U.S. political parties, especially smaller parties, seem prone to fierce intra-party disputes. Ballot Access News is fundamentally a blog about election law as it relates to minor parties and independent candidates. BAN also carries news about the activities of minor parties and independent presidential candidates, especially news related to their attempts to get on ballots. Readers of blogs about this subject are, of course, also interested in intra-party disputes. Sometimes a blog item at this cite is a venue for people on both sides of an intra-party dispute to use the comments section to get their viewpoint across. That is fine. Unfortunately, some of the comments on the Reform Party posting of June 23 became so heated, allegations were made by some posters, that other posters had committed libel. Therefore, the June 23 blog entry about the Reform Party has been deleted. If people wish to make new comments about the internal disputes in the Reform Party, attached to this blog item, they are welcome, but please moderate any comments you make to be respectful of all individuals. UPDATE: no individual asked me to delete the original post and all the comments. Instead, one individual asked me to delete two particular comments. The idea to delete the entire original post and all the comments was mine alone.

The Freedom Socialist Party has never run a presidential candidate, nor even a candidate for statewide office, in any state. Instead, it has limited its electoral campaigns to state legislative races, and races for local office, in Washington, Oregon, California, and New York.

This year, however, the Freedom Socialist Party is actively helping the Socialist Party place Brian Moore on the Washington ballot. Moore is the Socialist Party’s presidential nominee. This will probably guarantee Moore a spot on the ballot in Washington. The Socialist Party last placed a presidential nominee on the Washington ballot in 2000, when only 200 supporters were needed. The requirement since 2004 has been 1,000 supporters.

Public officials in Louisiana have teamed up with Google and YouTube to promote a presidential debate in New Orleans on September 18. However, neither Senator McCain, nor Senator Obama, has said yet whether he will accept the invitation.

Louisiana officials were angry with the Commission on Presidential Debates, when the Commission announced on November 19, 2007, that the Commission would not hold any of its debates in New Orleans. The CPD presidential debates will be in Oxford, Mississippi on September 26, Nashville, Tennessee on October 7, and Hempstead, New York on October 15. The back-up sites are Danville, Kentucky, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

See the webpage for the proposed New Orleans debate. That site says that presidential candidates must be at 10% in polls, in order to be included. The webpage features a YouTube of various officials. First is Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who says, “I want to invite all our presidential candidates.” Then comes New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who says the proposed New Orleans debate will be “more democratic than ever before.” Then Chad Hurley of YouTube speaks, saying “We have a chance to open it up even more.” Finally, David Drummond of Google speaks, saying “Voters will have an opportunity to learn about the candidates.”

Since the poll requirement for the New Orleans debate is 10%, whereas the Commission on Presidential Debates requirement is 15%, the New Orleans debate sponsors are marginally closer to an inclusive general election debate than the CPD. Nevertheless, their rhetoric is out of sync with their criteria. As most readers of this site already know, a debate which invited all candidates who could theoretically win the election would involve only six presidential candidates, almost surely Baldwin, Barr, McCain, McKinney, Nader and Obama. Thanks to Ross Dreyer for the link to the New Orleans debate organization.