The New York Working Families Party is credited with playing a big role in determining which veteran Democratic state legislators won their primary on September 9, and which ones lost. See this article in the New York Sun of September 11. The party played this role not so much by its nominations choices, as by the fact that it has a large cadre of dedicated campaign workers who do not hesitate to intervene in Democratic Party primaries.
This year, the West Virginia Secretary of State ruled that Cynthia McKinney must pay a $2,500 filing fee to be on the general election ballot, even though the Secretary of State is not telling Barack Obama or John McCain that they must pay any fee to be on the November ballot. All three candidates are similarly situated. They are all the presidential nominees of a qualified party in West Virginia. The Mountain Party, which nominated McKinney in West Virginia, is the Green Party affiliate in that state. It has been ballot-qualified since 2000.
The Secretary of State’s rationale is that Barack Obama and John McCain already paid a $2,500 fee to be on the state’s presidential primary ballot (the Mountain Party did not hold a presidential primary) and therefore her ruling is just. However, the presidential primary ballot fee is totally independent of a fee for the general election ballot. This conclusion is buttressed by the fact that in 1976, the Secretary of State did not charge Jimmy Carter the then-fee of $2,000 to be on the November 1976 ballot. Carter did not run in the West Virginia presidential primary, so he never paid any filing fee at all. The only candidates in the Democratic West Virginia primary were Senator Robert Byrd and George Wallace. All the other Democratic presidential contenders stayed out of the West Virginia primary so as not to split the anti-Wallace vote.
Also the West Virginia Secretary of State did not charge a filing fee to Richard Nixon or George McGovern in 1972. Neither of them had run in a West Virginia presidential primary either, so neither of them paid any fee at all, all year long.
Public Policy Polling released this poll on September 10, for North Carolina. It shows Bob Barr at 4% for president, and Libertarian nominee Mike Munger for Governor at 6%.
The New York Independence Party will choose its presidential candidate on September 21 in Albany, New York.
Although major media have given scant attention to the fact that Bob Barr did not attend Ron Paul’s press conference with Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, and Chuck Baldwin, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has covered the story here.
