Will Third Parties Run to Victory?

America's third parties tend to be regarded by political insiders as something of a joke. No candidate from the Libertarian or Green parties has won a high-profile state or national election — or even come close. That significant failure aside, representatives from these third parties insist that they are poised to make an impact this November. In fact, this time around they might have a few candidates with enough money and support to make things interesting. Establishment politicians who recall the contentious outcome of the 2000 presidential election and the bizarre shift in Senate power last spring regard this possibility as no laughing matter.

Just ask former vice president Al Gore. Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader shaved a critical margin away from Gore — most notably in Florida, where Nader grabbed more than 97,000 votes, most of which probably would have gone to Gore in an election decided by approximately 500 votes. In a less-publicized political fracas, the Libertarian Party (LP) played a critical role in tossing control of the Senate to Democrats and now Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). The Senate was evenly divided (and ripe for Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont to defect from the GOP) at least in part because in 2000 incumbent senator Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) lost to Democrat Maria Cantwell by fewer than 3,000 votes. In that race, the LP candidate received more than 64,000 votes, most of which probably would have gone to Gorton. A similar fate had befallen Republican challenger John Ensign in his 1998 bid to unseat incumbent Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.). In March 2001, National Review referred to "The GOP's Libertarian Problem" as "what may be the most underreported political phenomenon of the last two election cycles."

The Greens and the Libertarians still itch for the role of spoiler. One of the most interesting races this year will be in Georgia, where redistricting has paired two incumbent Republicans — conservative Reps. John Linder and Bob Barr — in the GOP primary. Ron Crickenberger, political director of the LP, tells Insight that the party plans to spend as much as $100,000 in the race to attack Barr's hard-line position against medical marijuana and give the primary to Linder. An LP position paper entitled "Spoiler Targets for 2002" presents the case in stark terms: "Bob Barr is target No. 1, both in terms of time criticality and in overall importance. To the medical-marijuana movement, Barr is the equivalent of the Antichrist."

Linder does not support medical marijuana, according to his office, but he has a much lower profile on the issue than Barr. A spokesman for Linder tells Insight that the LP has not contacted the congressman about these expenditures, but adds that Linder has a good working relationship with them because of his support for tax reform.

A spokesman for Barr says he, too, is unaware of the LP strategy, but in a written statement to Insight the congressman does not shrink from the challenge: "I'm proud to be the antidrug candidate in this race. … I have been a leader in the war against [illegal] drugs and if the pro-drug folks want to target me with negative ads then that tells me I've been doing a good job in that effort."

In preparing to resist the Libertarian push, Barr might consider consulting with the other vocally antidrug incumbents the LP has targeted. They include Sens. Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.), Max Cleland (D-Ga.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Texas). Crickenberger says Americans are ready to move away from drug prohibition, and his party is focusing resources accordingly. "We believe this is a substantial opportunity to move public policy in a Libertarian direction," he says.

Asked for races in which their candidate has a legitimate chance to win, LP officials point to Wisconsin. The Libertarian candidate for governor there is Ed Thompson, a former meat-cutter, prison guard and boxer who currently owns a bar/restaurant called Mr. Ed's Tee-Pee Supper Club and serves as mayor of tiny Tomah. He is polling between 7 and 11 percent, depending on which Democrat wins the primary.

Thompson reportedly was arrested in 1997 for operating illegal video-poker machines out of his bar and charged in 1998 for refusing to cooperate with police after being stabbed in the stomach by a friend. On the surface, he appears about as likely to win as shock-jock Howard Stern, who once toyed with the idea of running for governor of New York on the Libertarian ticket. But Thompson's brother is Tommy Thompson — probably the most popular politician in the state — who resigned as governor of Wisconsin to become President George W. Bush's secretary of health and human services. In an interview with Insight, Ed Thompson says his family name has given him added exposure and insists he is a serious candidate. "I am going to win," Thompson says. "There's no doubt about it."

Acting Gov. Scott McCallum is a Republican who was appointed when Tommy Thompson left for Washington, and he appears vulnerable. The Democrats will not hold primaries until later this summer and, in the meantime, Ed Thompson has been lapping up media attention and increasing his name recognition. He already has appeared on the Today show and was featured in a lengthy piece in the Style section of the Washington Post. In his interview with Insight, he pointed out that he is doing much better in the polls at this stage than another "hopeless" gubernatorial candidate who eventually went on to victory: Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura.

Since strange circumstances sometimes yield unexpected results, another gubernatorial race for Libertarians to watch might be in Massachusetts. Republican Gov. Jane Swift, the once-popular incumbent who gave birth in office to twins, earlier this year decided not to run when it became clear that Republican Mitt Romney, head of the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee, was throwing his hat in the ring. Several Democrats still are battling for the primary nod.

In the midst of it all sits Libertarian Carla Howell. A management consultant who now is campaigning full time, she collected more than 300,000 votes (11.8 percent) in her 2000 bid for the Senate seat of Democrat Edward M. Kennedy; she fell fewer than 26,000 votes short of the Republican candidate. It is impossible to know whether she will control those votes this fall or if they will move to Romney in a close race because none of the polls conducted so far have included her as an option — a snub she dismisses as "absurd" given her showing in 2000.

Howell remains confident, however. She tells Insight that her campaign will spend approximately $1 million by Election Day — an astronomical war chest by Libertarian standards and one that will allow her to buy precious time on television. "I certainly have a chance," she says. "I'm a dark horse, but we'll see."

Howell says her campaign will get a boost from a possible ballot measure that would give voters the chance to eliminate the state's notoriously high income tax. She is cofounder and chairwoman of the ballot initiative — a measure none of the other candidates supports. Asked if she fears her candidacy might "spoil" the election for Romney and give it to a big-spending Democrat, Howell argues that neither Democrats nor Republicans advocate smaller government. "You can't spoil tainted meat," she says.

Dean Myerson, political director for the Green Party, also dismisses criticism that his party spoils elections. "The whole concept with spoilers is that we have a responsibility to protect Democrats when they run bad candidates," Myerson tells Insight. "We're running candidates because that's what our supporters want."

According to Myerson, the Green Party's best chance this year also is in a gubernatorial race, this one in Maine. He says Green candidate Jonathan Carter and his supporters slogged through the Maine winter to get 20 percent of party members to sign a petition supporting the campaign. Myerson says the signatures put Carter on the ballot and made him eligible for public funds. The political director says the campaign eventually should receive "close to $1 million. He's going to have the funds to run a serious campaign."

Opposing Carter will be a Republican, an independent and Rep. John Baldacci (D-Maine), according to Myerson. He says he is unaware of any polls so far, but adds that the crowded field might favor a dark horse. "It's a four-way race," he notes, "so you can win with 30-some percent."

Optimistic predictions aside, these third-party candidates are all long shots — just like Ventura. But Chuck Muth, chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus (RLC), is one political operative who takes the third-party threat seriously. The RLC derides as RINOs (Republicans in name only) those GOP officials who stray from their small-government promises and it urges the party to stick to fundamentals such as tax cuts. Muth has worked in Nevada to find common ground between Libertarian and Republican candidates for the state Assembly, cobbling deals so the two parties compete in as few districts as possible. "I wish someone at the national level would do it," he says, noting that more and more elections are coming down to the wire, and that tenuous majorities in both the House and the Senate are on the line. "Two or 3 percent is the spoiler level in a lot of these races," he warns.

Sooner or later you people are gonna have to get your heads out of your collective asses, and help us rebuild this once Great Republic. That ain't gonna happen with Dems/Repubs. How many more decades of history do we need to observe? Blackbird.

You complain that Bush has not done enough good as he should. While at the same time you have not named one significant victory Pat Buchanan has won for conservatives in America.

That says a lot.

Like they say, it is easier to be critical than correct. Pat knows that. It is how he has made his living.

Congrats! I salute your luck of the draw! Blackbird.

What you're really complaining about are not rank-and-file Congress/Senate members but the president. Ideological leanings vary hugely between congressional districts. And it's unfair to tar the entire Republican party on the basis of RINOs that don't represent the heart of the party.

One might argue that anything you've listed here can creep in as an issue at any given moment. None of this has been wiped off the slate.

That's a moot point. Legislation can also wipe out previous legislation. But I think I've amply demonstrated that Bush has lived up to most of his campaign promises.

Bob Barr is one of the best friends of liberty in the House.

I suppose I thought so too, until I learned he had
pushed through a bill to make it ILLEGAL for
some issues to be voted on in Washington D.C.
Referendum or no, the issue could not legally
be put up for a vote. The people were not
even allowed to decide. If that is the hallmark
of the best friend of liberty in the House, I don't see it.

Vote your conscience, if you will, but don't be surprised when Democrats end up making laws that govern your existence...

I have voted my conscience all my life…especially for Reagan (truly the last conservative and last of a dying breed), and again for Bush Sr…especially because I believed his “no new taxes pledge”…since then, I am no longer surprised when Republicans now end up making the same (Democrat) laws that govern my existence.

The Republican party walked away from me. My conscience (and what I vote for) has not changed…Bush Sr’s tax deal, Republican failure to even try Clinton in the Senate, and now conceivably Bush W’s seeming reversal on constitutional issues (let alone conservative issues) indicate that his conscience (his faith notwithstanding) rather than my conscience has changed. My vote matters enough to me personally that I expect pledges for my vote to be kept and the laws upheld. Period. Reagan stood his ground and I see no reason why Bush can’t either. I suspect most of us would stand together with him.

But if Bush (Rino’s) won’t stand for what I believe, then I’ll stand alone..

You folks that have set yourselves up as the "saviors of the Republic" are as dangerous to the Republic as the Black Panthers and Tim Mcveigh. If the only damn issue the Libertarians run on is legalized drugs then to hell with them and the hell with the “super patriots”.Yeah you're right, the hell with us. To coin a very poll driven popular phrase, yo're either with us, or yo're agin us. At least our goals aren't ever changing to match the wind. Let's see your reaction when our borders are completely overrun. Where will you stand when you are subject to Mexican dictate in what used to be part of America? And once again I'll remind you, I'm no Libertarian. Your attempt to bring drugs into this debate, where I haven't seen drugs mentioned once BTW, won't wash. Seeing how you can't have a conversation without hitting on the topic, who really has the problem? As much as you would like to be insulting, the term "Super Patriot", has a nice ring to it, thanks. Blackbird.

That's the biggest lie of all, boy. The only votes that go to the democrats are votes cast for them. That tactic is typical of where your party stands All you people have to sell is fear. Nothing your candidates have been promising for the past 20 years has had the vaguest resemblance to what your party's congress members do once in office.

The difference between the democrats and the republicans is that a democrat politician will say, "Bend over, boy. I'm gonna feel your pain", while a republican politician drops a counterfeit dollar on the floor and says, "Hey, did you drop that?" Once you bend over for either of them the result is the same.

That isn't nearly enough, Doc. While a few of Bush's appointees are allright, the rest of them are as bad as Gore could have dug up, if not the same people Gore would have appointed. Look at Tenet and Mueller. Gore would have appointed both without batting an eye. Look at Minetta and Whitman. In fact, look at the Sec'State. Bush's few conservative moves aren't enough to balance his overall liberal agenda.

The stand against the ICC world court is good, but it's the kind of thing that is the bare minimum one would expect of a conservative, not some hugely masterful stance. It's also something that can be instantly undone by a successor.

Bush campaigned as a democrat anyway, in 2000. Since he got into office, he's been working on merging the two parties in Congress the way he did in the Texas legislature. He's a 'uniter" allright. He unites the two parties by shutting down republican opposition to the democrat agenda. The people who blindly follow him are as bad as he is himself. Bunch of imbecilic liberals shrieking that they're the only real conservatives.

Fortunately, Thompson, the LP gubinatorial candidate in Wisconsin, has celebrity; and Wisconsin allows same day registration... the two factors you cite in Ventura's win.

Sounds like that case would be a parallel. I'll keep an eye on it.

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