Skip to main content

This is not going to be a two-man race. . . .

Oh, I know that ultimately either Senator John McCain or Senator Barack Obama will be elected President this November.

But this year is shaping up as an almost tectonic shift in American electoral politics, as early polls already give third party candidates as much as 8% of the total vote.

Pulling support away from Obama:

Ralph Nader--running this year as an unaffiliated independent and polling as high as 8% in some key states.

Cynthia McKinney--already the presumptive nominee of the Green Party. Former Congresswoman McKinney is (to my mind, anyway) something of a nutcase. But she's the most-recognized figure the Greens have ever run (except Nader himself), and she is directly going after the African-American vote. Check out her most recent endorsement by editor Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report (h/t Independent Political Report):

Two candidates with almost identical positions on virtually every issue fight to exhaustion over non-substantial concerns for months, and will doubtless soon celebrate having achieved “unity.” Tweedle-dum Hillary Clinton and Tweedle-dee Barack Obama may or may not emerge from the primary battles as friends - but what does that matter? “Their policies are interchangeable, as are their advisors…. All serve the same masters: the financial corporations.” The general election campaign, already begun, will see Obama and McCain draw politically closer each day, until at the end “the voters’ choice will be just a matter of personality and individual taste” - and race.


Pulling support away from McCain:

Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party is a clearly far more conservative candidate that John McCain--he favors declaring the unborn to be citizens, terminating US membership in the UN, and more. . . .

And, of course, there's Bob Barr of the Libertarian Party, who may already be killing McCain in Georgia and North Carolina, to say the least. . . .

As we go into summer, as much as 10% of the American electorate is registering sufficient dissatisfaction with the candidates thrown up by the two-party duopoly to say that they would consider voting for a third-party candidate. In various battleground states like North Carolina or Michigan, the McCain and Obama campaigns are quietly worried that third-party candidates might actually tip the election to their opponent.

The major problem for all of these third party efforts is ballot access.

The Libertarian Party will be on the ballot in 48+ states (and possibly DC)

The Green Party appears to have current ballot access in 20 states and active campaigns for access in at least four more states.

The Constitution Party has access in 20 states, with drives essentially complete in three more states, and drives under way in many others.

Ralph Nader has just gained access in his third state--Arizona.

Because the US Constitution does not specify federal ballot access standards, each state is free to create its own.

In most states, the one thing that Democrats and Republicans agree upon is that there shouldn't ever be more than two parties on the ballot.

The best brief explanation of just how bad the situation is, and how destructive to democracy it can be is found on Ralph Nader's site:

Check out the requirements in these nightmare states: (And remember, we need to collect double the number required in each state because many are arbitrarily invalidated.)

Texas, requires 74,108 valid signatures between March 5 and May 8. Deplorably, anyone who has voted in the primary cannot sign the petition.

Oklahoma, requires 43,913 by July 15.

North Carolina requires 69,743 by June 12. In 2000, it cost Pat Buchanan $250,000 to collect enough signatures for ballot access in that state.

Indiana requires 32,742 by June 20.

Georgia requires 42,489 by July 8th

Ballot access was much easier in the nineteenth century. Voters had more candidates and small parties to choose from. Ballot access is much, much easier in other Western democracies.

As a result small parties were able to pioneer the great social justice movements such as abolition of slavery, women’s right to vote, and protections for workers and farmers.

Currently, ballot obstruction can consume upwards of a quarter million dollars in a federal campaign’s budget to get on the ballot in one or more states.

Without candidates’ rights to be on the ballot—in a country where ninety percent of House districts are one-party dominated heavily due to gerrymandering—voters are becoming further disenfranchised.


If you are reading this, and you are either a Democrat or a Republican, ask yourself what non-partisan purpose is served by restricting the political options of American citizens to only the choice between Ass and Pachyderm?

My progressive friends tell me all the time that we should emulate the democracies of Europe--virtually all of which are multi-party democracies.

The answer, unfortunately, is that for Democratic and Republican partisans, winning has become (a long time ago) more important than having a vibrant, functioning democracy.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here:  chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society  [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.”   The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...

A reply to Salon's R. J. Eskrow, and his 11 stupid questions about Libertarians

Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point:  Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo:  Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1.       Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...