If one desires to know if a party improved its performance compared to an election two years previous, U.S. House results are the best office to examine. This is because they are up every two years, nationwide.
Libertarians contested 73 particular U.S. House seats in both 2004 and 2006, and the competitive conditions for each of those 73 seats was the same. That is, in all 73 instances, there were the same number of major party candidates in the race both times (i.e., either both times there was both a Democrat and a Republican in the race, or else both times only one major party ran anyone).
In these 73 elections in which the conditions were roughly the same in both 2004 and 2006, Libertarian percentages increased in 42 districts and decreased in 31 districts.
The Constitution Party contested 12 such U.S. House elections in both 2004 and 2006. Constitution percentages were up in 8 of those districts, and down in 4 districts.
The Green Party contested 11 such districts in both 2004 and 2006. Green percentages were up in 4, and down in 7.
If you count my contest, there were 13 CP members that ran for the US House this year.
Mine was the only election in the country in which a Constitution Party member ran on the Republican Party line.
Without any GOP help (and, I mean **any**), I got 49,036 votes. That was the highest vote total of any CP member in the country.
Full details may be seen in my After Action Report.
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/kovach/061117
I’m confident that the conservative Republicans that voted on the Democrat line in this recent election — in an effort to “spank” their own party — will have joined the Constitution Party before the 2008 presidential election season heats up.
The spin control is already starting, with several Republican bloggers trying to blame the CP for their losses. In reality, the GOP needs to look no further than President Bush’s sellout of national sovereignty — via lax border control, and the underhanded SPP deal — to explain why conservatives are fed-up with the Republican Party.
And, now, with the creation of the CP’s National Veterans Coalition, the Constitution Party is poised to mobilize the very demographic that is likely to be at the forefront of any populist movement to permanatly seal our leaky borders.
This adds new meaning to the old saying: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!”
There are at least two Constitution Party candidates in 2006 who got more votes than Tom did. The Constitution Party nominee for Montana Clerk of the Supreme Court (a partisan office) got 85,972 votes. The American Independent Party of California candidate for Secretary of State got 122,928 votes, with counting still going on.
With all due respect and encouragement to Tom Kovach, I must say that I still do not see any mass migration of Republicans to the Constitution Party. There are too many divisions and too much bickering going on within that Party for it to be anyting other than a fringe party – unless it makes some dramatic changes. It is possible that the fate for the Constitution Party was sealed in the year 2000 – when Patrick Buchanan decided to join up with the Reform Party instead of the Constition Party (which would have been his more logical choice).
It is more probable that many Republicans of all stripes will jump ship for various ports in the coming perfect storm. It is even possible that whole blocks of Republican voters will leave the Party. In any event, I am sticking to my prediction that the Republican Party will be a minor-sized party by 2012.
Well, the only reason he sought the Reform Party nod was the $12 million it offered.
You could say that Howard Phillips could’ve made the decision to cross-endorse Buchanan though.
rj: The reason Howard Phillips didn’t endorse Buchanan in his Reform Party run in 2000 was because it would have meant the CP leaving his vest pocket. When it comes to his county or his ego, you know which one will come first with Phillips!
My wife & I are
Conservatives/Traditionists first and Republicans second. It would be great if Oklahoma allowed more ballot access to other political parties but as long as they don’t we have to vote for the lesser of the two evils which nearly always is the Republican unless there is a good Independent running. I do believe Bush’s stand on illegal immigration will do more than anything else to lose GOP votes.
“Celebrity-itis”? I doubt this is the magic bullet and one need look no further than campaigns of Ralph Nader (Green) or Pat Buchanan (Reform) to see how detrimental these “celebrity” campaigns are to long-term party building.
There are other claimed simple answers to win – like IRV or Proportional Representation. But, I am skeptical these changes will significantly improve the results of alternatives to the D/R paradigm.
This year, very substantial races were run by many alternative party candidates. The vote totals did not change significantly from races where little more was done than put an alternative candidate’s name on the ballot. That’s true even though voters generally were upset enough to sweep the Rs from power. Similarly, when voters were upset enough to sweep the Ds from power in the mid-1990’s no significant benefit accrued to candidates from alternative parties.
There have been times in the past when alternative candidates made very substantial efforts – like Libertarian Ed Clark’s campaign in 1980, when he ran with support from David Koch’s millions. And, Carla Howell’s Libertarian gubernatorial campaign when her “end the income tax” initiative garnered some 40% of votes. These high-effort campaigns also failed to significantly increase votes for the alternative candidates.
I think what needs to be learned is that the vast majority of those who vote are committed Ds or Rs. That voting block is not a pool of thoughtful people comparing issue positions and ideology, then making an informed case-by-case decision; they are already sold on the D/R paradigm.
Of course, that’s not surprising since the Ds and Rs have spent 150 years and trillions of dollars identifying like-minded people, organizing those people and getting them to the polls.
If this year’s fundamental lesson is that voters aren’t persuadable by ideology, we should be thinking that if supporters of the alternative parties are out there, they lurk among the 50% who don’t vote.
It means, to win, alternative parties have to duplicate what the Ds and Rs have already done; that is, go out to the non-voters, identify like-minded people, organize those people into parties and get them to the polls.
That’s hard work, making many think that simply running a celebrity is an easier path to success. Or, leading people to think there must be some other simple path to success.
Sadly, I suspect there is no such simple path and that’s the real lesson to be gleaned from this year’s results.