Libertarians lead third-party charge

— Was it colder or wetter on Friday morning at Bowman Road and Chenal Parkway? Hard to say. But a hardy group of Libertarian Party supporters didn’t seem to notice as they waved signs for their party’s presidential candidate, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson.

“My first thought this morning was ‘Do we really want to do this? Should we reschedule?’” said Mark Daniels, 46, an organic farmer from Ward. “My second thought was: ‘What better way to show our dedication to the cause of liberty.’”

The Little Rock sign-waving event was part of a coordinated national campaign to get the word out about Johnson’s candidacy. The 59-yearold Johnson, who served as New Mexico’s chief executive from 1995 to 2003, originally stumped as a Republican presidential hopeful, but switched to the Libertarian cause earlier this year.

As the Nov. 6 election draws near, minor parties are eager to gain exposure any way they can. This year, three parties aside from Democrats and Republicans will have tickets on the Arkansas ballot.

Johnson has drawn enough support in polling conducted in some battleground states — Nevada, Colorado and New Hampshire, in particular — that some political observers have said he could siphon off enough support from GOP nominee Mitt Romney to swing those crucial states to President Barack Obama.

“He’ll do better than the third-party candidates usually do. People are so frustrated with the Republican Party and their absolute lack of respect for the Ron Paul movement,” said Deborah Standiford, who supported Paul’s insurgent GOP campaign, but considers herself a Libertarian. Standiford is running for House District 38.

Another sign-waver, bundled up against the cold, was Vance Gatlin. The 29-year-old Jacksonville resident said he is “tired of the same thing, the Republican and Democrats’ platforms. They line up how they want to run you, they just have different ways to do it.”

Gatlin said he doesn’t understand both parties’ support for foreign wars, role in creating an invasive federal government and reluctance to embrace gay marriage. (The Democratic Party platform for the first time endorsed gay marriage this year.)

Johnson’s supporters also waved signs Friday in Jonesboro.

After not polling strongly enough to be included in the three presidential debates, Johnson filed a federal lawsuit challenging how the Commission on Presidential Debates selects who will appear in the nationally televised events.

Johnson and vice-presidential candidate James Gray will appear on the Arkansas presidential ballot alongside Obama and Romney. While Johnson hasn’t made an Arkansas appearance, Gray visited Little Rock and Fayetteville last week and announced his support for the state’s medical marijuana initiative.

The Green Party and the Socialism and Liberation Party also will field presidential tickets in the state.

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and her running mate Cheri Honkala and the Socialism and Liberation ticket of Peta Lindsay and Yari Osuri don’t have the name recognition or even the limited media attention and financial resources of Johnson.

The Green Party’s most visible presidential candidate was Ralph Nader in 2000. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately left George W. Bush with a razorthin victory. Many observers concluded that Nader’s candidacy may have cost Democratic nominee, former Vice President Al Gore the crucial state of Florida in that election.

Green Party officials didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday.

In 2008, seven presidential pairs graced the statewide ballot, including Nader running as an independent. Among minor political parties, Libertarians fared best, netting 4,776 votes or 0.44 percent. The Greens tallied 3,470 votes or 0.32 percent and the Socialism and Liberation Party ended up with 1,139 votes or 0.10 percent.

But the smaller parties aren’t in it to win it, organizers say.

The Socialism and Liberation Party, a Marxist-Leninist party formed in 2004, doesn’t believe the socialist revolution will occur in the United States through the ballot box, said Sarah Sloan, a party spokesman.

But an all-volunteer corps of petition gatherers managed to get the party on 13 state ballots, including the Southern states of Louisiana and Florida this year, she said.

Next week, a team of four organizers will travel to Arkansas to campaign, she said.

“We recognize that the whole electoral system is pretty much rigged to be a contest between Republicans and Democrats,” Sloan said.

But the attention of so much of the public is captured by the “undemocratic process,” she said, that the party finds it worthwhile to “intervene in that process.”

It’s an opportunity to raise awareness of its cause, Sloan said.

“We’re organizers, we’re not simply an electoral party. We can reach people and say ‘Think about all the issues in your day-to-day lives: jobs, the war in Afghanistan, equal rights. Are either one of the candidates really speaking to your needs,” Sloan said.

A Socialist president could “immediately do many things” to improve American lives, she said, but, at the end of the day, “capitalism has to be eliminated and that has to happen through the revolutionary process.”

At the other end of the political spectrum, the Libertarian Party believes that Arkansans “deserve to have a difference to vote for,” said Jessica Paxton, the party’s state spokesman and candidate for Congress in the 1st District.

“Lately, the two major parties have shown how similar they are,” Paxton said.

Johnson’s campaign issued a news release Friday touting new TV commercials and grassroots organizing it hopes will yield 5 percent of the national vote. The last presidential candidate to gain that much support was Ross Perot, who received 8.4 percent of the vote as a Reform Party candidate in 1996. Perot also received nearly 19 percent of the vote as an independent in the 1992 election.

If the party gets 5 percent nationally, it will qualify for federal financing in the next presidential cycle.

Arkansas’ ballot access threshold for presidents is relatively low, said Sloan, citing the minimum signatures of 1,000 registered voters as a big reason why the Socialism and Liberation Party decided to put the effort into a spot on the ballot. The signatures have to be submitted to the secretary of state’s office by the first Monday in August of a presidential election year.

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 10/27/2012

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