On June 17-18, the Prohibition Party held a national committee meeting in Memphis, Tennessee. At the meeting, a member of the committee announced that she will run for Governor of Tennessee in 2010. Because Tennessee only requires 25 signatures for independent candidates, but 45,464 signatures for political parties, she will run as an independent. The Chattanoogan newspaper covered her announcement in this news story. Thanks to Professor J. David Gillespie for this news.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Thx to the Chattanooga daily for their coverage of a non Democan or non Republicrat!
—– Donald Raymond Lake
By the way, if any of you have not read Dr. Gillespie’s book, “Politics at the Periphery,” you should purchase a copy promptly. It is very, very good!
Thanks very much for your generous comment, Phil.
I am working on another, also on minor parties and independent campaigns. It is due out next year.
You are welcome, Dave. I am most certainly looking forward to purchasing and reading your new book.
If I were advising the Prohibition Party, I would tell them to become a socially conservative, economically left-wing party like the Christian Union in The Netherlands.
They obviously want a nanny state, might as well be a nanny state that provides health care in addition to banning alcohol and pornography.
Instead it looks like they’re positioning themselves as the party of people who think the Constitution Party is too liberal and/or the Amish. This candidate is part of that trend.
My previous comment was written before I read the actual story at chattanoogan.com.
Now I’ve read it and must comment about the candidate, Taliban June Griffin.
She previously ran for Congress, 2006, as an independent, of course, because of the impossible petition signature requirements by Tennessee. Her announced affiliation then was Constitution Party. Her campaign slogan was “Let’s elect adults for a change,” in my not very humble opinion the best of any campaign that year.
She has a lot of courage, but shows very little restraint (or rationality). For example, she stomped into a Mexican restaurant and stole the Mexican flag hanging there, but, for some reason, never went to jail.
Somehow, she re-defined “theft” by saying the owner didn’t object to her action.
In fact, the poor man was so dumbfounded at her brazen act he just stood there in a daze.
Taliban June is quite the well-known character in and around Chattanooga and Southeastern Tennessee and I hope she gets a chance to participate in any debates.
If she should (God forbid) win, she will make a major effort to deport all homosexuals, claiming the state constitution and laws allow such an act.
It’s great to see independent candidates get coverage and ballot access, and hopefully she stirs up the debate. That being said, do we really need another anti-freedom political party? Aren’t the Republocrats anti-freedom enough to forgo the necessity of a Prohibition Party?