Third Party Watch

According to this source, former Alaskan U.S. Senator and current contender for the Democratic nomination Mike Gravel may be considering an independent or third party campaign.

The Rev. Robert A. Vinciguerra writes:

“Hold out your hand, take your thumb and connect it to your little finger. What do you get,” Gravel asked his on looking audience. “A [...]

In my personal opinion, those who exploit children are amongst the lowest forms of life crawling upon the planet. Perhaps the second lowest form of life are those who exploit missing and exploited children for political gain. I’d like to tell you about three people who have run for office before and how [...]

I hate to rehash old news, but I was just thinking that we haven’t received disgraced campaign manager Allen Hacker’s final report in last year’s Badnarik for Congress race (CD-10 in Texas).

I work for the state’s largest yard sign printer, Michael Franks. He’s a Ron Paul Republican (he’s actually printing more 4×8s, 2×4s, etc. than any other print shop) and he personally put up the “Republicans For Smither” 4×8 yard signs last year in the chaotic CD-22* race south of Houston. Democrat Nick Lampson later won [...]

This is kind of a funny video from last year, during the fallout from her punching of a Capitol police office. Congresswoman McKinney gets caught with her microphone on after she dodges some questions and walks out of the room, so she comes back and makes it clear that the audio is not allowed [...]

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m very much against invading and occupying nations for no reason while thousands of our American soldiers die and numerous uncounted civilians are killed.

That’s why I was shocked to see that Jim Sendelbach, the Libertarian running for Congress in Georgia appears to be supporting the war.

I knew [...]

The Des Moines Register has an interview with co-chair of the Iowa Green Party, and former Senate candidate, Daryl Northrop.

Daryl Northrop is the co-chair of both the Iowa Green Party and the Polk County Green Committee, a former U.S. Senate candidate and a passionate politico who sees more campaigns in his near future.

The 34-year-old [...]

Another (final?) update from the Badnarik campaign on retiring their debt. The letter is really long, but from what I read it sounds like Allen Hacker is aiming to take possession of the campaign’s fundraising list as payment for services his consulting firm provided to the campaign. Thus, the campaign’s debt is [...]

Gayle McLaughlin has taken office as the mayor of Richmond, California. This is the first time the Greens have elected someone to be the mayor of a city this large. The popular of Richmond, a city located near San Franciso, is roughly 100,000.

From the San Francisco Chronicle…

Richmond became the largest city in the [...]

Rich Whitney, the Green gubernatorial candidate from Illinois, had a remarkable 10% finish in November. In this following article, he grants Pantagraph.com an interview where he briefly discusses his campaign.

Green Party candidate Rich Whitney didn’t have a lot of money to spend on his bid to be Illinois governor.

With about four months to go [...]

A libertarian elected in 2003 as a local town court judge was responsible for swearing in a pair of newly elected Libertarians this week.

From the Muncie Free Press…

It’s been said that “when dog bites man, that’s not news, but when man bites dog, that’s news!” While it doesn’t appear there was any biting going on, [...]

Looks like an impressive and record-setting write-in vote total for Illinois Constitution Party gubernatorial candidate Randy Stufflebeam. This is real, reported votes rather than the undervotes that were being tabulated earlier.

Had he been on the ballot, it seems like Stufflebeam might have made as big of a splash as Green candidate Rich Whitney. [...]

I am honestly a little shocked to see this email request for another $200,000 or so for the Badnarik campaign. Considering they only got 4% of the vote, I can’t really understand paying off more of the debt than absolutely has to be done. That amount appears to be $65,000.

Allen Hacker’s [...]

This is a piece from the Berkeley Daily Planet that highlights all of the various success stories that the Green Party has to show for the 2006 election.

I think the author goes a bit overboard in calling this year an “unqualified success” considering the Greens lost their only state legislator and lost several winnable state [...]

Libertarian Senatorial candidate Steve Osborn received just under 13% of the vote statewide in a one-on-one contest against Senator Dick Lugar. However, results on the CNN website and on Dave Leip’s site both point to a 60-40% win for Osborn in Warren county. This is not Osborn’s home county and it’s not [...]

So, who do you all think were the most successful minor party candidates this year? That can be a tricky question because there are all sorts of factors to consider.

On one hand, if a person scores an 8% showing in a 2-way race, that really can’t be considered better than someone who gets 4% [...]

First off I want to apologize about the update I posted earlier on Randy Stufflebeam’s write-in totals. The original post missed the fact that the Stufflebeam campaign was including “undervotes” in the totals until such time as hard numbers became available. This probably created an extreme over-estimation of the

In my correction to [...]

The Constitution Party’s candidate for governor of Illinois posted an impressively strong showing last week… as a write-in candidate.

While the numbers are still pretty sketchy, Randy Stufflebeam appears to have captured at least 1% of the vote statewide… and potentially more than that.

See here for the campaign’s latest and best attempts at pulling together a [...]

More bad news for third party candidates. It looks like Libertarian County Commissioner Paul Trujillo was defeated in his New Mexico re-election bid last night…

DAVID R. MEDINA (DEM) . . . . . 1,781 (47.10%)
PAUL E. TRUJILLO (LIB) . . . [...]

Libertarian state house candidate Hardy Machia is in a respectable fourth place with 18% of the vote in his race, with at least one precinct left to report in.

The LP’s website reports a few local wins including a seat on the Hardeeville City Council in South Carolina and a few Soil and Water Supervisors.

Oh yeah, [...]

Some last minute gubernatorial numbers and then I’m off to sleep.

In Texas, Strayhorn took 18% for third place and Friedman was back in fourth at 12%.

In Alaska, Andrew Halcro is picking up 10%.

In Minnesota, Peter Hutchinson has 6% of the vote.

In Illinois, Green candidate Rich Whitney has pulled in an impressive 11% of the vote.

In [...]

John Eder appears to have been narrowly defeated for re-election in Maine. As the party’s only state representative nationally, this is a huge blow.

Matthew Reading, another Green seeking a Maine state house seat has fallen short by 4 votes and this race will probably be heading to a recount.

Benjamin Meiklejohn, another promising state house [...]

Libertarian state house candidate Rex Bell is running a distant third in his Indiana race.

No word yet on the potentially viable candidates for state house in New Hampshire and Vermont.

Looks like Rick Jore is solidly in the lead to capture a state house seat up in Montana… a bright spot in this otherwise not-so-great night for minor parties.

The CP’s other hope for a state house pick-up, Ed McGarr in Utah, appears to be trailing very badly at this moment.

I’ve been sweating out a really tough race of my own tonight, but as it stands now things are looking pretty good. I’m leading my opponent by about 6% or 11,000 votes. He’s got a strong base and a lot of institutional support, but with more than 90% of the votes counted… I’m [...]