The Minnesota Independence Party recently voted not to endorse the nominees of other political parties. She this story. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.
The Minnesota Independence Party recently voted not to endorse the nominees of other political parties. She this story. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.
Dumb, dumb, dumb ………… Don Lake
If Minnesota had fusion, would they change their stance I wonder?
They DO have a form of “fusion”, just not on the most favorable terms. AIUI in Minn., the candidate’s name doesn’t appear once for each party’s nomination, and so votes aren’t recorded separately for the same candidate on each “line”.
What wasn’t clear from the report, but implied from at least one statement, was whether the bylaw adopted merely precluded cross-endorsement of nominees, or precluded nomination of any candidate who wasn’t a MEMBER of the IP. I don’t know how party enrollment works in Minn. — whether the vast majority of voters can’t be said to have any lasting form of membership in a party, but the few who accept nomination for public office or accept a party office — in which case there’d be practically no difference between the two possible bylaws — or whether as in some states one must affiliate in some official and non-trivial way with a party in advance in order to conduct the most basic of business with them such as primary voting or nomination petition signing. Or some intermediate case that gives unaffiliated voters a lot of but not total flexibility.
This is not a great time for third parties in Minnesota.
I have noticed that the MN Green and Libertarian Party are pretty much reduced to interest groups. They rarely run candidates and pretty much are at a turning this next election cycle.
The Independence Party lost Jesse Ventura, who had little interest in building up the party and even less in terms of any electoral reform other then some silly idea of a one house leg.
I had heard that in the last US House election, the Independence Party decided not to run a candidate in the mostly rural 7th CD. Why? Because the Constitution Party did.
I know that the ballot access laws need to be tweaked but in my experience minor parties in the State are rather apathetic about working together on any sort of election law reform, even through I did try several times to get such a coalition going and still do some lobbying.
Another challenge, like with DTV, is that life dose not end at the large Minneapolis/St. Paul or Duluth or St. Cloud.
Yet, state third parties are (in my experience) really bad (almost inept) when it comes to doing anything in ‘greater’ mn.
Agreed with what #4 said above. I’ll add that Minnesota should be a fertile place for third parties, what with the success the Farmer-Labor Party had in the 1930s, Ross Perot during his presidential runs and Ventura.
But when people think of third parties in MN now, they think of the Independence Party almost exclusively and my own impression as a Minnesotan is that the “Independence Party” brand has been tarnished by a string of poor showings and some very mediocre candidates, to put it mildly, to the point that it wouldn’t make sense for a serious candidate to run under its banner.
Some people in MN have suggested former moderate Republican Congressman Jim Ramstad run under the Indpendence Party banner for governor. But a candidate like Ramstad wouldn’t need the Independence Party banner to get on the ballot. He could get the 2000 petitioners to get on the ballot as a straight independent. He wouldn’t reap any particular financial advantage by association with the Independence Party. From what I’ve read, it barely has enough money to pay the rent on its office. And his reputation, frankly, would be tarnished just by association with that group of yahoos.
Their party chair, Uldrich, defended the decision not to cross-endorse or accept PAC money as necessary to defend the Independence Party “brand.” If this guy thinks the Independence Party has branded itself well, he’s delusional.