A few days ago, the Kansas Reform Party state committee met via conference call and revised its presidential nominee from Chuck Baldwin (who doesn’t really want to run for President) to Virgil Goode. The Kansas Objections Board will decide whether to permit the party to change its nominee. The Board consists of the Lieutenant Governor, the Secretary of State, and the Attorney General. The Board meets on Thursday, September 13, at 2 p.m.
On September 12, Gallup released a poll that includes five presidential candidates. The results: Obama 50%, Romney 43%, Goode 1%, Johnson 1%, Stein 1%, other 1%, won’t vote 1% (that was volunteered), no opinion 3%. See here. Thanks to Kevin Hayes for the news.
On September 12, the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office determined that Rocky Anderson does indeed have enough valid signatures to be on the ballot. That office had originally found that he did not have enough. But the Anderson campaign identified some signatures that had been wrongfully disqualified, and the state now agrees that the petition is sufficient.
However, the Justice Party was unable to re-validate enough signatures in Arkansas, so Anderson will not appear on the Arkansas ballot.
The Anderson petition in Rhode Island appears likely to succeed; the state has tallied 995 valid signatures so far, with some towns still not having reported.
A new organization, Occupy the Commission on Presidential Debates (or, Occupy the CPD) has been formed. See here.
Huffington Post has this commentary by Roger Stone. It points out that in nationwide polls, it appears that a majority of voters who intend to vote for Gary Johnson would be more likely to vote for Mitt Romney if Johnson weren’t running. But it also points out that in certain crucial swing states, there is data showing that Gary Johnson voters would be more likely to vote for President Obama if Johnson weren’t running.
Much commentary about the “spoiler effect” of minor party candidates is woefully unsophisticated. The Stone piece is a good reminder of that. There is other empirical evidence that the effect is complicated. In 2004, the nation’s leading polls determined that voters who intended to vote for Ralph Nader, by a slight margin, would have been more likely to vote for President Bush than for Senator Kerry. Also, in 1950, pollster Sam Lubell published his findings in “The Future of American Politics” that Progressive Party nominee Henry Wallace caused President Truman to defeat Thomas Dewey in 1948. And, a recent book called “Predictably Irrational” presented social science evidence to rebut the simplistic interpretation of “spoiling.”
