Third Party Watch

From Townhall:

There’s scant prospect of any viable third party, however, when potential fringe contenders have an air of “round-up-the-usual suspects”—Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Mike Gravel, Bob Barr, and Chuck Baldwin. Soaring turnout in primaries shows no mass desertion from the two-party system, and the Gallup Poll of under-30 voters notes a scant 8%—unchanged from four [...]

Ralph Nader talks to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now about Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

From Zogby International:

Republican John McCain trails Democrat Barack Obama by three points in a national general election test, but leads Democrat Hillary Clinton by 10 points, the latest Zogby Interactive survey shows.

The online poll, conducted April 25-28, 2008, shows that Obama retains 80% support among Democrats, compared to just 66% of Democrats who said they [...]

From Jürgen Vsych:

“What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?” New biography of the consumer advocate and independent presidential candidate

What Was Ralph Nader Thinking when he ran for president against impossible odds? Read this new book and find out!

If you’ve ever been in a car accident, or dared to eat a hot dog, you may be alive because [...]

Matt Funiciello is a well known Greens Activist that is a delegate to the Green National Committee. Eric Sundwall serves as an alternate representative on the Libertarian National Commitee. They talk about Ralph Nader, the Greens and Libertarians, as well as ballot access and media coverage on Capital Outsider.

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 [...]

ConnieTalk provides a great wrap-up of where third party and independent presidential candidates will be this weekend:

Constitution Party: Former Republican Alan Keyes is now running his presidential campaign from the Constitution Party. The former UN Ambassador under Ronald Reagan discussed his recent break from the GOP at an April 15th rally in Hazleton, [...]

Ballot Access News

The Pennsylvania primary on April 22 is an excellent opportunity for petitioning parties to collect many signatures. The Constitution, Green, Libertarian Parties, and independent Ralph Nader, are all circulating a petition to get on the Pennsylvania ballot. Petitioning at the polls on primary day is one of the best techniques for petitioning, because [...]

Audio here.

Third Party Watch Publisher Stephen Gordon was recently interviewed on Seattle’s Newstalk 710 KIRO.

Good Third Party Watch sound-byte from Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic: “It’s a good source of—like—alternative (I come from the alternative rock world)—it’s a good source of alternative politics.”

Here’s another from Novocelic: “It’s kind of like the independent music store, the underground, the [...]

Here’s the article:

The poll also gauged potential head-to-head match-ups if independent Ralph Nader or possible Libertarian candidate Bob Barr, a former congressman, get on the ballot. Nader drew 3 percent and Barr 2 percent in both national match-ups.

McCain fared slightly worse against Obama with Barr and Nader in the race, but their presence did not [...]

From the Nader 2008 campaign:

Ralph Nader is polling at ten percent in Michigan.

A poll by Lansing-based EPIC-MRA shows McCain 46 percent, Clinton 37 percent and Nader at ten percent.

With Obama in the race, the poll shows Obama at 43, McCain at 41 and Nader at eight percent.

These Michigan results are reflected in national polling.

A Fox [...]

The two topics seem unrelated.

On 9/11:
Ralph Nader, the consumer activist and independent presidential candidate, seems to think that the report of the commission assigned to investigate the events of 9-11 should not be the last word.

“There are unanswered questions in the 9-11 investigation, and they should be answered,” Nader said at a recent address at [...]

From Nader 2008:

April 15 is around the corner.

Could the corporate executives of this country please stand up and show a little appreciation?

To the taxpayers who subsidize them? And bail them out?

How about the $30 billion bailout of reckless Bear Stearns as the most recent and egregious example?

I’m going to go out on a limb here [...]

From the Nader/Gonzalez campaign:

A statement by Ralph Nader, Independent Candidate for President:

Once again, former President Jimmy Carter is to be commended for taking the initiative toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The announcement that he will meet next week in Damascus with Khaled Meshal, the leader of Hamas, is consonant with a March 1, 2008 poll [...]

...is located here.

From an LTE:

Now that Ralph Nader has announced his candidacy, we again see the blatant hypocrisy in many Democrats. They charge him of being egotistical while implying that their candidate is entitled to all liberal votes. They treat him and his supporters like second-class political citizens.

Nader wants “more voices and more choices.” He gives a [...]

Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney won 79% of the vote in the Wisconsin Green Party’s Presidential Preference Primary. The Primary, conducted by mail among dues paying members of the party, ran from April 28 through March 27. Kent Mesplay, who campaigned in Wisconsin in November of 2007, won 10%. Ralph Nader received 5% through write-in votes, [...]

The following is from the Ralph Nader campaign. From an editorial point-of-view, it is notable that Nader’s campaign went after John McCain, but didn’t bring up Barack Obama’s role in the matter.

The Nader/Gonzalez campaign today called on Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and the Republican National Committee to move to break the logjam at the [...]

From Ralph Nader’s campaign blog:

Senator Clinton:

Just read where Senator Patrick Leahy is calling on you to drop out of the Presidential race.

Believe me.

I know something about this.

Here’s my advice:

Don’t listen to people when they tell you not to run anymore.

The rest is located here.

From the Ralph Nader campaign:

Declaring President George W. Bush the most impeachable president in American history, the Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader summoned the Democratic Congress to live up to its oath of office to uphold the Constitution. In a letter to U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Mr. Nader laid bare the compelling [...]

From the Nader campaign:

The tragic marker of the 4000th U.S. Soldier to fall in Iraq is now before the American people – with no end in sight. During the vigils, marches and Winter Soldiers’ heartfelt testimonies on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the invasion-occupation of Iraq, there was a common expression of public [...]

Reason’s Dave Weigel ran into Mike Gravel and managed a quick interview. For background, I had heard from two sources (names shall remain undisclosed), that Gravel was possibly interested in a Libertarian Party presidential bid. I didn’t run them without confirmation and had received no response from Gravel’s staff to my question on [...]

2008Central paid some attention to the LP today.

On Daniel Imperato:

Politically irrelevant (and justifiably so) candidate, Daniel Imperato draws the ire of a librarian. Apparently, Imperato has been placing press releases framed as news stories in foreign news release services that are subsequently getting pick up by Google News and Yahoo News and making their [...]

From The Arizona Republic:

Ralph Nader is lamenting the complicated and costly roadblocks that he says discourage independent and third-party candidates from getting on the ballot. ... Nader called ballot access a civil-rights issue and compared onerous state statutes to racist Jim Crow laws.

At specific issue for Nader is Arizona’s ban on out-of-state petitioners—in order to [...]