The West Virginia Secretary of State’s web page carries the unofficial votes for Governor in the October 4 special election. Here is the link.

So far, the percentages are: Democratic 50.23%, Republican 46.40%, Mountain 1.90%, independent .97%, American Third Position .35%, write-ins .14%. UPDATE: at 11:15 pm, the newer percentages are Democratic 49.37%, Republican 47.17%, Mountain 2.01%, independent .94%, American Third Position .37%, write-in .14%.

The 2011 special election is the fourth gubernatorial election at which the Mountain Party (West Virginia’s Green Party affilate) has participated. The party’s earlier gubernatorial totals have been: 2000 1.61%; 2004 2.48%; 2008 4.44%.

Daniel Gross, a former Newsweek Senior Editor and now a journalist and commentator for Yahoo!Finance interviews Tom Friedman at this 6 minute 21 second video. In the interview, Friedman explains why he feels that the U.S. needs a new party. The video clip is accompanied by commentary by Daniel Gross on why he disagrees with Friedman.

Gross says an independent or new-party president would be just as much a politician as any Democrat or Republican. He says such a third party presidential candidate would want to be re-elected also. But he does not mention that most of the independent or third party Governors elected in the last twenty-one years in Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Alaska did not seek re-election; only Angus King in Maine did seek re-election; also we don’t know if Lincoln Chafee will seek re-election in 2014. The others accomplished much of what they wanted to do in their first term. Also, Gross does not focus on the extent to which the election of a president who was not a major party nominee would have huge symbolic consequences, which would spread to all areas of governance. Thanks to Sam Harley for the link.

On October 4, the seven candidates for President of Ireland held a televised debate. This story about that debate was written just as the debate was beginning.

If the United States held inclusive general election presidential debates, and invited every candidate who was on the ballot in enough states to theoretically be elected, there would never have been a U.S. presidential election with a number of candidates greater than seven who would have been eligible for such debates. In 2008 and 2004 there would have been six such candidates.