Third Party Watch

Here is a rebuttal to Ed’s claims about the AIP, its bylaws, and many other things…

If you’re bored with the back-and-forth between McCain and Obama, you’re not the only one. Former Independent presidential candidate John Kusumi says the only way this year’s presidential election will become interesting is to make sure third party candidates are included in the campaign:

The only way that the presidential race becomes interesting in my [...]

From a former AIP member…

AS USUAL, ED NOONAN HAS GOT IT ALL WRONG!

1. Ed Noonan is no longer the state Chairman of the American Independent Party. The new chairman of the California state central committee is Jim King of Los Angeles. He was elected at the State Central Committee yesterday in Los Angeles which followed [...]

Conservative political commentator Phil Kent, a veteran Georgia journalist, thinks the McCain campaign should be worried about the possibility of Barr throwing the election to Barack Obama:

A brief history of Libertarian candidates in all 50 states shows that they can poll two percent at the very least in some key swing states. And of [...]

Stop waiting for Ron Paul to endorse Bob Barr or Chuck Baldwin, advises Liberty Maven. Ain’t gonna happen, and here’s why:

Why is it unlikely that he endorse one or both of them officially? The answer is simple. He’s a sitting Republican Congressman. If he were to publicly and officially endorse someone from another party [...]

Liberty Maven takes on the seven most common complaints by some libertarians about Bob Barr—you know, he voted for the Patriot Act, etc. As for the objection that “Bob Barr is no Ron Paul,” Liberty Maven says:

No one is Ron Paul except Ron Paul. No politician has the unblemished 30+ year record fighting for [...]

Steve Newton has had his Saul Alinsky moment. Alinsky, the famous radical agitator, said: “And if you’ve got no power and no numbers, the least you can do is make a stink!”

Writing in the Delaware Libertarian blog, Newton sees that opportunity in this election year:

...the best we can do as Libertarians (in concert with [...]

Kim Scipes takes a detailed look at how the Green Party is developing, and whether it can be an electoral force. He is a long-time labor activist, currently working as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Purdue University North Central in Westville, IN.

Scipes’ conclusion:

In short, the Green Party is getting electoral experience—and that’s good. [...]

Owing to the unfortunate smear articles here against the Constitution Party, its time to clarify the CP name here… Bill Shearer style.

In a post written by Andrew Davis, he quotes the whole CP Preamble starting off, or does he?
Let’s look at that one paragraph he left out:

The Constitution of these United States provides that “no [...]

“I’m asking you to believe,” states Barack Obama at the top of his website. “Not just in my ability to bring real change to Washington … I’m asking you to believe in yours.”

Change can be defined as “a flat metal piece (usually a disc) used as money.”

Atrios is calling Barack Obama the “Wanker of the [...]

Liberty Maven compares Bob Barr of the Libertarian Party and Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party in terms of publicity received, money raised, and MeetUps organized. Then the two candidates are judged by these three criteria:

“I’ll give you a hint who I’m voting for in November,” says Saturday Night Live veteran Kam Williams (“The Ladies’ Man”). “It rhymes with Seder.”

“Oh, Ralph Nader,” responds the interviewer. “You don’t worry about possibly wasting your vote?”

Williams’ reply:

No, I sort of disagree with people who blame him for taking votes away from [...]

Joel S. Hirschhorn is a fan, no doubt about it: “In so many ways Ralph Nader deserves to be president of the U.S. more than any Republican or Democratic candidate.”

In his essay, Hirschhorn explains:

The misplaced zeal for candidates like Ron Paul, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama is based on a short-term embrace of a particular [...]

It takes a Brit to point out to Americans that “John McCain’s town hall meetings are grotesque parodies of a venerable democratic institution.”

Another observation:

The forensic centrepiece of recent presidential campaigns has been the “debates”, though they are not so much debates as soporific exchanges of focus-group-tested pander lines and carefully scripted ad-libs. “Minor” candidates are [...]

The Libertarian Party and and the Constitution Party of New York are among the partners that have joined the Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran:

Supporters of the Campaign for New American Policy on Iran (CNAPI) believe new U.S. diplomatic leadership is urgently required to resolve tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

A military confrontation [...]

Ron Paul himself doesn’t like the idea of supporters writing in his name on the November ballot: “I don’t think that’s very productive.”

Liberty Maven agrees, and gives a host of reasons to vote for Bob Barr, but is not happy about the results of a poll asking “who will you vote for?” on the Ron [...]

Jan Baughman reflects in Swans Commentary that “as the 2008 presidential election antics evolve, the third-party candidates (Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Bob Barr, and others) remain virtually nonexistent as far as the mainstream media coverage is concerned.”

A key to keeping third-party candidates invisible, he notes, are the debates that are rigged in favor of the [...]

That’s a backhanded compliment, we guess, coming from The Fifth Columnist, aka P. M. Carpenter. Carpenter is a progressive who wants a successful Ron Paul-Bob Barr alliance as a way to help the progressives triumph by splitting the Republicans.

Let us, dear friends, encourage these political cousins to reunite within the Republican Party, as they [...]

On Self-evident Truth, a Christian paleolibertarian blog, tduffie questions which party to call home: “Claiming for myself the labels of Christian and libertarian, I often find myself at odds with both.”

However, “The Constitution Party, while I agree with some of its positions, embraces theocratic ideals. Perhaps it should be renamed the Puritan Party. Coercion [...]

Farewell to Tim Russert

John Tsitrian, a businessman and writer in Rapid City, South Dakota, writes in the Black Hills Pioneer in favor of loosening restrictions on third parties in the state.

Noting that “our state makes it difficult if not impossible for small political parties to get themselves established and organized here,” Tsitrian asserts that this is “shortsighted and [...]

John Nichols is associate editor of the Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin. He notes that the Wisconsin Libertarians got 11% of the vote when they ran Ed Thompson, brother of former GOP Gov. Tommy Thompson, but “four years later, without Thompson, the party wasn’t a factor.” The lesson: Name recognition counts.

Nichols thinks the [...]

Joshua Frank, co-editor of Dissident Voice, reviews various issues where Obama disappoints him and concludes:

Perhaps all of these issues are aiding the independent candidacy of Ralph Nader, who is consistently polling above 5% nationwide. This, despite a virtual media blackout and very little support among progressives.

Nader still faces many hurdles, from ballot access to fundraising, [...]

Jeremy Lott makes his intriguing case in Politico that the Democratic Party has been captured by Ralph Nader: “It’s Nader’s party now.”

Back in 2000, Lott says, Al Gore ran as a “fairly conservative Democrat — certainly far more conservative than the Nobel Prize-winning party animal he’s become”—and he was more hawkish than Bush, who was [...]

Anthony Gregory is perplexed about Bob Barr’s comments on the 1993 Waco tragedy in his recent Glenn Beck interview. In essence, Barr dismissed 9-11 conspiracy theories advanced by “9-11 truthers” and added in Waco:

I don’t pay any attention to that. None at all. I’ve heard the same thing. We heard it when we did [...]