On November 4, Constitution Party member Ronnie Broughton was re-elected to the Webster Parish, Louisiana School Board, in a partisan election. Because he was unopposed, that office in his district was omitted from the ballot.
Also on November 4, Constitution Party member Randy Fontenot placed first in a partisan election for Police Chief of Eunice, Louisiana. He was opposed by two Democrats and two Republicans, and got 40.8% of the total vote. Because no one got 50%, he is in the December 6 run-off against a Democrat. He is likely to win because his Democratic opponent only got 23% of the vote in November. Because the Constitution Party is not ballot-qualified in Louisiana, Fontenot’s name was on the ballot with no party label whatsoever next to his name. He is a registered member of the Constitution Party, and in November 2012, was the lead presidential elector candidate for the Constitution Party.
Another “hurrah” for the Constitutionalists! To paraphrase the late Everett Dirksen, “a Constitutionalist here and a Constitutionalist there, next thing you know we’ll be governed by Constitutionalists!”
But seriously, this is the way a 3rd party should operate. Start with those small local offices, where the face to face saleing of one’s candidacy is better than dollars spent, and often with a better return.
Keep it up Constitutionalists!
Just looked at Randy Fontenot’s website. Most impressed at the professional website design. Unlike a lot of 3rd party candidate websites, it is not plastered with “VOTE CONSTITUTION(AL) PARTY” statements like many 3rd party websites do. This is what “kills” many 3rd party candidates, as they are more obsessed at telling the voters to vote for the party than for the candidate.
Mr. Fontenot is apparently an astute politician, and the Constitution(al) Party is fortunate to have him. Hopefully, they will recruit more like him in the future and this party just might start having some clout on the political scene.
Apologize for my misspelling. Should have read, “…selling of one’s candidacy…”
And yet how many office-holders did they also lose, especially here in Nevada?
I’m not taking sides, as the Constitutionalists would most likely not allow someone like me to attend their conventions as just a simple observer. They might be afraid my “populism” could rub off on some of them, and they’d have to sanitize the whole room.
One of the problems for the Constitution(al) Party (or the Independent American Party in Nevada) is that it easier for one of their party nominees to win, than to govern. Once in office, they start trying to “inject” their ideology as governing policy, and then the constituents get their eyes opened to just what these people really stand for, and often it doesn’t come out the same as what they campaigned for.
The officeholders of the Constitution(al) Party (or Independent American Party of Nevada) who won 4 years ago, were the party’s bright new faces of the 2010 elections. Perhaps after 4 years in office, their constituents knew they did not want to go back to 1776. Reckon this was the problem?
It will be 2018 before we know if those who won in 2014 will likewise find themselves on the outs in 2018?
And in fairness, this problem often applies to parties of the “left” as well as it does parties of the “right.”