On November 2, 2010, the Independent Party of Delaware’s nominee for Attorney General, Doug Campbell, polled 21.09%. He was the only opponent of the Democratic incumbent, Beau Biden, son of Vice-President Joe Biden. No Republican ran.
When one of the two major parties doesn’t run a nominee in a race, it is not particularly unusual for a minor party candidate to poll as much as 21%. However, this showing is the highest percentage that any minor party or independent candidate for a statewide office in Delaware has received in that state since 1886. Even the strongest minor party and independent presidential candidates, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette, George Wallace, and Ross Perot, did not receive as much as 21% in Delaware. Traditionally, Delaware has been a state that gives minor parties and independent candidates relatively low percentages. Delaware didn’t even permit independent candidates until 1977.
Campbell, age 30, had begun the election year hoping to be the Constitution Party’s nominee for U.S. House, but the Constitution Party didn’t qualify for the ballot. State election officials considered removing Campbell from the ballot because in 2004, he was convicted in North Carolina of speeding to elude arrest. Delaware does not permit candidates to run for state office if they have been convicted of a felony. But even though speeding to elude arrest is a felony in North Carolina, it is not a felony in Delaware, so he remained on the ballot.
The Republican Party did not run anyone for Attorney General because the party couldn’t find anyone who wanted to run. The race was the first statewide contest in Delaware since the beginning of government-printed ballots (which started in 1891) in which one of the two major parties failed to field a complete statewide slate.
The last Delaware minor party statewide nominees who exceeded 21% were the various nominees of the Temperance-Reform Party, who each polled over 33% of the vote in 1886.
NONPARTISAN Approval Voting for all elected executive offices and all judges.
PARTISAN enforcement of the laws by party hack robots is super-dangerous — going back to the Roman Republic at least.
The US must have been a far more diverse and interesting place in 1886. These days-except maybe for the Amish and a few others-we’re all prisoners of a bland mass consumer culture. But,if the economy continues to collapse,we may come to see an unwelcome partial return to an authentic diversity.
1886 was the Prohibition Party’s best election year ever. Although the party’s best showing for president was in 1892, the party’s best election year in general was 1886, when slightly over 4% of all the voters voted Prohibition for the office at the top of the ticket. The Prohibition Party benefited from being the only minor party that was organized across the nation that year. The Greenback Party had almost died out and the Union Labor of 1888 hadn’t started up yet.
How many drunk soldiers in the horrific Civil War going into the suicidal frontal attacks — due to even more drunk rotted generals on both sides ??? — with survivors being routinely drunk after the War — causing the P.P. to get going ???
Lots of horses and H.S. by the factory load laying around in 1886 — larger cities had to be semi-horrific.
See the mass corruption, death and destruction during the 1919-1933 Prohibition regime.
1888-1890 Official govt primaries with Official Ballots get going — to reduce the EVIL corruption of the old time EVIL party hacks controlling caucuses and conventions — via bribes and threats and punishments (losing jobs, etc.)
Any connection with the 1886 P.P. election results ???
From Richard Winger’s article above: “Delaware didn’t even permit independent candidates until 1977.”
Thank you for pointing that out, Richard. That prompted me to look into some of my old files where, as expected, I found some very helpful information. In the January, 1977 “Progress Report – McCarthy ’76 Legal Challenges,” there is this: “DELAWARE – Federal court, in McCarthy v. Tribbitt, found unconstitutional the state’s prohibition of independent candidacy.”
At the beginning of the report mentioned above, it is stated that “Eugene McCarthy’s independent campaign for President [in 1976] struck down many legal barriers to ballot placement. It challenged the laws of over 20 states, winning most of those challenges and establishing a strong base for other efforts to assure fair ballot access.” At the end of the report, it is written that:
“We are grateful to the many local chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union which supported challenges to state ballot laws. And we are indebted to attorneys through the country who volunteered their services, often at great sacrifice, to establish the political rights of independents.
“The major political parties have long used state and national laws as a weapon against dissent. In the McCarthy campaign the independents struck back, using an older and more powerful law, the Constitution of the United States.
“The effort, just begun, will continue until all discriminatory laws have been struck down.”
Even though the late, great, Eugene J. McCarthy has passed away, and the Committee for a Constitutional Presidency/McCarthy ’76 no longer is around, some of us are still hanging in there, fighting for fair and open elections!
What I meant to write in line 15 above was “attorneys throughout the country” – not “attorneys through the country.”
Why doesn’t the Constitution Party in Delaware join the Delaware Independent Party and work together with others there to become a strong 3rd party in that state? The fact Mr. Campbell received 21 plus pecent of the vote, proves that a Constitutionalist can receive an appreciative number of votes without having to run under the Constitution Party label. Putting it another way, the “Independent Party” label is more enticing and less threatening to voters than is “Constitution Party” label. It’s time for the CP to “wake up and smell the coffee.”