{news} David Cobb in Danbury New-Times

[David Bedell]

http://news.newstimes.com/story.php?id=66251

2004-10-31

Third parties hope to change policies
By Fred Lucas

THE NEWS-TIMES

David Cobb managed to get nine votes for president.

Well, not real votes. This was a mock election at Westshore Middle School in 
Milford. He won the limited support after speaking to about 200 
eighth-graders.

Cobb, the Green Party's nominee for president, swung through New Haven, 
Bridgeport and New London hoping to build support. But as the mock election 
results foretell, he's not running to win.

"It doesn't matter if we get 2 percent or 3 percent or 1 percent of the 
vote," Cobb said in an interview with The News-Times. "We are growing the 
movement. We have already achieved every objective. We are a larger, 
stronger and better organization."

Connecticut is among the 28 states where Cobb is on the ballot. He is joined 
by Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik, Concerned Citizens Party 
candidate Michael Peroutka and independent candidate Ralph Nader, who ran 
under the Green Party banner in 2000.

None of the candidates expects to win. At the same time, they say a vote for 
any one of them is not wasted. They say they give voters unhappy with major 
party candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry a chance to vote their 
conscience.

"I'm not a spoiler. I am just giving people the opportunity to vote for 
liberty," said Badnarik, the Libertarian nominee who is on the ballot on 48 
states. "The only wasted vote would be for a candidate you can't respect."

The Green Party started out as a pro-environment party. But Cobb's platform 
is more varied.

His top priorities are to bring troops back from Iraq, establish a universal 
health care system and establish energy independence through more public 
transportation and solar energy.

Cobb, 41, of Eureka, Calif., has raised just $150,000 for the campaign, 
compared to the tens of millions that Kerry and Bush have raised. He said 
election reform is needed so third parties can have a chance to win. "We 
need to change to runoff voting and eliminate the argument of a wasted 
vote," he said.

The runoff proposal would allow voters to cast a first, second and third 
choice for president. If no candidate gets 51 percent or more, a voter's 
second choice would be counted. No president since George H.W. Bush in 1988 
has received 51 percent of the vote.

Nader — who won 3 percent of the national vote as the Green Party candidate 
four years ago — has received the most national media attention of all the 
third party candidates.

That's because he has been a scapegoat among many Democrats who feel he 
handed the election to Bush in 2000 by taking votes from Al Gore.

The Winsted native chose not to run on the Green Party this year, and 
instead opted for an independent candidacy and built a coalition of third 
party endorsements. He is on the ballot in only 30 states this year.

Nader, who has been a liberal consumer advocate since late 1960s, is focused 
on cracking down on corporate crime and withdrawing troops from Iraq.

Like Nader, most of the minor party candidates argue that there is actually 
little difference between the two major parties.

Badnarik, 50, a computer programmer from Austin, Texas, said Bush and Kerry 
are alike in supporting some gun control measures. He also said neither 
wants to take on the Internal Revenue Service, which he said abuses 
taxpayers.

"Millions of young people are worried about the draft," Badnarik said. "If 
they all vote for me, I could win. If 80 million gun owners vote for me, I 
could win. If everyone who hates the IRS votes for me, I could win."

He has raised more than $1 million for the campaign.

He said he would scrap the USA Patriot Act, a law that relaxes restrictions 
on law enforcement investigating criminals. It was designed to help the 
country capture terrorists.

The Libertarian Party is one of the oldest third party movements in the 
United States. The party opposes big government, and isn't clearly on the 
right or left. The party supports abortion rights, legalization of drugs and 
gun rights. It opposes social welfare programs.

Despite emphatic denials from both major party camps, Badnarik said either 
candidate would institute a military draft, which he called "involuntary 
servitude."

He said both candidates support staying in Iraq long term.

"Bush wants to be the war president. John Kerry wants to send battalions to 
Sudan," he said. "You would have to have a draft."

Peroutka, the Concerned Citizens Party candidate, also ranks bringing the 
troops home as a top priority. John Adams, the nation's second president, 
"said our job is not to search for the monsters to destroy," Peroutka said.

He said the war is creating terrorists, and a better way to protect the 
country is to secure the borders. "We are the only party that believes 
illegal immigration is illegal," Peroutka said of the Concerned Citizens.

Peroutka, 52, of Millerville, Md., is on the ballot on 37 states and has 
raised about $650,000. He said his campaign is about honoring God, defending 
the family and restoring the republic.

The party, founded in 1992, focuses on culturally conservative issues. "I 
want to end the national disgrace of abortion and stop the shed of innocent 
blood," Peroutka said. "By executive order, I could stop funding planned 
parenthood and stop the distribution of RU-486(the abortion pill)."

He called on residents of Danbury to set the record straight on "the 
greatest lie perpetrated on the American people — the perversion of the idea 
of separation of church and state."

Peroutka traces the separation of church and state doctrine to a letter 
President Thomas Jefferson wrote to a group of Danbury Baptists in 1802. In 
the letter, Jefferson assured the Baptists that the young country would not 
recognize a national religion or denomination.

"The wall of separation was to protect the church from the state," he said. 
"It doesn't mean you can't talk about God in public, or you can't pray at a 
football game or have invocation at a graduation."

Chris Kukk, political science professor at Western Connecticut State 
University, doesn't see any third parties having much of an effect this 
year.

"A lot of Democrats voted for Nader in 2000 because they didn't see a 
difference" in Bush and Democrat Al Gore, both of whom ran as moderates, 
Kukk said. "You won't see the same movement this year for Nader because the 
country is so polarized."

Before Nader, Texas businessman Ross Perot won 19 percent of the vote in 
1992 and 8 percent in 1996 when he ran for president.

Former Alabama Gov. George Wallace was the last third party presidential 
candidate to win Electoral College votes. A onetime segregationist, he 
carried a number of southern states in 1968.

Before that Theodore Roosevelt, after skipping a term as president, bolted 
from the Republican Party to run on the Progressive Party in 1912 and got 88 
electoral votes.

Kukk said the Electoral College system — which rewards only the candidate 
that wins the popular vote in each state — prevents third parties from 
affecting individual elections. But the parties can influence future 
politics.

"One of the two major parties usually absorbs the ideas of a third party," 
Kukk said.

The Green Party's Cobb said it was third parties that first pushed for the 
end to slavery, women's right to vote, social security and child labor laws. 
"In all of American history, it has always been third parties that make a 
difference," he said.

Peroutka, of the Concerned Citizens Party, said nothing will change unless 
voters speak out.

"If you keep voting for the lesser of two evils, you just get more evil," he 
said. "You will never get what you want unless you vote for what you want."

Contact Fred Lucas
at flucas at newstimes.com
or at (203) 731-3358.

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