Third Party Watch

Good for the League of Women Voters for standing up to the major party candidates in Oregon and refusing to sponsor a debate that didn’t include all candidates polling at or above 5% support.

From the Mail-Tribune…

The League of Women Voters of the Rogue Valley has withdrawn its sponsorship of a planned gubernatorial debate because the [...]

Neal Boortz ran the following item in his “Neal’s Nuze” online column today…

I HAVE NO IDEA WHY I EVEN GOT STARTED ON THIS LIST

Who knows .. .maybe I’ll include it in “Somebody’s Gotta Say It”! At any rate … it just occurred to me that it might be a good idea, being the negative [...]

An impressive list of candidates have been lining up to compete for the Libertarian Party’s 2008 Presidential nomination. And it’s only 2006!

Activist George Phillies, Comedian Doug Stanhope, and now you can add Steve Kubby to that list. Kubby is best known as a fighter for marijuana legalization who has spent time in prison [...]

From KMBC-TV…

Missourians will have a fourth choice this November when voting for senator, auditor and some other top offices.

The Progressive Party said that it has been approved by the secretary of state to field candidates in six races this fall. The party had to submit more than 10,000 petition signatures to make the ballot.

Party organizers [...]

On the good side, Ohio will have an above average number of gubernatorial debates this year…

Four debates are scheduled between Ohio’s major-party candidates for governor, including a final one in Columbus, the two campaigns announced yesterday.

It will be the most gubernatorial debates in the state in at least 24 years.

Specific locations were not revealed, but [...]

Good bit of news for the LaMarche campaign in Maine…

Democrat Christopher F. Miller has announced his support and endorsement for Pat LaMarche for Governor in November. Miller ran as a Democratic candidate and got 24% of the vote against incumbent governor John Baldacci in the June primary election.

Personally, I don’t know why in the hell Smither would frame his point about cutting spending in the way that he does. The article says he drew his “fair share of jeers” when he posed the question of why citizens in Arizona should be forced to pay for several local projects in Texas.

It seems [...]

From the Fort-Bend Herald…

Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace on Monday announced he will no longer seek the office of Congressional District 22 as a write-in candidate.

Wallace said in the Sugar Land City Hall that the Republican Party could not win the four-county seat with two write-in candidates, so he will withdraw from consideration and support [...]

Max Linn, the Florida Reform Party candidate for governor, has launched a television ad to introduce himself to voters. The spot is called “You Know Max” and is available to watch online by clicking here.

Linn has already put $1 million of his own money into the campaign. This first TV spot will run [...]

Arif Khan is the former chairman of the Wisconsin state Libertarian Party and, in 2004, received 0.28% of the vote as the party’s nominee for U.S. Senate against Russ Feingold. Now he’s being charged with three counts of sexual assault on a child.

Khan claims he’s the victim of his wife, who he charges is [...]

The Boston Tea Party, a new political entity founded by blogger Thomas Knapp following the 2006 LP convention, held an online convention this weekend.

The press release follows…

At what may have been the world’s first online political convention, members of America’s new libertarian political party organized over the weekend for the long haul.

The event, which commenced [...]

A nonsense technicality is endangering the ballot status of Oregon’s Mary Starrett, the Constitution Party’s nominee for governor. It seems that the party failed to post a notice of their convention in a newspaper of general circulation.

Fearing that Starrett may play a “spoiler” role in November, a conservative activist Kelly Clark has filed suit [...]

From the Star-Telegram…

By dropping off the ballot, Republican Tom DeLay may have given a boost to a Libertarian candidate in the race for the former majority leader’s House seat.

Bob Smither said voters in the Houston-area district have been pledging support in phone calls. He also said he has seen a spike in contributions as the [...]

From KGBT-TV…

Texas Republican precinct chairmen tonight selected a Houston city councilwoman as the write-in candidate to support in place of Tom DeLay.

Republican officials say Doctor Shelley Sekula-Gibbs was selected by a clear majority of the precinct chairmen who attended a gathering in Pearland.

The Texas Republican Party decided it should rally behind one write-in candidate to [...]

Reform Party Congressional candidate Eric Eidsness is registering at 8% in the latest KUSA-TV/SurveyUSA poll. That is in the race to represent Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District.

Another KUSA-TV/SurveyUSA poll earlier this week showed Libertarian Bob Sargent with 4% of the vote in Colorado’s hotly contested Third District race.

Interesting bit of news on the Tom DeLay Congressional seat race. It looks like Republicans will be meeting on Thursday to decide who they will back in this year’s race. Currently the front-runners seem to be Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace and Houston City Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs.

As the article mentions, Libertarian Bob [...]

Former Congressman Bob Barr has released the following statement:

“With the departure of Tom DeLay, it is important to do everything we can to ensure the 22d District continues to be represented by a conservative. Bob Smither is that conservative. Bob is a genuine fiscal conservative with a firm desire to see a return to constitutionally-limited [...]

As you might remember, Dean Zimmerman lost his Minneapolis city council re-election bid last year after his home was raided by Federal investigators in September. Now, the former Green Party officeholder has been found guilty of taking bribes from a developer. He faces up to 10 years in prison.

From KSTP-TV:

A former Minneapolis [...]

A former local Republican official and Alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention has jumped ship and launched a campaign for State House on the Constitution Party ballot line.

From The Morning Call…

The race for state representative of the 183rd District just got a little more crowded.

Carl C. Edwards, 61, a computer systems programmer from Allen [...]

From Ballot Access News…

Two Marxist parties in the U.S. have increased their involvement in the 2006 congressional elections, compared to previous years.

The Socialist Workers Party this year will be on the ballot for U.S. House in at least one district in Iowa, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. By contrast, in 2004, the party did not have [...]

A bit of news from The New York Observer, it appears that former Democratic Senator and 1992 Presidential candidate Bob Kerrey is going to be supporting Senator Joe Lieberman’s independent bid for re-election.

While most of Joe Lieberman’s Democratic colleagues flock to his opponent, at least one prominent former senator is rallying to him.

Word from the [...]

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided to back Senator Joe Lieberman’s independent re-election campaign. The story, from NewsMax, includes quite a bit of speculation on Bloomberg’s own plans for the 2008 Presidential election.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s endorsement of Sen. Joe Lieberman’s re-election run as an independent is being seen as [...]

From Ballot Access News:

The Natural Law Party was organized in the United States in 1992, and it ceased to exist as a national organization in 2004. All of its state units will be dropping off the ballot in November 2006, except for the Michigan unit. The Michigan branch of the party is the only one [...]

A new poll out from Rasmussen has Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman winning re-election as an independent, though the margin is not quite what you could call comfortable.

Senator Joe Lieberman’s decision to run as an Independent sets up a lively campaign season for Connecticut voters. In the first General Election poll since Ned Lamont defeated Lieberman [...]

One of the most promising independent candidates for governor in the country, Oregon State Senator Ben Westlund, has decided to end his campaign. He will, however, continue to serve as an independent in the State Senate without joining either party.

From the Seattle Times…

State Sen. Ben Westlund, an independent from Central Oregon, said today he [...]