Long shots: 3rd-party candidates keep plugging away
LaBonte is a long-haul truck driver and a candidate for the U.S. Senate. He has an extensive political platform but no yard signs, no bumper stickers and no billboards and virtually no seat at the political table here.
To be a member of the Personal Choice Party is to be ignored by the traditional candidates, the news media and most of the voting public. It is the Catch-22 of Utah politics: A candidate who does worse than 5 percent in the polls can't appear in televised debates that might help him do better in the polls.
But that hasn't put a damper on candidacies such as LaBonte's. There are 86 third-party contenders running for statewide and legislative offices in Utah, representing the Constitution, Green, Libertarian and Personal Choice parties. That's a remarkable one-third of all candidates running for these offices, and a 72 percent increase since the 2000 election.
In House District 34 alone, there are three different candidates from "third" parties. There's also the best-known third-party candidate in Utah politics Salt Lake County mayoral candidate Merrill Cook, who has been famously "independent" off and on for years.
"We didn't get word that we had qualified as a political party until one week before the filing deadline" in March, said Gary Van Horn of the Constitution Party, "and yet we've got over 30 candidates."
"There is a suppressed need for what we're doing," says Van Horn, who thinks he should really be called a "second-party" candidate because Democrats and Republicans offer no real choice. "Republicrats," he calls them.
Van Horn is running for Republican Bob Bennett's U.S. Senate seat, along with Democrat Paul Van Dam and Personal Choice candidate LaBonte. This is Van Horn's fourth statewide election the past 12 years. He has run for governor against Mike Leavitt, for the Senate against Orrin Hatch and for the Senate once before against Bennett. He never received more than 3 percent of the total vote.
But winning isn't everything. In fact, for some third-party candidates, winning isn't even an expectation. "They're usually issue and cause driven," said political science professor Shaun Bowler of University of California Riverside, who has studied the whos and whys of third-party politics in America.
Third-party candidacies remind Bowler of that Norman Rockwell painting of the resolute man speaking his mind at a town meeting: "I think that's what motivates a lot of people the idea that 'I have something I want to say.' They have a commitment to an idea, even if it's not very popular. It sounds trite and civic textbookish, but good for them and good for us, that we live in a society that tolerates dissent."
Comments
- Attempted murder case refiled 1:58 a.m.
- Sports on the air 1:38 a.m.
- This weekend on TV 1:38 a.m.
- Birthdays for Saturday, July 11 1:38 a.m.
- 2 men cited on LDS plaza 1:37 a.m.
- S.L. man spots stolen car — his 1:23 a.m.
- Girl critical after run-in with train 1:23 a.m.
- Probe of death treated as slaying 1:22 a.m.
- Taylorsville man arrested in robbery 1:21 a.m.
- HBO defends U. logo use in 'Love' 1:20 a.m.
- LDS seminary principal arrested
- Jazz brass debate Millsap match
- Reactions on Boozer speculation
- Teacher faces new sex charges
- Jazz talking Boozer trade?
- 2 men cited on LDS plaza
- Jazz down Oklahoma City
- 2 Tooele police officers fired
- BYU professor to work on Hebrew Bible
- Jazz finances not quite so bleak
- LDS seminary principal arrested
142 - Bronco collecting a galaxy of recruits
141 - Jazz talking Boozer trade?
136 - Blazers may offer Millsap a contract
123 - Stadium of Fire flag burning was fake
94 - Jazz brass debate Millsap match
88 - Fairness of BCS debated
81 - Chaffetz eyes challenging Bennett
74 - Letters: Single-payer system best
72 - Services bids farewell to Jackson
70
As more and more dads are put out of work in this economy, I've been...
The photographs are mysterious, brooding, dark. They show dimples and...
Didn't Obama and Biden just admit to the fact that the stimilus programs were...
The last part of the article about Cowherd is classic!!! I normally like the...
This man was my teacher in high school. He is my friend, he was like a father...
I like millsap, but portland just burried themselves. They made themselves...
It's amazing how quickly society is willing to vaccinate it's children with...
The first income tax was introduced during the Civil War, that's only 70...
If he really did what the evidence seems to show, I don't think he should be...
Utah needs Portland too much. It's much harder than you think to find good...
stacy, have you ever eaten there ??
I had Brother Pratt at Viewmont High School my sophomore year... I was really...



You can be the first to comment on this story.