Third Party Watch

The Green Party of Wisconsin, which has been working on several big anti-war projects for a while now, is getting some fresh help.

The Full Press Release Follows:

The Libertarian Party of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Green Party have joined in calling for support for U.S. troops in Iraq by bringing them home as soon as possible.

The [...]

A new message board has been established by the Libertarian Party Platform Committee to discuss what changes need to be made.

Liberty For Sale’s Tim West has also weighed in on the topic:

The current platform is a political failure. It represents a attempt to bridge a gap that in the end will satisfy neither it’s detractors [...]

A victory for Libertarian operatives in Indiana as a food and beverage tax proposal is defeated…

Libertarians in Fishers, Ind., a suburb of Indianapolis with a population of over 53,000, were instrumental in defeating a 1 percent food and beverage tax, making Fishers the only city government in Hamilton County, Ind., that failed to enact the [...]

From Politics1.com…

There is a certain amusing synergy to America’s oldest continuous third party running America’s oldest candidate in 2006. Founded in 1869, the party reached the peak of support in 1892 when Prohibition Presidential nominee John Bidwell captured over 2% of the national vote. The party has been in a slide ever since. Retired business [...]

A few notable items from our favorite third party bloggers…

Tim West over at Liberty For Sale issues this plea to libertarians to avoid railing against federal disaster aid for hurricane victims.

Ken Sain talks about how some Green Party affiliates are seeing splits on the city-level, and now some cities now actually have multiple Green Party [...]

We were one of the first blogs (the first?) to note a recent and substantial trend of formerly “successful” Libertarian candidates defecting to the GOP. Apparently, it’s not confined to just the LP, as now the Constitution Party has lost one of their most promising candidates for 2006.

As reported by Politics1.com…

In recent weeks [...]

The whole “Fair Tax” idea is a subject I’ve raised on the TPW message boards not too long ago, and now it appears some affiliates of the Libertarian Party are starting to warm up to the proposal.

Texas LP Chairman Pat Dixion had this to say in a posting on the party’s national website:

On Saturday the [...]

Howdy everyone!

This site is viewed almost 400 times by roughly 200 different visitors each day. While that’s not a huge amount of traffic, it’s respectable… and it’s HIGHLY targeted at a very specific group of people.

I’ve probably spent more than $250 on promotion and web hosting since this site started a mere 2 months [...]

The National Organization for Women has endorsed the Green Party candidate for mayor of St. Paul.

Mayoral candidate Elizabeth Dickinson this week was endorsed by the political arm of Minnesota NOW, the state’s chapter of the National Organization for Women. MN NOW was formed in 1971; the group’s web site defines it as a “grassroots advocate [...]

Blogger Ken Sain highlights the “hotbed of Green activity” that is Minneapolis/St. Paul.

California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson has ruled that Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist cannot have his leadership of that group under his name on the 48th Congressional District special-election primary ballot. Gilchrist is the candidate of the American Independent Party, the [...]

From Ankle Biting Pundits…

Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel is privately meeting with his top advisors and political contributors to discuss the prospects of an independent bid for the White House in 2008, a high level GOP source told me this morning.

According to the source, Hagel has already begun to posture himself as an independent, believing that [...]

Some pretty interesting news from the Virginia governor’s race. As Republican candidate Jerry Kilgore continues to refuse the inclusion of independent candidate and GOP State Senator Russ Potts in the upcomming debate… Democratic candidate Tim Kaine thinks he sees an opportunity.

As such, Kaine has agreed to a one-on-one debate with Potts to follow the [...]

Some good news for the Green Party in NYC…

Green Party Candidate Ready to Debate Markowitz

The Gloria Mattera for Brooklyn Borough President Campaign handed in almost 8,000 independent nominating petition signatures to the New York City Board of Elections at 10:30am Tuesday morning. 4000 signatures are required for the office.

“These signatures represent grass roots support [...]

I love The Onion…

After years spent poring over mysterious and arcane plat sheets and deciphering long-forgotten building codes, city councilmember Mike LaMere unearthed the mysterious City Zoning Amulet Friday.

Frequent candidate Tom Cox of Oregon has decided to leave the Libertarian Party and join the Republicans.

From Oregon Live:

Libertarian Tom Cox, who has been cited as a spoiler in at least two previous election cycles, has joined the Republican Party.

Cox has been tagged with spoiling three elections for Republicans, including the 2002 gubernatorial race between [...]

From Ballot Access News…

In Chicago: On August 22, Illinois House Bill 1968 was signed into law. It lowers the number of signatures to get on the ballot for Mayor of Chicago from 25,000 signatures to 12,500 signatures. This is the easiest petition requirement (for candidates who are not Democrats or Republicans) to run for that [...]

A court has ruled that Russell Means, former candidate for the Libertarian Presidential nomination and frequent candidate for other posts, can in fact be prosecuted by the Navajo Nation for an incident that occurred on their lands. Means himself is not a Navajo, which seems to be the cause for all of the [...]

For the first time since 1996, the Libertarian Party has lost ballot status in North Carolina. The party is now faced with a lawsuit against the state and an expensive petition drive to regain access before the 2006 elections.

Monday morning, Beverly Wilcox of Wentworth was one of 13,006 registered Libertarians in North Carolina.

Today, Wilcox [...]

Founder of the Minuteman Project, Jim Gilchrist, has entered the race to fill the Congressional seat vacated by the recent appointment of Rep. Chris Cox to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
He will be the candidate of the American Independent Party, the California affiliate of the Constitution Party. However, in the “About Jim” section of [...]

The Libertarian Party of North Carolina appears likely to lose their ballot spot and official recognition from the state. This would be the first time in about 9 years that the LP was not recognized in the state, which is notorious for having difficult ballot access laws.

The Article

Libertarians could lose their official status as [...]

Just purchase a copy of the “Code of Federal Regulations” from the US Government’s official subscriptions catalog.

It’s available for a mere $1,342.00, because after all it is 199 paperback books long…

Codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the Executive departments and agencies of the Federal government. Divided into 50 [...]

Ok, what the heck is going on here? Another story, another Libertarian leaves the LP to run for office as a Republican.

This is our third item of the day on this topic, sheesh!

From KDKA Channel 2 News:

A Philadelphia real estate broker says he plans to challenge U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum in the 2006 Republican [...]

Dennis Hawver, the Vice-Chair of the Libertarian Party of Kansas, has switched to the Republican party and entered the 2006 gubernatorial primary.

Hawver was the LP’s 2004 candidate against Congressman Jim Ryun, and received 7,391 votes (3%) in that race. In 2002, Hawver was the party’s nominee for governor and recieved 7,936 votes (1%). [...]

Green Party candidate Alice Green made her candidacy for mayor of Albany official on Thursday when she turned in 2,600 signatures to qualify for a spot on the ballot.

The head of the Center for Law and Justice says she’s running for mayor with the campaign theme “It’s all about families.”

The candidate adds that she is [...]

Kinky Friedman, independent candidate for Texas governor, won $45,612 last weekend while playing a slot machine at Harrah’s in New Orleans.

Friedman hasn’t decided what to do with his casino winnings.

He said through his spokeswoman that he may give it to his campaign fund or donate it to a charity or to the “leprosy colony for [...]