Third parties: Late, for a very important date

This year, the Constitution Party's national convention is scheduled for April. The Libertarian Party will convene to nominate its 2008 presidential slate in late May. The Green Party won't choose its ticket until July.

This may not seem unusual (the Republicans and Democrats usually hold their conventions in August or even early September), but third parties and "major parties" face very different sets of obstacles in publicizing their presidential prospects.

The Democratic and Republican presidential candidates have been the subject of fawning media coverage for close to two years now. They've been debating each other on prime time television for nearly a year. They've battled each other in highly-publicized primaries and caucuses all over the nation. Everyone knows who John McCain is. Everyone's heard of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

I'm not one for silver bullets -- no one thing will put third party candidates into contention for the presidency -- but some changes just make sense. One of those changes is nominating earlier. My recollection is that the Libertarian Party used to nominate its presidential candidates the year before the election. Andre Marrou was nominated for president in 1991. Ron Paul was nominated in 1987. And so on, and so forth. It was only in 1996 that the LP moved its nominating convention into the year of the election itself.

Late nominating conventions handicap third parties. We can't expect the kind of pre-nomination media coverage that "major party" candidates get. The sooner a party positions itself behind a nominee, the sooner that nominee has access to the party's full pool of presidential contributors and can get to work reaching beyond the party to the American public. It's all well and good to hope that a pre-nomination third party candidate will "break out" and catch the mainstream media eye ... but it seldom works out that way.

This year, the LP and Constitution party nominations are very much up in the air only a few weeks ahead of their national conventions, with credible rumors of two possible late entrants (Bob Barr and Mary Ruwart) in the LP race, and Alan Keyes mulling a Constitution Party bid. And while Cynthia McKinney is probably a lock for the Green nomination, she's not yet free to take that for granted and start running her general election campaign with the assurance that her new party will remain behind her.

These parties' nominees will only have a few short months to go from zero to general election speed. They'll be facing "major party" opponents who've enjoyed 24/7 media coverage for the past year, coverage which will only intensify as November draweth nigh -- and even post-nomination third party candidates are doing well to wrangle 1% of the mainstream media's attention during the general election cycle.

It's time for third parties to re-think their nomination convention timing. While an election-year convention has some media potential, that potential probably doesn't outweigh the benefits of giving our nominees a full year in the general election campaign saddle.

Cross-posted at Third Party Watch

Black flag red meat

All it took was some cop wryly describing a couple of fleet-footed border fugitives as "anarchist types" to get them Pajamas (media) all in a wad: OmigodOmigodOmigod the anarchists Omigod they're out there Omigod and they're gonna get us Omigawwwwwwwd!

Errrrr ... yeah.

Body count from the (possibly) anarchist attack on a local military recruitment headquarters of a rogue state which is known to possess weapons of mass destruction and engage in illegal wars of aggression:

Zero. Goose-egg. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Body count from that rogue state's rogue war on another rogue state which was rumored to possess weapons of mass destruction and hadn't been in any position to engage in any illegal wars of aggression for the previous 12 years:

~10,000 rogue "invadee" troops killed in the invasion.

~4,230 rogue "coalition" troops (including 3,974 American soldiers) killed in the invasion and occupation.

~1,000 rogue "coalition" contractors killed in the occupation.

Depending on whom you believe, somewhere between 50,000 and 1 million civilian casualties of the invasion and occupation.

But of course it's those anarchists who have Michelle Malkin squatting and peeing herself in abject terror.

That's how it is with the Republican Surrealists, of course -- this week some publicity-seeking knothead's friggin' smoke damage is 9/11 all over again. Next week, we'll be back to "not a single domestic attack in seven years, guys, and all you had to sacrifice were ten trivial little amendments. Stay the course -- if we don't fight them over there, we'll end up fighting them in Times Square."

Single issues and Libertarian candidates

Over the course of Steve Kubby's presidential campaign, a number of opponents have tried to peg him as a "single issue" candidate -- the single issue, of course, being medical marijuana. And, while he's certainly talked about all the other issues that presidential candidates need to address, Kubby has stressed his background of political success in that policy area.

Over the course of Wayne Allyn Root's presidential campaign, most of the "single issue" pegging has been done by Root himself. Although he talks about other issues, a good part of his campaign rhetoric has been focused on stressing his background in the gambling industry and on his purported ability to reach the high percentage of Americans who are offended by the online gambling ban.

Time to run some numbers.

Harris Interactive on gambling:

Ninety-five (95%) percent of U.S. adults who are online say they have never spent money playing at an online casino, 94 percent say they have never spent money playing online multi-player poker, and even more (97%) say they have never spent money betting on sports online. ... U.S. adults who are online are also divided over a ban on gambling over the Internet in the United States. One-third (34%) say they are in support of banning it, another third (32%) would oppose it, yet another third (34%) would neither support nor oppose it.

Various polls on medical marijuana, on the other hand, bottom out at 60% public support, and top out at 30% opposition. The Harris poll in this collection shows 80% of Americans in support of medical marijuana, only 17% opposed. And while 3% of Americans have ever bet on sports online, 47% have smoked marijuana.

Of course, there's more to these issues than just raw support:

- There's the question of whether the potential constituencies need to look to a third party for support, or whether they are already represented by the major parties.

- There's the question of the character and reputation of those who seek the LP's presidential nomination in order to represent those constituencies.

On the first question, it could go either way -- US Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) got 11 co-sponsors for his bill to repeal the online gambling ban last year, and will continue to make it an issue. The Democrats are angling for repeal of the ban, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is probably going to weigh in favor of repeal. American gamblers and their supporters have strong major party representation and a strong likelihood of prevailing without any help from the Libertarian Party.

Medical marijuana advocates enjoy less powerful representation. The Hinchey-Rohrabacher Amendment failed 262-165 in the US House last year -- and that failure was the fifth in a row. It's damn near impossible to get a Democratic or Republican politician to go on record in favor of medical marijuana. Medical marijuana patients and their supporters have weak major party representation and no likelihood of prevailing except under the auspices of a third party.

There's no real comparison on character and reputation:

Steve Kubby has a long record of fighting for the rights of all Americans. That fight has often been concentrated on the issue of medical marijuana, but his rhetoric has been strongly and broadly pro-freedom. He has gone to prison and into exile fighting for liberty. He has negotiated as an equal with US Attorneys General on behalf of patients' rights. He has played a key role in the passage of pro-freedom legislation, he has assisted pro-freedom candidates in actually getting elected to office, and he has successfully faced down local and county governments in order to protect the medical marijuana movement's gains.

Wayne Root, on the other hand, has no substantial record of political success or of fighting for freedom prior to his presidential candidacy. On the contrary, his political background is in hosting Republican Party fundraisers, contributing to Joe Lieberman's authoritarian US Senate campaign in 2006, and endorsing an anti-freedom McCain-Lieberman presidential ticket for 2008. On the business end, Root represents the armpit of the gambling industry and the far-out infomercial/telemarketing fringe of American enterprise. Even if some substantial portion of the 3% of Americans who bet on sports online might be moved to seek third party representation, it seems unlikely that Root is the ideal candidate to approach that constituency with.

If we're going to go "single issue," medical marijuana far outpolls, and draws in far more likely supportive voters, than online gambling. If we're going to pin "single issue" on our candidates, Steve Kubby is clearly a superior standard bearer as compared to Wayne Allyn Root.