. For the most part, Perot himself might have been a spoiler, as it seems he drew more potential Bush voters away than potential Clinton voters. Perot had some strong interest from primarily independent voters, but that largely vanished in 1996, and I don't think he influenced 90s-era politics in a meaningful manner. He was more a passing fad.

I didn't know that Democrats had talked seriously about budgetary reform prior to Perot's popularity, so thanks.  But on the subject of him being a spoiler, the information I'm aware of indicates that he managed to draw fairly equally from both sides, for a remarkably non-spoiler end result. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Perot_presidential_campaign,_1992#Analysis