The Kansas Reform Party is ballot-qualified. At its recent state convention, the sentiment was strong for nominating Chuck Baldwin for president. Some kinks remain to be worked out, however. The Kansas Secretary of State seems to feel that a state ballot-qualified party cannot nominate the presidential candidate of another nationally-organized political party (even though that nationally-organized party is not on the ballot in Kansas). Clarification is being sought. Chuck Baldwin, of course, is the Constitution Party’s presidential candidate; he was nominated at the national convention in April 2008.

In 1980, Kansas let the American Party of Kansas nominate a presidential candidate who was different than the presidential candidate chosen by the national convention of the American Party. The national convention had chosen Percy Greaves for president, but the American Party of Kansas (which was ballot-qualified) instead ran Frank W. Shelton for president.

Also, in 1968, Kansas let the ballot-qualified Conservative Party nominate George Wallace for president. Kansas is the only state in which Wallace accepted the nomination of a previously qualified state party. In all the other 49 states, he declined such nominations and either ran as an independent or set up his own new party, which was called American Independent in some states, American in some states, and the George Wallace Party in some states, and the Courage Party in New York.

See this essay by Jeremy Lott, which ran on Politico on June 11. Lott points out that Al Gore ran in 2000 as a rather conservative Democrat, unlike the Al Gore of today. Lott also says that the Democrats have become more populist since the 2000 campaign, and concludes that Nader’s runs for the presidency in 2000, 2004 and 2008 have been one cause of this somewhat changed Democratic Party.

Although the U.S. Supreme Court issued five full opinions on June 12, including some on habeus corpus that are making headlines, the Court did not release its only pending election law decision, Davis v Federal Election Commission.