Democratic presidential candidate Jim Webb will hold a press conference on October 20 to say he is thinking about running for President as an independent. See this story in The Hill. Thanks to Nathan Hetzel for the link.
Democratic presidential candidate Jim Webb will hold a press conference on October 20 to say he is thinking about running for President as an independent. See this story in The Hill. Thanks to Nathan Hetzel for the link.
I doubt he will once he finds out how difficult it is.
80 percent of his time and money will be used just getting on the ballots.
Exactly!
I don’t agree. There are several multi-millionaires (if not billionaires) who would probably help him. Peter Ackerman, John Arnold, and perhaps Michael Bloomberg. Independent expenditures can be used to get an independent presidential candidate on the ballot. In 2004, the one state in which the Republican Party provided significant help to Ralph Nader was Michigan, where the party hired paid circulators to get him on the ballot, without even telling him. He didn’t like it; he was expecting to be on the ballot in Michigan as the Reform Party nominee. But the Secretary of State wouldn’t let any Reform Party nominees on the ballot, so Nader did appear in Michigan as an independent. A challenge was filed but the Michigan State Appeals Court ruled there is nothing illegal about petitioning for an independent candidate without his knowledge or permission. In the end he could have declined, but he didn’t decline.
And there it is, isn’t it Richard? Your support of the Citizens United decision is, as I’ve averred, rooted in a sad hope that a third party candidate can find a sugar daddy multi-millionaire (but not a billionaire…wha???).
Citizens United has nothing to do with wealthy individuals. They already could make unlimited independent expenditures as a result of the 1976 US Supreme Court ruling Buckley v Valeo.
Richard, can you identify the most bitter and heavily litigated independent/third party campaigns from a ballot access perspective in modern memory? 2004 was epic to me. Nader’s efforts that year are a major reason why I’m interested in alternative candidacies.
The most hostility ever levied against a minor party or independent presidential candidate, for ballot access, was in 1940 against the Communist Party. But Nader in 2004 was a close second.
In 1940, the American Legion persuaded New York state courts to issue subpoenas to voters who had signed the Communist Party. Then those voters were grilled as to whether they really knew what they were signing. In West Virginia that year, the Communist Party had a petitioner who was sentenced to six years in the state penitentiary for alleging telling black voters that they should sign the petition because the Communist Party’s vice-presidential nominee, James Ford, was African-American. The petitioner, Oscar Wheeler, was released the following year when the State Supreme Court reversed his conviction. His statement was true, so his conviction for misrepresenting the contents of the petition was overturned.
Webb has been invited to identify himself as a Natural Born US Citizen and pursue the Natural Born Citizen Party National Committee.
Webb is the only reasonable candidate of either party. He is patriotic; a big thinker and effective wonk who knows how to get legislation through; communicates well across party lines; is scandal free; and has developed some genuine policy positions to fix our broken country. He was absolutely correct when he stated that the recent debate was rigged. Perhaps as an Independent he can have his voice heard. Once people start hearing him espouse his ideas, the polls will likely quickly change.
He might be able to pick up ballot access in some states for free if he can get various state qualified minor parties to nominate him. For example there are various states where reform party factions are qualified, Independant Pary of Oregon, Moderate Party of Rhode Island, Independence Party of Minnesota, Alaskan Independence Party, Independence Party of New York, ect.
Ralph Nader used this strategy to some effect in his last presidential campaign, getting ballot access to some states via single state parties with ballot access.