New York’s ballot-qualified Independence Party has yet to decide whom it will run for president. Here is a Newsday op-ed column from September 7 that says John McCain’s campaign manager for Long Island, New York, will be working hard to help McCain win that nomination. McCain’s Long Island campaign manager, Phil Boyle, is a New York Republican Assemblyman. Boyle is a good friend of Independence Party state chair Frank MacKay, according to the article; also Boyle’s wife is a registered member of the Independence Party.
The Independence Party has the third line on New York’s ballot. New York still uses old-fashioned mechanical voting machines. In New York city, the ballot is arranged in the “party row” style; in upstate New York, the ballot is arranged in the “party column” style. Both styles lead the voter’s eye toward the two major parties and the Independence Party. Other parties are less obviously visible. The high visibility for Independence Party candidates does influence voting behavior. The presidential candidate of the New York Independence Party always does better in New York than in virtually any other state.
For example, in 2000, when John Hagelin of the Natural Law Party was the Independence Party’s nominee, his best percentage of any state was New York. He got 29.2% of all his votes in the nation from New York state. By contrast, in 1996, when he was the Natural Law nominee in New York, only 4.1% of his national votes came from New York.
Likewise, in 2004, when Ralph Nader was the Independence Party’s nominee, he got 18.1% of his national votes from his Independence Party line in New York, even though he had a second line in New York, so that people who wanted to vote for Nader in New York did not need to vote for him on the Independence Party line. His second line in New York got him only 15,626 votes, but the Independence Party line brought him 84,247 votes. By contrast, in 2000, when Nader was the Green nominee in New York, only 8.5% of his votes came from New York.
One might think, there is no chance the Independence Party of New York will nominate any minor party presidential candidate this year, because the influence and power of the two major parties is so great by comparison. However, the New York Independence Party has largely been able to preserve its reputation for being somewhat independent of both major parties, because it has never nominated either major party’s presidential nominee. It has always chosen a minor party presidential nominee (it chose Ross Perot in 1996). If the Independence Party were to nominate either Obama or McCain, that would be a signal that it had irrevocably tilted toward one of the two major parties. So the party does have a strong incentive to choose a minor party or independent presidential nominee.
The Minnesota Independence Party simply avoids this dilemma by abstaining from nominating anyone for president. But Minnesota has an office-group ballot style. In New York, if a party declined to nominate anyone for president, that would leave an unsightly blank spot at the top of the party’s column or row.