Third Party Watch

This report comes from the Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs:

ON OCT. 28, the Arab American Institute released the results of a new Zogby International poll of Arab-American voters showing that Democratic candidate Barack Obama’s substantial lead among Arab American voters had almost doubled since September. The poll also found that Obama’s lead over McCain [...]

Ballot Access News

The Texas Secretary of State has corrected some clerical errors that had crept into the official November 2008 presidential returns, for the declared write-in candidates.

As a result, Chuck Baldwin gained 343 votes, Ralph Nader gained 226 votes, Cynthia McKinney gained 160 votes, and Jonathan Allan gained one vote.

Also, Brian Moore lost 778 votes, [...]

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina has dismissed a lawsuit by Ralph Nader that accused the Democratic Party of conspiring to keep him off the ballot in 2004. Nader ran as an independent candidate for President this year. The Associated Press story is here.

The Houston Chronicle’s Texas on the Potomac blog gives the vote totals for Indiana, North Carolina, and Missouri. It is obvious that Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr and Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader got enough votes to make the difference in those three states between the two major-party candidates. (Constitution Party presidential [...]

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader makes the Wall Street Journal with a column, coauthored with Toby Heaps, entitled “We Need a Global Carbon Tax.” They write:

If President Barack Obama wants to stop the descent toward dangerous global climate change, and avoid the trade anarchy that current approaches to this problem will invite, he should [...]

The following is a column by Ralph Nader, this year’s Independent presidential candidate:

In the Public Interest
by Ralph Nader

In ancient China, the character for “crisis” was associated with “opportunity.” This month Congress will be faced with both challenges from General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, whose CEOS are begging for a very rapid $34 billion in emergency [...]

Well, he did tell us what President-elect Obama’s administration would be like. So he may not be a spoiler this year, just a prophet. Here’s Ralph Nader’s post-election, in-the-midst-of-the-transition analysis of the incoming administration:

While the liberal intelligentsia was swooning over Barack Obama during his presidential campaign, I counseled “prepare to be disappointed.” His [...]

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader discusses his presidency in this video of his appearance on the PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer.

The Washington Post’s Reliable Source blog has some fun with Ralph Nader for suggesting that third-party candidates should be invited to President Obama’s inauguration:

The sometimes cantankerous outsider has sent an open letter to Barack Obama asking that third-party candidates—the Libertarian Party’s Bob Barr, the Constitution Party’s Chuck Baldwin and the Green Party’s Cynthia McKinney—be included [...]

Ballot Access News

From preliminary election returns, it appears that these are the best counties for five particular presidential candidates:

Nader: Morgan County, Tennessee 5.2%
Barr: Esmeralda County, Nevada, 2.7%
Baldwin: Millard County, Utah, 5.6%
McKinney: either St. Bernard or LaFourche Parish, both in Louisiana, each 1.1%
Brian Moore: Essex County, Vermont, 2.1%

Thanks to Jack Ross for doing the laborious job [...]

David Weigel of Reason takes a look at the votes for Bob Barr, Ralph Nader, Chuck Baldwin, and Cynthia McKinney, all of which were disappointing to their backers and in historical context. He then concludes:

So if you add together Paul with the four candidates he gathered at the National Press Club to endorse (and [...]

Ballot Access News reports that independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader “did not seek the nomination of any nationally-organized party. But he did seek out the nomination of various parties that are just organized in one state. Also, in a few states, for pragmatic ballot-access purposes, he created new one-state parties.”

It continues:

In eight states, parties that [...]

The following message is from the Ralph Nader presidential campaign site:

Hold Your Heads Up High

Posted by The Nader Team on Wednesday, November 5, 2008 at 12:56:00 PM

Hold Your Heads Up High .

Against all odds.

We prevailed.

On $4 million total — what Obama raised in one day.

Nader/Gonzalez overcame ballot access obstacles.

We put our shift the power agenda [...]

In three states—Missouri, Indiana, and North Carolina—the victor in the presidential race did not get 50% of the vote. And the vote for third-party candidates conceivably may have altered the outcome.

The problem is trying to determine the mindset of the voters who took the third-party route, an impossible task. Would they have voted [...]

Thanks to Bradley Jansen for providing this cheat-sheet service on Nolan Chart. He lists 14 “likely battleground states with information of the main third party candidates on the ballot and their history of support in the state (and how they may affect the electoral outcomes).”

Now if we could get only one of the mainstream [...]

Is this the way the campaign ends, not with a bang but a whimper? Time magazine thinks so, noting that both Bob Barr and Ralph Nader are polling only around 1% nationally as we hit election day. And Time wonders why this is so:

Given the current political environment, third parties really should have [...]

Ballot Access News

On November 1, a Deseret News/KSL-TV presidential poll was released. It is based on 1,205 voters, sampled between October 24 and October 30. Results: McCain 57%, Obama 32%, Baldwin 2%, Barr 1%, Nader 1%, undecided or refused 7%. Thanks to Frank Fluckiger for this news.

In 2004, the presidential vote in Utah had been: [...]

According to Ballot Access News:

Barack Obama has the top spot on the ballot in 15 states and the District of Columbia. John McCain has the top spot on the ballot in 14 states. Chuck Baldwin has the top spot in 6 states. Ralph Nader has the top spot in one state. Cynthia McKinney has the [...]

November 3, 2008
www.votenader.org

Open letter to Senator Barack Obama

Dear Senator Obama:

In your nearly two-year presidential campaign, the words “hope and change,” “change and hope” have been your trademark declarations. Yet there is an asymmetry between those objectives and your political character that succumbs to contrary centers of power that want not “hope and change” but the [...]

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader, Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr, and Constitution Party presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin will debate tonight, October 30, in Cleveland, Ohio.

When: Thursday, October 30, at 4:30 p.m. EDT.
Where: The City Club of Cleveland; 850 Euclid Ave, 2nd Floor, Cleveland, OH
Topic: The Economy: “Where do we go from here?”

According to the [...]

Agency France Presse (AFP) takes a look at the campaigns of third-party candidates:

...the libertarian candidate Bob Barr, independent Ralph Nader and, to a lesser extent, Chuck Baldwin’s Constitution Party and Green candidate Cynthia McKinney, could have a significant impact on the hopes of McCain or Obama, who remain locked in tight races in key battleground [...]

Here is the entire 90-minute debate video via YouTube of last week’s debate between independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader and Constitution Party presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin. This was aired on C-SPAN.

Covering the debate, The Nation said of Nader:

Nader didn’t spend any time actually scrapping with Baldwin, a Baptist minister and radio host who defeated [...]

Ralph Nader, the Independent presidential candidate, and Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party candidate, went back and forth talking about the issues never letting the discussion devolve into one [...]

The following is a media release from Free and Equal Elections:

Free and Equal Elections
230 E. Ohio Street, Ste. 212 Chicago, IL 60611
phone 1.312.320.4101 fax 1.866.309.7803

Contact: Christina M. Tobin
Phone: (312) 320-4101
Email: christina@freeandequal.org
http://www.freeandequal.org

Third Party Presidential Debate to Take Place on Thursday, October 23rd

This morning, Christina Tobin, Director of Free and Equal, announced an Independent/Third Party Presidential Debate, [...]

Maria Recio of McCletchey Newspapers writes that “the troubled presidential debate for third-party candidates scheduled for Sunday at Columbia University in New York was canceled Friday after none of the four candidates had committed to the event.”

Barr claimed a conflict while McKinney opted for an online debate originally scheduled for that evening. Baldwin was reluctant [...]