Third Party Watch

The Independence Party of America, which seems to be supporting Michael Bloomberg, has added a new affiliate organization. Here’s their release:

The Independence Party of Minnesota has voted to affiliate with the Independence Party of America today. The Minnesota Independence Party looks forward to building a new major party in America.

Frank MacKay, Chairman of the [...]

I had heard whispers that this might take place, but was holding off until I had better confirmation. However, Tex McRae is now reporting this at LRC, so I’ll cut-and-paste:

Ron Paul is scheduled to speak at CPAC on Thursday, February 7 at 4:30 in the Regency Ballroom of the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, [...]

From a forwarded e-mail:

This Sunday, the Cynthia McKinney for President “Power to the People” campaign will have a local organizing meeting at the Big Muddy IMC, 214 North Washington St. in Carbondale, at 1 p.m. This will be followed at 2 p.m. by a meeting of the Rodger Jennings for Congress campaign. [...]

As for Rodger [...]

Here’s the press release:

RON PAUL ENDORSED BY THE ALABAMA REPUBLICAN ASSEMBLY

Texas Congressman also wins organization’s public straw poll

BIRMINGHAM, January 26—The Alabama Republican Assembly today announced the winner of its Presidential Endorsing Convention held on January 26, 2008 at the Birmingham Marriott.

Delegates from ALRA clubs around the state attended the endorsing convention to select their choice [...]

Jeff Russell interviewed Libertarian presidential candidate John Finan for Capital Outsider. Below is the short version, but you can view the entire interview here. John’s website is www.johnmfinan.com/

During a portion of last night’s Republican presidential debates, each candidate was allowed to ask another candidate one question any question of his choosing. Ron Paul chose to target John McCain on fiscal policy, forcing McCain to obfuscate in his response. I’m not sure if there is now a new campaign strategy to [...]

The Fresno City College Sociology department hosted a 2008 Presidential Campaign Forum Jan 13. Several minor party candidate participated, as well as representatives from some of the more mainstream campaigns. An interesting article is describing the debate is located here, and I’ll capture the actual debate highlights below:

Missing from the media interview were [...]

From the national office of the Libertarian Party:

Mike Huckabee’s populist rhetoric may work in the private sector, but it has no place in politics, says the Libertarian Party. “Huckabee’s continual call for populism in American policy is making it clear that he will not be a President that is committed to limiting government, lowering taxes [...]

Next Monday, President Bush will deliver his annual “State of the Union” address to a joint session of Congress. Libertarian Steve Kubby delivered his own version directly to the American people via Internet video today.

[Update: A new version of the video with improved audio quality has been substituted for the original]

Full text of the speech [...]

I thought that might get your attention. What’s more, I’m linking to Newsbusters to provide the quote:

LIMBAUGH: I’m here to tell you, [Huckabee or McCain] get the nomination, it’s going to destroy the Republican party, it’s going to change it forever, be the end of it.

Actually, the article was about a CNN piece on the [...]

In what’s sure to be a disappointment to many of my progressive friends, Dennis Kucinich says he’ll be dropping out of the presidential race tomorrow. From a local television station:

Rep. Dennis Kucinich is dropping out of the presidential race, his Lakewood congressional office confirmed Thursday.

The Democrat represents Ohio’s 10th Congressional District. He is expected [...]

Ben Terrall covered a rally where 8,000 letters urging impeachment proceedings against the President and Vice President were delivered to one of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s aides.

Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney and independent congressional candidate Cindy Sheehan were on hand.

Cindy Sheehan, whose decision to run as an independent against Pelosi in the next [...]

In a blog entry posted this morning, economist Joe Cobb announced his endorsement of Libertarian Steve Kubby for President of the United States—and his intention to join Kubby’s campaign as economic advisor.

“I know Steve personally,” writes Cobb, who served in the Reagan administration’s White House and State Department, “and I plan to work very [...]

A poster at Ron Paul Forums got the general story straight, but missed on a minor detail with respect to Ron Paul and ongoing allegations of racism. The posting below describes a source as being “disgusting, vile, and repugnant;” I’ll provide additional graphic examples. Here’s his take [I’m cutting-and-pasting verbatim, formatting translation [...]

For an interesting perspective on presidential debates and the mainstream (or corporate, as some prefer) media, the San Francisco Chronicle just ran an interesting article pertaining to who should or shouldn’t be allowed in televised political debates. Here’s a sampling of some of the opinions provided regarding the Kucinich case:

The Nevada ruling drew varying [...]

Unedited program transcript below:

GLENN: Will you run as a third candidate if you done get the nomination?

PAUL: No, I don’t want to do that. I have no plans of doing that. This is a tough enough job right now.

GLENN: Really? Well, why is that? You don’t think — I mean, if it was McCain and [...]

The Libertarian Party of North Carolina has just passed a resolution condemning the actions of the of the Libertarian National Committee when they encouraged Ron Paul to consider seeking the Libertarian Party nomination. I’ll provide the entire wording of the resolution, but interject some opinionated commentary at points.

For the purpose of disclosure, I do [...]

The following is a press release from the Green Party:

The Green Party has posted a new page featuring video links of Green presidential candidates, including debates and forums.

The address of the video page is [located here]. The page will be updated regularly with new video as more Green presidential campaign events take place around the [...]

The following is a press release from the Phillies campaign for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination:

Today is the 35th Anniversary of the Supreme Court’s finding in Roe v Wade. By a seven-to-two majority, the Supreme Court found that Texas laws regarding abortion were unconstitutional. The Court noted a variety of valid grounds for their decision: [...]

The Libertarian Party sent an open letter to “22 Democratic Senators who voted for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amendments in August of last year, urging them to reconsider against an upcoming Senate bill that would make those amendments permanent. The letter was also sent to Democratic Senators who did not vote at all [...]

Ballot-Access News

Although Louisiana holds a presidential primary on February 9, the Republican Party chooses its delegates to the national convention with a two-step caucus/convention system. The first round was held on [January] 22, when approximately 10,000 Louisiana Republicans turned out to vote in eleven different cities for delegate to the state convention. Each U.S. House [...]

If you attend a political convention this year to support or oppose a candidate, and if you pool your gas, hotel and other expenses with a friend or loved one, be careful—according to the Federal Election Commission, the two of you may be a “political committee” if the total bill comes to more than $1,000.

The [...]

In addition to the endorsement earlier today of Norma “Jane Roe” McCorvey, Donald Luskin had some incredibly nice words to say about Ron Paul today at NRO.

Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul sounds radical when he advocates the elimination of the individual income tax, a return to a gold standard, the wholesale downsizing of the federal [...]

The Independence Party of America is hosting an AP article about Michael Bloomberg. It mentions a topic covered at TPW a few days ago, that being the meeting held between Ross Perot’s son-in-law and former campaign manager Clay Mulford.

The article also brought up what some of Bloomberg’s priorities might be if he’s elected:

New York [...]

Ballot Access News

According to Darrell Castle, the long-awaited joint Constitution, Green and Libertarian Party lawsuit against the Tennessee ballot access law for new and minor parties will be filed on January 23. Darrell Castle is the local cooperating attorney for the case. As noted in earlier posts, no party besides the Democratic and Republican Parties [...]