I'm
not a big fan of third party candidates.
It's
not that I'm ecstatic about the two-party system. Too many
"mainstream" candidates are poll-driven media robots to the point
that they drive me a little batty.
I
wouldn't mind having another choice, if only to force the other candidates to
stop acting like automatons and start speaking like human beings again.
The
problem is that third party candidates are usually a bit, um, goofy. Two words:
Ross Perot. Need I say more?
In
Illinois, third party candidates spend almost all their time whining about our
rigid ballot access laws instead of actually doing any work.
They
have a point about the requirements for third party candidates.
"Established parties" like the Democrats and the Republicans only
have to gather 5,000 signatures for their statewide candidates, while third
parties have to collect 25,000 signatures. And considering that someone from
the establishment is almost guaranteed to challenge the validity of those
signatures, they actually have to gather far more than 25,000.
That's
a lot of work, to be sure, and perhaps the bar could be lowered. But an
argument that many third parties have been making - that our state law is so
rigid that no party has ever managed to get around it - may finally be blown
out of the water for good.
The
Green Party claims to have collected over 35,000 valid signatures for its slate
of statewide candidates, ten thousand more than they need. Plus, as I write
this they were planning a last-minute push in Chicago and Champaign to pad
their totals even more.
Ralph
Nader ran as a Green Party candidate for president two years ago and collected
34,000 Illinois signatures. It wasn't enough. The Democratic Party of Illinois
went through his petitions line by line and knocked him off the ballot.
This
time around, the Greens say they've learned some lessons and have had volunteers
verifying and validating every single signature they've collected.
There's
another potential third party candidate named Randy Stufflebeam who says on his
website that he's a "long way" from his petition goals. Stufflebeam
is a social conservative and word is that a certain prominent Democrat was
preparing to help him gather signatures on the final weekend, until a reporter
called and the Dem had to cancel the scam. The idea was that Stufflebeam would
take votes away from the pro-choice, pro gay rights Republican candidate for
governor Judy Baar Topinka. But now it doesn't look like he'll make it.
It's
possible that the Green Party would take votes away from Gov. Blagojevich,
particularly among young people and disaffected Democrats who couldn't bring
themselves to cast a protest vote for a Republican. In a close race, the Greens
could be a deciding factor.
But
the election is still a long way away. First they have to withstand the
challenge. Then, they will have to convince the civic groups and media outlets
which will sponsor the upcoming debates to include them. And they'll also have
to persuade reporters to write stories about them.
A
spokesperson for the Green Party said they had already sent letters to both
Blagojevich and Topinka demanding to be included in the debates. Good luck with
that.
My
own opinion is that if any party has enough organizational strength to survive
a ballot challenge in a state with literally the toughest third-party ballot
access laws in the world, then they ought to be considered legitimate.
That
means they should be included in all the debates, no matter what their poll
numbers might be. And it means that people like myself should include them in
our regular campaign coverage.
Back
in 2002, an old acquaintance called with a startling pronouncement. She had
been out of the state for the previous two years and was now working on a
campaign that I was kind of picking on.
She
said she had spent the weekend reading every issue for the past two years of my
daily newsletter, Capitol Fax and realized that what I respected the most was
solid organization. After chiding her for wasting her weekend, I said she was
right. She then pitched a story about how her campaign had organized a huge
event for young professionals that would pack Chicago's Navy Pier. Naturally, I
gave that story a lot of play.
And
now I promise to give the Greens the coverage they're due if they make it over
this nearly impossible hurdle. Others should as well.
-30-
Rich
Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter. He can be
reached at thecapitolfaxblog.com