New York’s ballot-qualified Independence Party has yet to decide whom it will run for president. Here is a Newsday op-ed column from September 7 that says John McCain’s campaign manager for Long Island, New York, will be working hard to help McCain win that nomination. McCain’s Long Island campaign manager, Phil Boyle, is a New York Republican Assemblyman. Boyle is a good friend of Independence Party state chair Frank MacKay, according to the article; also Boyle’s wife is a registered member of the Independence Party.
The Independence Party has the third line on New York’s ballot. New York still uses old-fashioned mechanical voting machines. In New York city, the ballot is arranged in the “party row” style; in upstate New York, the ballot is arranged in the “party column” style. Both styles lead the voter’s eye toward the two major parties and the Independence Party. Other parties are less obviously visible. The high visibility for Independence Party candidates does influence voting behavior. The presidential candidate of the New York Independence Party always does better in New York than in virtually any other state.
For example, in 2000, when John Hagelin of the Natural Law Party was the Independence Party’s nominee, his best percentage of any state was New York. He got 29.2% of all his votes in the nation from New York state. By contrast, in 1996, when he was the Natural Law nominee in New York, only 4.1% of his national votes came from New York.
Likewise, in 2004, when Ralph Nader was the Independence Party’s nominee, he got 18.1% of his national votes from his Independence Party line in New York, even though he had a second line in New York, so that people who wanted to vote for Nader in New York did not need to vote for him on the Independence Party line. His second line in New York got him only 15,626 votes, but the Independence Party line brought him 84,247 votes. By contrast, in 2000, when Nader was the Green nominee in New York, only 8.5% of his votes came from New York.
One might think, there is no chance the Independence Party of New York will nominate any minor party presidential candidate this year, because the influence and power of the two major parties is so great by comparison. However, the New York Independence Party has largely been able to preserve its reputation for being somewhat independent of both major parties, because it has never nominated either major party’s presidential nominee. It has always chosen a minor party presidential nominee (it chose Ross Perot in 1996). If the Independence Party were to nominate either Obama or McCain, that would be a signal that it had irrevocably tilted toward one of the two major parties. So the party does have a strong incentive to choose a minor party or independent presidential nominee.
The Minnesota Independence Party simply avoids this dilemma by abstaining from nominating anyone for president. But Minnesota has an office-group ballot style. In New York, if a party declined to nominate anyone for president, that would leave an unsightly blank spot at the top of the party’s column or row.
Nader has indicated he’s going to try for the nomination, as well.
What are his odds?
I recommend that the Independence Party unite all the third parties in New York – from Constitution to Communist – behind T. Boone Pickens for President and Joe Oddo for Vice President! Come on folks, let’s do it! Why waste time nominating your own candidates who believe in the various planks of your various platforms? The only issue that matters is not being a Democrat or a Republican. All that other stuff (global warming, Iraq war, Iran, Afghanistan, civil liberties, abortion, NAFTA, WTO, immigration, college loans, foreclosures, solar energy development, endangered species, taxes, blah blah blah) doesn’t make any difference.
Pickens/Oddo ’08! Who’s with me?
“Why waste time nominating your own candidates who believe in the various planks of your various platforms?”
Because those issues matter. They matter far more than a label on a ballot.
Because a non-Democrat/non-Republican can still be a corporate, pro-war, anti-civil liberties warmonger.
What’s the point wasting time nominating a president that will do little different than the big two?
What’s the point nominating a president that isn’t even running?
Mike – I think your snark-o-meter could use a tuneup – LOL.
I would think Nader has a better shot than McCain for the Independence Party line, but they are always trying to surprise.
What are the chances of Ron Paul getting the Independence Party’s nomination? There’s going to be a major announcement on Wednesday.
Vote Ron Paul/Barry Goldwater, Jr. for the New York Independence Party!
THIS IS AN EMAIL I SENT to every email address on foxnews including
‘info@rasmussenreports.com’ . PLEASE everyone email as many networks and tell them as an Independent voter you take offense to this:
For the last 30 minutes Fox News has been talking about the latest Rasmussen poll released today Sunday September 7th showing:
McCain 48%
Obama 48%
To be fair they are not the only network doing this.
WOW that’s great for ratings, the only problem is if you add them up you come up with 96%
SO, what you are telling America ONLY 4% of the people comprise UNDECIDED VOTERS, BOB BARR VOTERS, RALPH NADER VOTERS, and still other Third Party candidates such as McKinney and Baldwin.
I’ll be sure to pass this along in what a sham the media and these pollsters who are being paid by the Duopoly are doing basically saying AMERICANS ARE STUPID.
Keep the farce as this always galvanizes people to Third Parties as you prove corruption has no end.
Any word on if Alan Keyes might try for the NYIP line?
I suspect Nader will win it.
I agree with Derek and kombayn that any New Yorker R3VOLutionaries need to help Dr. Paul get the Independence Party nomination.
Doesn’t Paul actually have to sign something to accept the NY nomination?
Mike – Yes, he would have to sign a document accepting their nomination so they couldn’t just put him on.
As for the way the voting lines are set up in New York, that has nothing to do with why the Independence Party does so well. It has everything to do with their rise to power in the State. The placement of the parties on the ballot is mandated by who gets the most votes in the election for Governor. In 1996, the Independence Party nominated Tom Golisano, a very popular non-politician millionaire, who actually grabbed the nomination by getting enough signatures for an “Opportunity to Ballot” and forcing a primary. That meant we had to actually write his name in as it wasn’t listed on the ballot. This allowed the Independence Party to out poll the Conservative Party in the general election. (Interestingly, Golisano tried to do an “Opportunity to Ballot” on the Conservative line but barely lost in the primary.) The Conservative Party hurt themselves by nominating Pataki, who was the Republican candidate. People in New York normally go down the column (or row, depending where you live) and vote for their candidate the first time they see them on the ballot. So, many people who would have normally voted for Pataki on the Conservative line, saw his name listed first on the Republican line and voted for him there. That loss of votes was enough to put the Independence Party on the third line for the next four years where they remain to this day.
That’s why Nader did so well on the Independence Party line and not to well on the second line in 2004. People who were going to vote for him saw his name there first and pulled the lever. Why the Independence Party polls so well is because of their membership. Over the last 10 years, it has fluctuated but been anywhere from 195,000 to well over 300,000. That’s a powerful voting bloc and many of these enrolled party members tend to vote their party line as they are truly independent of the Dems and Reps, unlike the Conservatives who side with the Reps and the Working Families Party that sides with the Dems. These five are the only ballot qualified parties in the state so the Independence Party is the only consistent choice that independent voters have. The other third parties come nowhere near this. Not even the once strong Conservative Party. That’s why Nader didn’t do nearly as well when he was only the Green candidate in 2000.
The setup of the voting machine itself does not lead your vision to the top three parties. There is nothing magical about the setup that makes you home in on the top three. Granted, you have to start off at the top so those are the first three you come to, but there is nothing that makes your eyes stay there and focus on the top three. You can easily keep scanning down looking over your other choices. Besides, most people vote for party or know the name of the person they are voting for, so they just scan until they find what or who they want. Hardly anybody actually reads the names of who’s running and makes their choice in the booth. I may not like the order of it so that the Dems and Reps continue to get the two top lines, but if your candidate was only on one ballot line, it’s very easy to find him/her on the ballot.
Do the different NY parties have different electors even if they nominate the same candidate?
Is Baldwin seeking the Independence Party nomination. If not, then he should, since he has nothing to lose, what with not being on the ballot in New York.
When two New York parties back the same presidential candidate, they simply coordinate so that their slate of electors is identical for both parties.
SteveZ in item 12 is completely making up history. There was no election for governor in 1996 and Tom Golisano never got the Independence nomination through a write in vote. He petitioned to get on the ballot in 1994 like any independent candidate. Because he got more than 50,000 vote minimum the Independence Party was born.
The party is fundamentally changed from 4 years ago. Frank MacKay now completely controls the party by proxy at the state level. Whoever he likes gets the nomination and it looks like he likes McCain, possibly because of some deal or just because he favors Republicans this year. I will be shocked if McCain is not the nominee. Everything else is for show.
SteveZ can defend himself, but I think he meant to say “2006”, not “1996”.
Agree with NYer. To add, the power of the IP derives from the door-to-door organizing that independents have been doing in NYC for 35 years, and the smart partnerships with many courters of the independent vote. I just came in from a doorknocking shift in Queens, where we are running a grassroots democracy/local control campaign to support and organize our membership in the face of Frank MacKay’s opportunistic hackery.
The Independence Party in New York City is not a “line” — it’s a genuine organization of independents who are concerned about democracy and think that the IP should be a tool of the voters, NOT an appendage of a major party sold to the highest bidder.
That’s why the IP has done so well in NY up till now. We’ll see if the success continues, or if partisan hackery trumps the power of ordinary people – once again.
When will the decision be made?
The vote is 9/21 in Albany by the 300 State Committee members. But it will be done with mostly proxys which McKay holds a super majority.
Well NYer and Nancy, what I wrote was simply a typo. What I meant to write was 1998, not 1996. If you were as well versed in Independence Party history as you state, you should have picked up on that when I wrote that it was the year that the Independence Party took over the third place line from the Conservatives, when the CP split the Pataki vote with the Republicans, and the IP outpolled them with Golisano. (This is easily verifiable by checking it on the NYSBOE site. That’s not a history revision as you state.) I’m not sure why you’re bringing up 1994 when the IP became ballot qualified as I never stated in my post that ballot qualification happened in the year I mistakenly wrote, 1996, or the year I meant, 1998. In fact, I never mentioned it at all. But even though they became ballot qualified in 1994, they still didn’t get the third party line from the Conservatives in that year as the CP outpolled them by about 100,000 votes. (That, too, is easily verifiable by a trip to the NYSBOE website.) In short, when the IP took the third ballot line was the issue, not when they became ballot qualified as you tried to infer.
I’m also not sure what you mean when you say the IP was “born” in 1994 as the IP was actually started in 1991. (Again, easily verifiable by a Google search on the party and clicking on any number of links, such as Wikipedia.) Are you saying a party in NY isn’t really a party just because they aren’t ballot qualified? As an example, are you saying the Libertarian Party of NY isn’t born yet just because they aren’t ballot qualified, even though they have been active in the state for a number of years and have regularly placed candidates on the ballot for Governor and President? I think a number of people on this site would disagree with you.
And Nancy, nobody here, including me, is denigrating the IP. You’re telling me how their strength is going from door to door and all that. I think I said that, by implication, when I stated that IP members are a powerful voting bloc of over 300,00 members where many of them vote for their IP endorsed candidate and are truly independent of the Reps and Dems. However, the issue was why candidates on the IP ballot do so much better in NY than across the country, and your answer of door to door organizing doesn’t answer that. It may explain why the IP gets their candidates on the ballot and why they have good structure, but my answer of 300,000 members who back their endorsed candidate answers the question much better. Also, your getting involved in semantics. The IP is a “line” just as much as any other party in NY is a “line”, even the established Dems and Reps. Anyone on this site will tell you that the term “line” is interchangeable with the term “ballot”. I addressed the fact that the CP is a party when I used the term “enrolled party members”. Maybe you didn’t pick that up when you read the post (or didn’t read it).
Lastly NYer, I’ll give you the fact that I erred about the write in ballot on both the Conservative and IP lines. However, you erred too, since again, if you were really knowledgeable about IP history, you would have immediately known I just missed the year as that happened in the 2002 primary. (I’m still not sure why you automatically assumed I was talking about 1994 when I never even mentioned that year in my post.) In 2002, the IP actually endorsed Pataki as did the Conservatives. (Again, this is easily verifiable by a Google search.) Since Golisano was not a Conservative, the only thing he could do was pass an “opportunity to ballot” and have CP voters write his name in. He lost by over 15,400 votes but did create some upheaval in the party. On the IP side, since Golisano was a registered IP member, he passed a petition to force a primary, which included having his name on the ballot. There was no need for a write in. Yes, I did err on that too as I forgot he was a registered IP member at the time. However, I consider that a minor error since the main point was that Golisano was NOT the endorsed candidate of the IP nor did he just pass a petition to become the endorsed candidate. He only gained the endorsement after forcing a bruising primary and beating Pataki by 546 votes. (Again, all vote totals can be verified on the NYSBOE.) I’m surprised you didn’t remember that since that was only 6 years ago and was one of the most exciting statewide primaries in the last 10 years.
I guess the moral of this story is never write a long post while being tired from the double whammy of waiting three hours on a golf course waiting for the foursome ahead of you to finish, and watching my beloved Miami Dolphins lose yet again. I apologize to the regular readers for this long post, but I had to clear up some confusion, as well as defend myself from being called a liar.
SteveZ: I didn’t mean to imply you were a liar, only that you were mistaken, so I apologize for a poor choice of words. But I do not appreciate you’re putting words in my mouth about the Libertarian Party just to say others would disagree or that I’ve “erred” or “forgotten” things when that’s not the case at all. I wrote only one short paragraph about your post and it was completely true and correct. I’m sorry I couldn’t read your mind to know that when you said 1996 you really meant a combination of 1994 (the only time Goisano petitioned), 1998 (when the party got the third line) and 2002 (when there was a write in vote in a different party). Someone else thought you meant 2006. My point was that Golisano never had to get the Independence line by a write-in vote and never had to petition to get on the ballot except the first time, in 1994. The party was born in 1994 because, to the best of my knowledge, that’s the first time they ever ran any candidate for any office, unlike the Libertarians (perhaps I’m mistaken, but I would never, never, never, never trust Wikipedia for any details). I don’t know what may have happened in 1991, but half a dozen people sitting around a kitchen table doesn’t make a party unless there’s cake and balloons.
the NYS assembly (as well as senate and county subdivision) districts are not constitutional(based upon the NYS constitution legislative districting article) — a long legal battle has been up and down the state and federal courts for at least 5 years and is now at the USCA 2nd Circuit. So a legal challenge could be considered — among many other matters — to challenge the IPNY state committee districts — both old and new — and its convention structure selecting a nominee for US president within two weeks.
I do believe that those from New York may be forgetting that their good fellow Frank MacKay also claims in other States to be the Chairman of the Reform Party National Party, this in addition to the National Independence Party and the State Independence Party.
This depsite the fact a Court Order says otherwise and a Court Supervised Convention has been held.
Perhaps those in New York should also be ware that this bloke may well be spending their Party’s treasury on his “Reform Party” adventure to a tune of thousands per month, has anyone made inquiries?
By the way, why would a 3rd Party nominate the candidate of one of the major parties?
MacKay attempted to have his brownshirts in the Reform Party throw out Party Members in that Party who stood in the way of his sham and attempt to have multiple crowns on his seven heads, on false charges of say so called nice things about a major party candidate, now MacKay is going to nominate one of them and that is fine and dandy??
It seems that these issues and questions are reasons Big Mac Mackay cared not to attend court Hearings for fear of being called to the stand and having to answer the age old question of where the money went, that is the NY State Party’s money.