Why the Third-Party Dream Remains Just That By _Scott Conroy_ (http://dyn.realclearpolitics.com/authors/scott_conroy/) - December 12, 2013
For as long as the United States has maintained its two-party system of government, reformers have dreamed of upending the status quo. >From Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose Party of 1912 to Ross Perot's 1992 independent run for the White House, a smattering of real contenders in the last century pieced together personality-driven campaigns that threatened to change everything. But those candidacies fell short, and time and again other efforts to establish lasting third-party movements have failed spectacularly. In next year’ s midterm elections, just about every viable candidate on just about every ballot will have an “R” or a “D” following his or her name -- a reality that persists despite polling trends indicating a large portion of the electorate views those two letters dimly; they could scarcely carry a more negative connotation if they were painted in scarlet and pinned to the candidates ’ chests. And so, with the time so ripe for a viable third party to emerge, why does it remain so difficult for such undertakings to gain traction at any level of campaigning? One of the biggest impediments is a kind of Catch-22: People who might consider supporting third-party candidates typically don’t believe that these long shots can win, so they end up settling on a Republican or Democrat. A similar premise applies to exposure via free media coverage: Non-major party candidates inevitably start far behind in this all-important matter. Running in this year’s Virginia gubernatorial contest as the Libertarian Party nominee, Robert Sarvis -- a Harvard-educated software engineer, businessman and lawyer -- hoped to capitalize on the widespread antipathy voters had for both major candidates in the race. _Polling_ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-voters-disgusted-by-their-gubernatorial-choices/2013/1 0/14/fd62952e-34b8-11e3-be86-6aeaa439845b_story.html) , after all, consistently showed that most voters saw choosing between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Ken Cuccinelli as akin to taking either a punch in the face or a punch in the gut. In the end, Sarvis _fared better_ (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/08/libertarian-robert-sarvis-drew-record-high-votes-in-virginia.html) than any non-major party gubernatorial contender in a Southern state in more than four decades. But that impressive feat was tempered by cold reality: He received only 6.5 percent of the vote and was never a threat to win. In an interview with RealClearPolitics, he recalled crisscrossing the state in the early months of his candidacy to generate media attention and build his name identification with voters. “The vast majority of people, they were polite about it, but you could tell it was sort of like, ‘Oh, who cares?’” Sarvis recalled. Despite the insurgent nature of his campaign and the libertarian label that he admits evokes “a mountain guy off the grid” caricature for some, Sarvis sought to cultivate a moderate image that could appeal to all points on the ideological spectrum: He ran on a platform favoring gun rights and school choice, as well as same-sex marriage and drug policy reform. Despite sustained warnings from the Cuccinelli camp that Sarvis was essentially acting as a stalking horse for McAuliffe, _exit polls _ (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/05/cnn-exit-polls-virginia-governors-race/) showed that the Democrat’s ultimate margin of victory would have been larger had the Libertarian Party candidate not been on the ballot. But Sarvis struggled to gain sustained media attention, even as he polled for a time in double digits. As he knew all too well, his toughest opponent wasn’t McAuliffe, Cuccinelli, or the wealthy donors and interest groups that allowed each man to rack up huge sums of money. Sarvis’s most powerful foe was the American political system itself. As K. Sabeel Rahman -- a Reginald Lewis Fellow at Harvard Law School -- explained, candidates like Sarvis tend to do better in countries that have proportional representation, multi-member districts, or parliamentary systems, since third parties can actually win seats and gain real political power in such systems. "Our winner-take-all electoral system is hostile terrain for viable third parties,” explained Rahman, whose area of interest is democratic institutional reform. “In a system where there is only one elected representative per district, where that representative is chosen based on winning the most votes, and where the executive is elected separately from the legislature, the odds of winning actual political power are stacked in favor of big-tent parties.” In Virginia, Sarvis found that even voters who agreed with him on most issues -- and preferred him on a personal level to either of the other two candidates -- were reluctant to get behind him. “Generally, it’s very hard to break the mentality that you’re throwing your vote away,” Sarvis said. “That’s the biggest thing -- when people want to vote for somebody else, but they feel compelled to choose between two people who are most likely to win.” **** Not every third-party candidacy has been doomed to this fate. From Minnesota’s Jesse Ventura to Maine’s Angus King, outsiders in the recent past have achieved some success on the sub-presidential level, and there remains no shortage of interest groups who continue to promote them. But attempts to build viable power bases -- needed to galvanize the national interest and energy required to make such undertakings last -- have proved futile. This track record has led most prominent reformers to conclude that a top-down approach is the most tenable solution to upending the two-party system at the presidential level. “Any third-party movement will require someone to lead the charge,” said Mark McKinnon, co-founder of the bipartisan No Labels group. “There is no question the environment is ripe for someone to step into the political vacuum. But the table stakes to get on the ballot is a minimum of $30 million. That's a huge hurdle, but not insurmountable. It just counts out most mere mortals.” McKinnon and his fellow No Labels co-chairs -- former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (a Republican) and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (a Democrat) -- have found avenues to voice their views on the set of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” at high-brow think-tank forums, and during button-down symposiums around the nation’s capital. But No Labels has struggled to connect beyond the David Brooks-reading set, and its focus is stuck on matters of policy and governance, not on winning the White House. In 2010, however, a group that called itself Americans Elect set out to take a major step toward just that goal. The group’s backers were, for the most part, adherents of the socially liberal/fiscally conservative centrism professed in the pockets of money and power along the Acela corridor and on the West Coast. The group’s plan was first to raise lots of money. And that’s exactly what it did -- hauling in an impressive $35 to $40 million, according to reports. ____________________________________ In that effort, Americans Elect faced intense blowback from campaign finance watchdogs for acting in the manner of a political party, but retaining a key benefit of non-profit organizations: the ability to keep its donors anonymous. But the ends would justify the means, or so the internal thinking went. Next, the group launched an extensive ballot access initiative in all 50 states and an innovative, Web-based nominating process that it promised would result in a viable 2012 presidential candidate. After substantial media fanfare and gaining ballot access in 26 states, no big-name presidential contender was willing to step forward, and the group _conceded defeat_ (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/05/08/americans_elect_sputters_in_ef fort_to_field_nominee-full.html) in May of last year, announcing that no candidate had reached its viability threshold. Kellen Arno, who was Americans Elect’s national field director, said chatter in the group’s well-staffed Washington, D.C., headquarters often centered on the pitfalls of the so-called “Nader effect,” a reference to Ralph Nader’s third-party candidacy tipping the balance in the 2000 election to George W. Bush. “So if I was talking to a Democrat at the time, yeah, they were frustrated with the president, but God forbid they vote for a third-party candidate and the president ends up losing because of a split vote,” Arno said. “And you’d hear the exact same thing if you were talking to a Republican. So I think we’re at a stage right now where people are frustrated, but they’re not so frustrated that they’re willing to be sort of cavalier with a vote and risk an unintended backlash.” **** When Americans Elect began its efforts, organizers believed that gaining ballot access in all 50 states would be their biggest challenge. As it turned out, the signature-gathering process, the parameters of which are unique to each state, was indeed as onerous and costly as they imagined it would be. But in the end, the piece of the puzzle that the group initially assumed would fall into place relatively neatly -- attracting a candidate who could actually win the race -- proved the most unworkable element of the entire enterprise. “We had the money and the people to achieve 50-state ballot access,” said Americans Elect CEO Kahlil Byrd. “But of all the people we briefed on this idea who would’ve been credible candidates, to a person they all decided not to do it. And I guess that attests to their sanity because they knew that they were going to be in a brawl with the two parties, especially if they got serious and got some traction.” The organization’s fizzle came four years after a similarly minded organization, Unity08, failed to gain much interest and also collapsed. There is a key reason, it turns out, why the last viable third-party presidential candidate was Ross Perot in 1992: He was a self-starting billionaire. In other words, the candidate came first and the organization followed. And on the presidential level, it appears that’s the way it has to be. Currently, there may be only one person with both limitless financial resources and instant national credibility who would be capable of a Perot-style campaign in 2016. And he just happens to be out of a job next month. “If Michael Bloomberg decided today he wanted to run for president, he wouldn’t lose because he couldn’t get on the ballot -- put it that way,” Arno said. The outgoing 71-year-old New York mayor, however, does not appear to have a presidential run on his to-do list. **** But might there be some wiggle room at a different level of politics? The _Centrist Project_ (http://www.centristproject.org/) is the latest non-profit, 501(c)(4) group to take its shot at building an infrastructure to claim the ideological middle. The group’s co-founder, Dartmouth professor Charles Wheelan, laid out his ideas for this new venture in a book published last spring, “The Centrist Manifesto.” At the heart of this group’s approach to a familiar challenge is the conclusion that previous third-party movements have aimed either too high or too low. “What we believe is that you need to pick the right target,” said Christie Findlay, the organization’s executive director. “[Americans Elect] tried for president, and they also never really galvanized the country behind what they were doing. A lot of third-party projects or organizations focus on very, very local elections to build up a power base and slowly work their way up, but as a result they’re spending all their time and energy focusing on super-local issues, and that’s not galvanizing nationally.” Though organizers declined to provide a timeline for their goals or parameters by which success will be judged, the Centrist Project is focused on one day fielding a pragmatic-minded independent candidate who can win a U.S. Senate seat. “The Senate is an attractive sell for people who have had success in other fields: in philanthropy, the military, industry, and the tech sector,” Findlay said. “People who are executive-level innovators aren’t interested in running for the House. They’re not interested in running for city council, and they see the presidency as too far of a long shot. So let’s start at the Senate level.” The Centrist Project is currently ramping up its fundraising arm and taking steps toward forming an offshoot super PAC. While it hasn’t ruled out launching a candidate in next year’s midterms, the project is a decidedly long-term endeavor. Findlay brimmed with optimism about the prospect that her group may have finally cracked the third-party code, but she was also realistic when asked about the structural and institutional headwinds this latest attempt will meet. “I don’t have the answer to it,” she said. “If you talk to someone who does have the answer, please let me know because I think the answer is the solution to what we’re facing as a country.” -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
