On February 23, Buddy Roemer will formally drop out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination, and will emphasize that he is still seeking the Americans Elect nomination. He will also seek the Reform Party nomination. See this story.
The only state in which the Reform Party is ballot-qualified, but in which Americans Elect is not yet ballot-qualified, is Louisiana. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.
Richard,
How many states does the Reform Party presently have ballot access? I don’t think my BA newsletter listed it.
It seems a bit of odd that the Chicago Tribune listed Roemer to seek the Reform Party when obviously AE will have greater ballot access. But I guess a Reform Party nomination would allow him greater flexibility to choose his running mate.
@2 – The Reform Party is on in Louisiana, Florida, Kansas and Mississippi. In Feb’s newsletter, it’s on the back page.
How about where they now have names like the Independence or Independent Party?
?http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/02/a_political_hail_mary_buddy_ro.html
“While Americans Elect and the Reform Party cannot coordinate their efforts, the Roemer campaign has been in touch with both, and Sierra said officials at Americans Elect are OK with the idea that if Roemer won both nominations he would appear on the Reform Party line in those states where they are on the ballot, and on the Americans Elect line where they are not.”
Also,
“Sierra said that Roemer and Walker are ‘very much in line’ in their thinking and ‘a Roemer-Walker ticket would be very powerful for the general election.'”
With the Reform Party only in a handful of states, the Libertarian Party becomes the only viable third party alternative and they will get plenty of votes. Gary Johnson is quite popular.
#3, none of the ballot-qualified parties in the U.S. named “Independent Party” or “Independence Party” are affiliated with the Reform Party. Minnesota and New York left long ago, and Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, and Oregon “Independent” or “Independence” Parties have never been connected with the Reform Party.
Here’s an article on an American’s Elect forum involving political science faculty and AE staffers at Winthrop University in Rock Hill SC. If there is a follow-up article, I will post it here.
http://www.heraldonline.com/2012/02/23/3764355/winthrop-to-hold-discussion-on.html
@5 Word is that LP Oklahoma is set to fail this week.
That’s down to 49 max if true.
However, Americans Elect will probably not fail to get on the ballot in any states.
It is likely that they will be taken seriously whereas the LP will once again be largely ignored, just like when they ran Ron Paul and Bob Barr, and just like Johnson was ignored in the Republican primaries.
If Bloomberg is on the Americans Elect ticket they could well be in the national presidential debates, win electoral votes, even win the presidency.
Gary Johnson will probably not break 1%.
#8, you aren’t taking into account the Libertarian-Green ballot access lawsuit in Oklahoma. See the blog post about that case that was put up on February 23.
That one percent for the LP would still be 1.25 million votes, a big improvement over 1980.