[EM] NYTimes.com Article: A Third Party on the Right

Mon Nov 18 10:30:43 PST 2002

Even though it is patently absurd, we should make the current problem sound
like something that only negatively ffects whichever major party is
currently the ruling junta.

I think that would be the neoimperialist pluto-theo-crats, elsewise known as
the Texas Oil Mafia

However, we aren't going to get much traction, since Shrubbery is not SO
stupid that he won't realize that he owes his current dictatorship to the
face that votes were screwed up.

And corruption in Florida, I must say, has been proved.

-----Original Message-----
From: douggreene at earthlink.net [mailto:douggreene at earthlink.net]
Sent: Saturday, November 16, 2002 11:50 PM
To: election-methods-list at eskimo.com
Subject: [EM] NYTimes.com Article: A Third Party on the Right

This article from NYTimes.com 
has been sent to you by douggreene at earthlink.net.

We should draft a response to this . . as well as the piece in the LP News.
Who's up for some work?  I am.

douggreene at earthlink.net

A Third Party on the Right

November 16, 2002
By JOHN J. MILLER 

WOODBRIDGE, Va. - The decision this week by John Thune, the
Republican candidate for senator from South Dakota, to
concede to his rival, Tim Johnson, the Democratic
incumbent, virtually guarantees that Mr. Thune's narrow
defeat will go down in conservative lore as the one lost to
voter fraud on an Indian reservation. This charge probably
won't ever be proved, but people on the right will continue
to believe it - just as many people on the left think
corruption in Florida cost Al Gore the presidency. 

In both cases, however, there's a better explanation for
what happened. George W. Bush is president today because of
Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate, whose liberal
supporters almost certainly would have preferred Mr. Gore
in a two-way race. In Florida, Mr. Nader attracted some
97,000 votes, dwarfing the 537-vote margin separating Mr.
Bush from Mr. Gore. 

There's a similar explanation for Mr. Thune's 524-vote
loss: a Libertarian Party candidate, Kurt Evans, drew more
than 3,000 votes. It marks the third consecutive election
in which a Libertarian has cost the Republican Party a
Senate seat. If there had been no Libertarian Senate
candidates in recent years, Republicans would not have lost
control of the chamber in 2001, and a filibuster-proof,
60-seat majority would likely be within reach. 

The Republicans' Libertarian problem became apparent in a
race than ended in victory. A decade ago, Paul Coverdell,
Republican of Georgia, nipped the incumbent Democratic
senator, Wyche Fowler, 49 percent to 48 percent. A
Libertarian candidate, Jim Hudson, took 3 percent of the
vote. Under Georgia law the winner must achieve a majority,
so Mr. Coverdell and Senator Fowler were thrown into a
runoff without Mr. Hudson. Virtually all the Libertarian's
votes transferred to the Republican, and Mr. Coverdell won,
51 percent to 48 percent. 

The maddening defeats began in 1998, when John Ensign,
Republican of Nevada, came 428 votes shy of ousting the
Democrat, Senator Harry Reid. Michael Cloud, a Libertarian,
collected more than 8,000 votes in the same contest. (Two
years later, Mr. Ensign won election to Nevada's other
Senate seat.) In 2000, Senator Slade Gorton, a Republican
from Washington, lost to the Democrat, Maria Cantwell, by
2,228 votes. Jeff Jared, a Libertarian, gathered nearly
65,000 votes. If these elections had gone a different way,
Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont would not have switched
control of the Senate when he bolted the Republican Party. 

The problem also affects gubernatorial races. Jim Doyle,
the incoming Democratic governor of Wisconsin, probably
owes his 68,000-vote victory to the 185,000 votes cast for
Ed Thompson, a Libertarian and brother of Tommy Thompson,
the former Republican governor. In Oregon, Ted Kulongoski,
the Democrat, won by 33,000 votes as Tom Cox, the
Libertarian, pulled in 56,000 votes. The only reason the
governor's race in Alabama was so close this year as to be
disputed beyond election night was that the Libertarian
candidate, John Sophocleus, attracted 23,000 votes. 

It's important to appreciate that Libertarian voters are
not merely Republicans with an eccentric streak.
Libertarians tend to support gay rights and open borders;
they tend to oppose the drug war and hawkish foreign
policies. Some of them wouldn't vote if they didn't have
the Libertarian option. 

But Libertarians are also free-market devotees who are
generally closer to Republicans than to the Democrats.
"Exit polling shows that we take twice as many votes from
Republicans as from Democrats," said George Getz, a
spokesman for the Libertarian Party. 

Yet Libertarians are now serving, in effect, as Democratic
Party operatives. The next time they wonder why the Bush
tax cuts aren't permanent, why Social Security isn't
personalized and why there aren't more school-choice pilot
programs for low-income kids, all they have to do is look
in the mirror. 

John J. Miller is a writer for National
Review.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/16/opinion/16MILL.html?ex=1038508609&ei=1&en=
1015a97b44af23c9

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