Third Party Watch

Tampa Bay Community Radio WMNF 88.5 FM, will interview Brian Moore, Socialist Party USA presidential nominee, Brian Moore, on Wednesday afternoon, May 7th, on the “Rob Lorie Program,” from 1 to 2 PM.

Moore will highlight the rich heritage socialism has brought to the United States, while trying to address its negative image that the media [...]

Socialists believe it is necessary to create good paying jobs for working people
rather than mailing millions of people a one time welfare check. Socialists
have called for higher minimum wages and developing socially useful jobs for all
working people.

We thought we’d provide some video of the key independent and third party contenders for the presidential race in 2008. Our goal was to provide footage of video which (for the most part) hasn’t ever been embedded at Third Party Watch before. When possible, we selected video from the candidate’s official YouTube channel [...]

Here’s the link to join our Facebook network.

I’d like to make a personal request and ask that everybody who visits this site take a couple of minutes of your time to contact one or more legislators in Alabama and urge them to support HB738, which is a bill that will significantly decrease the signature requirement for independents in Alabama.

The committee meets [...]

This is perhaps more of a rant than news, but bear with me. October 20th I took some official campaign pictures of Socialist Party nominees Brian Moore and Stewart Alexander soon after they were nominated to be the ticket: the first official campaign photos. Sadly, I parted with my Wriststrong Wristband; handing it [...]

While I’m on the subject of poetry, let me share a few leftwing poems of mine.

Unconditional

Tears stream down her cheek,
the Tigris and Euphrates flood her face.
The anguish burns her soul
as her heart drowns in emotion.
Her son has died,
his body recovered,
but she cannot see it.
The cops, nay vigilantes
hunted him down.
He was wanted.
This man had his cause
to [...]

I don’t think this has been written about here and I think that this is an issue that readers here would be highly interested in. In Michigan, various third parties (Green Party, Libertarian Party, Reform Party, Socialist Party, US Taxpayers Party) came together to form the Michigan Third Party Coalition. Despite obvious differences in ideology (i.e. the Socialist Party and US Taxpayers Party are diametrically opposed on almost every issue), these parties have come together to try to reform Michigan electoral law, with its excessively restrictive guidelines. I spent most of my day working on the site (www.mithirdparties.org) and thought I might as well end it by posting about the group here. I encourage third parties in other states with restrictive ballot access laws to form similar groups. Forgive my post for being short, but I’m tired and about to fall asleep.

The Bush administration has introduced a stimulus package that will give millions of Americans a one time payment up to $600; this is an election-year act of desperation. It is for certain that the federal stimulus package will not significantly ease the current economic crisis the U.S. is presently facing, and it will only give millions of individuals false hopes as the nation slides deeper into the Bush recession. American retailers had a disappointing Christmas; the $150 billion stimulus package is a late Christmas present and a welfare check for the billionaire retailers, with many goodies thrown in for other wealthy corporations. While some in the Senate are making a worthy effort to add some unemployment relief, and direct some of the money to those with too little income to pay income tax, even these positive effects will be minor.

“Small l” libertarian, former Green Party candidate and Idaho gubernatorial hopeful W. Lane Startin wrote an interesting article on the history and future of third parties. It started with a discussion of issues well known to people engaged in third party politics, such as the importance of ballot access reform and inclusion in candidate [...]

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 [...]

I’ve been away for a while, so I don’t know how much coverage is being made about this. The PSL announced that their 2008 ticket will be Gloria La Riva and Eugene Puryear. In addition to that, Iraq War veteran Michael Prysner is running for for Congress in Florida’s 22nd Congressional district. The [...]

Here’s the scoop from News10 in the Sacramento, Modesto and Stockton area:

[Brian] Moore, 64, is one of seven candidates running in the California primary on the Peace and Freedom party ticket. He’s one of 28 so-called “minor party” candidates on the February ballot.

Moore is actually a member of the Socialist Party USA, but was invited [...]

by Stephen Tash

This post is a follow-up on a previous post.

To close up on the incident, I should first mention that I have written Hannaford Supermarket’s spokesperson, Caren Epstein, about the incident. Secondly, on that same day, I requested the police report for the encounter, which arrived yesterday. You can read it here. [...]

Ballot Access News

The Party of Socialism and Liberation is expected to announce a presidential and vice-presidential nominee sometime on January 17. This party has never had any nominees for public office in the past, and is only a few years old. Most of its members were formerly members of the Workers World Party.

There is no reason to assume that Iran is attempting to obtain nuclear weapons through its nuclear initiative. Protocols are already in place as recognized to be both prudent and proper by the international community for all states, not only those who are friendly to American interests. Other Middle Eastern states such as Egypt have reinstituted their previously abandoned nuclear programs as well. Though there is a valid concern for a nuclear-armed Iran, just as there would be valid concern for the addition, rather than subtraction, of any nuclear-armed states, these protocols are capable of ensuring a peaceful Iranian nuclear program. The motivations of the current detractors: Israel and the United States are much more dubious to the informed.

Moore was soliciting signatures for a petition to put him in the primary race for the Liberty Union Party of Vermont whose primary falls on March 5th, 2008 in a strip mall parking lot on Saturday and Sunday. The largest traffic flow was through the doors of the Hannaford Supermarket and naturally Moore focused his attention at that end of the strip mall, remaining in the parking lot. On Saturday, Moore had no problems and collected over 200 of the necessary 1000 signatures he needed. However, on Sunday he had a run-in with a Hannaford manager who demanded in a hostile voice that they leave the mall parking lot as it was store property and accused Moore of trespassing. Moore and his colleagues refused to leave the premises on the basis that they had a constitutional right to participate in the democratic process in a public area, regardless of whether or not it was on private property.

Ballot Access News

The January 14, 2008 issue of The Militant (newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party) announces that the SWP will run Roger Calero for president, and Alyson_Kennedy for vice-president. Calero, 38, lives in New York; Kennedy, 57, in New Jersey.

Calero also ran for the SWP for president in 2004. He was born in Nicaragua. [...]

As I wait to write my first exclusive post for thirdpartywatch over the holiday weekend, I figured it would be a good idea to give everyone a taste by republishing an article from the Michigan Socialist that I wrote.

Socialist Party USA Picks its Presidential Ticket for 2008
by Stephen Tash
The Michigan Socialist
Socialist Party members from across [...]

Stewart Alexander has written a column challenging both major parties for adopting a “anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican strategy” this election cycle. He wrote:

This anti-immigrant rhetoric, coming from the two corporate parties, is helping to drive an anti-immigrant public phobia across America and is straining our political ties with Mexico. Just last week President Felipe Calderon [...]