Third Party Watch

From the Examiner:

In the opening to his fourth book, due out April 1, the former wrestler and governor of Minnesota writes: “As I begin to write this book, I’m facing probably the most monumental decision of my 56 years on this planet. Will I run for president of the United States, as an independent, in [...]

... or 40 years of the Peace and Freedom Party, anyway. The San Francisco branch of the California organization plans to celebrate on Saturday.

The Peace and Freedom Party was apparently actually founded in 1967, but it was in early 1968 that it achieved ballot status by registering more than 100,000 voters under its banner. They’ve [...]

In a somewhat amusing article spewing conservative venom at John McCain, James Antle provided these descriptions of America’s third parties:

Constitution Party—Formerly the U.S. Taxpayer’s Party, Ballot Access News ranks it the largest third party in terms of registered voters. Yet most of its members belong to the California state affiliate, the American Independent Party, apparently [...]

According to John Killian:

The American Party met March 7 and 8 in Avon Park, Florida and nominated the following ticket:

President Diane Beall Templin (was nominated in ‘96 and ‘04) of California
Vice President Linda Patterson of Indiana

For those who don’t know who John Killian is, he’s the guy who gave this fire and brimstone speech on [...]

I’ll let his website tell the story. It begins in 2006:

In the 2006 congressional election eight thousand people in the 16th District had the courage to say “NO” to the two factions of the Corporate Party. I just can’t thank those folks enough for the courage they displayed and the confidence they placed [...]

From Frank MacKay of the Independence Party of America:

With Mayor Bloomberg’s departure from the 2008 Presidential race, there are still three undeniable truths. First and foremost, there are still millions of Americans who feel disenfranchised and frustrated with our current political system and who feel that the two major parties don’t really represent [...]

According to Miller Politics, The New American Independent Party has named their “first presidential candidate, Frank McEnulty.”

It looks like the Boston Tea Party political party is DOA. From Tom Knapp:

A few months ago, I noted that the Boston Tea Party was essentially moribund/inactive, and accepted the offer of Jim Davidson to serve as replacement chair and try to get things going again.

In my opinion, that attempt has failed—I couldn’t even [...]

Anthony Pollina appeared on The Mark Johnson Show recently talking about his campaign for Governor in 2008. Rep. Chris Pearson (P-Burlington) also spoke with Johnson about the 2008 legislative priorities for the Progressive House caucus.
Pollina is a former Radio Show Host himself and a former Policy Advisor to Bernie Sanders. The Progressive Party has [...]

I was browsing several Secretary of State’s websites, when I trounced across California’s. I decided to take a look at the finalized primary results from February 5th. It was interesting to look at the numbers of each candidate, and especially how those votes corresponded for Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney in more than one primary.
Then [...]

The following was distributed as a MySpace bulletin:

Open Letter to Congressman Ron Paul from Frank MacKay,
Chairman of the Independence Party of America

I want to wish you the best of luck in your congressional primary on Tuesday, March 4th.

Thus far during this Presidential election we have refrained from commenting on candidates that are in major party [...]

SH writes:

The two factions of the Prohibition Party are working out the details of a merger. The Dodge faction has endorsed Gene Amondson for President. Amondson had been nominated by the Webb faction last year. The Dodge faction had nominated Dodge last year, but he died in the late fall. Discussions on re-organizing the merged [...]

Richard Winger is reporting that the founder of the world Natural Law parties has died:

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi died at his home in The Netherlands on February 6, 2008. He was age 91. In 1992 he told his followers all over the world to found Natural Law Parties in their own nation.

The U.S. Natural Law Party [...]

Ballot Access News

The Personal Choice Party, as expected, submitted a petition to re-qualify for the Utah ballot on February 15. Assuming it has enough valid signatures, and also assuming the Libertarian Party has enough valid signatures, there will be 5 fully-qualified parties in Utah this year (the Constitution Party did not need to petition this [...]

Ballot Access News

The New York Independence Party is already somewhat famous for its on-going dispute between the New York state officers and the New York city branches of the party. However, an entirely different intra-party dispute has cost the party an opportunity to nominate a candidate in the special State Senate election set for February [...]

The New American Independent Party is currently holding it’s 2008 Presidential Primary. NAIP members can vote between Feb. 6th and Feb. 29th. The NAIP is using an Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) ballot.

Additional information located here.

From an e-mail:

We will be holding our National Convention on March 7-8,2008 at Avon Park,Florida in the Jacaranda Hotel (www.hoteljack.com).

The American Party has been given the rate of $62.95 (plus 9% tax) per night.Please call the reservation desk at (863)453-2211.We will be having seafood buffet for the banquet on Friday night.

We will be discussing many [...]

TPW: You posted a comment to an article about the Jefferson Republican Party stating that “The Jefferson Republican Party has now merged with the Coalition of Constitutional Cconservatives and is now to be called the “UNITED JEFFERSONIAN PARTY,” and identifying yourself as national chairman of the party. When did this merger take place?

UJP: [...]

Ron Gunzberger’s take:

Appearing as a guest on the obscure Weekly Filibuster blog radio show on Saturday, former Ambassador Alan Keyes ( R ) attacked Mike Huckabee as “a liberal” on funding issues, said John McCain was not a reliable conservative, denounced Mitt Romney for “changing his positions as he goes along,” and said Ron Paul’s [...]

Rasmussen Reports is looking at the impact of Michael Bloomberg and Ron Paul as potential third party or independent candidates in the 2008 elections.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that roughly 15% of voters would currently vote for one of these two candidates in general election match-ups.

When the two candidates are mentioned as [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

It’s a little off to speak of “third parties” in Canada: That country has a history of multi-party politics due to a European-style parliamentary system and other factors such as Québécois secessionist tendencies. Four parties (the Conservatives, the Liberals, the New Democrats and Bloc Québécois) have substantial representation in Parliament. Of those four parties, three [...]

Roles reversed a bit between Libertarian Party presidential contenders Wayne Allyn Root and George Phillies. Often, Root is in the news and I try to obtain some balance by covering something from a Phillies release. This time around, Phillies is in the news and I’m covering a release from Root. To be [...]

Ballot Access News

On January 10, the Virginia Independent Green Party affiliated itself with the Independence Party of America, the budding new national third party headed by Frank MacKay of New York state.

The Independent Green Party is not a ballot-qualified party. However, it has the organizational strength to place candidates on the ballot in Virginia, and [...]