While driving in to work this morning, I saw a bumper sticker on a red car. It had an American flag motif waving in the background and proclaimed, “Anybody but the Socialist, ’12.”

I have a “don’t pick fights before 9 AM” rule, but I really wanted to follow this guy into the gas station, just to reassure him that the Socialist Party of America stopped running candidates in 1956 (when Darlington Hoopes won fewer than 3,000 votes), and, with 1,000 members, the Socialist Party USA probably won’t be on the ballot in 2012, or pose a major threat to the two party system.