By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
Is the presidential choice in the fall going to be between President Obama, a Republican … and someone else?
The Republican presidential campaign is nowhere near over yet. And Mr. Obama’s campaign is just beginning to gear up. But the chatter about a possible third-party challenge in the fall has never been more active.
Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former governor of Utah whose bid for the Republican nomination fizzled, is the latest to raise the possibility.
Appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program on Thursday, Mr. Huntsman — who has endorsed Mitt Romney for president — said that the political system was “broken” and that a third party may be the only way to fix it.
“I think we’re going to have problems politically until we get some sort of third-party movement or some voice out there that can put forth new ideas,” Mr. Huntsman said. “Someone’s going to step up at some point and say, ‘We’ve had enough of this.’ The real issues are not being addressed, and it’s time that we put forward an alternative vision, a bold thinking. We might not win, but we can certainly influence the debate.”
Mr. Huntsman said a third candidate in the presidential race would be a “healthy thing” — not part of the script that Mr. Romney’s campaign would have approved. But Mr. Huntsman said that he was not anyone’s surrogate despite his endorsement.
And yet, it took just moments for Mr. Huntsman to reject the idea that he might be a candidate for president on behalf of a third party.
“That ain’t gonna be me, by the way,” Mr. Huntsman said. “I’m not interested in that.”
Recent third parties have largely been personality-driven efforts — John B. Anderson in 1980, Ross Perot in 1992, Ralph Nader in 2000, 2004 and 2008. The challenge, of course, is to move beyond talk.
Ballot access rules make it very difficult for third-party candidates to get their names listed in all 50 states. The party structures in local communities often works to discourage organizing on behalf of third-party candidates. And money is a huge problem — donors typically shun candidates who are not perceived to have a good chance of winning.
A group called Americans Elect is set to nominate its own candidate through an online primary later this year. The Green Party and others are already organized to offer a challenge to the Democrats and the Republicans. The Libertarians will field a presidential candidate in the fall.
But who?
Here’s a list of some of the people who have said they might run outside one of the two major parties or have been talked about as potential third-party candidates this year — and some of the challenges they would face.
BUDDY ROEMER: The former governor of Louisiana is the latest to say he plans to run for president in the fall without the backing of one of the two big political parties. Mr. Roemer had been a Republican candidate, but had been excluded from the debates and he finally got fed up.
“They have once again turned their backs on the democratic process by choosing to exclude a former governor and congressman,” Mr. Roemer said of the party and the television networks.
Mr. Roemer — a Democrat-turned-Republican — has real political credentials. But he has been out of office for more than a decade, and his platform is almost entirely about a critique of the big-money interests. He says he will seek the nomination of Americans Elect.
RON PAUL: The Texas congressman has said repeatedly that he’s unlikely to run as a third-party candidate if he’s unsuccessful in capturing the Republican nomination. But he always leaves himself a little wiggle room — enough to make sure that the talk about the possibility never completely goes away.
He has proven himself to be a prolific fund-raiser and clearly has a base of support, especially among young people, who are very committed to his message, and in an odd way, to him personally. Mr. Paul believes strongly in his message of liberty, fiscal austerity and isolationism. A third-party run would allow him to continue talking about it.
But he also has to consider his son, Rand Paul, who is a Republican senator from Kentucky and may have ambitions to run for president himself someday. If Mr. Paul were to run as an independent and possibly tip the election to Democrats, his son’s future in politics might be tougher.
DONALD TRUMP: The reality-TV star and real estate mogul has flirted with a presidential race — and with the media — for months, first as a Republican. He has now endorsed Mr. Romney but says he is considering a third-party bid if Mr. Romney does not get the Republican nomination.
Mr. Trump would face plenty of questions about whether a third-party run is just a publicity stunt or an act of personal pique. And it’s not clear that he has — or could raise — the kind of money he would need to be seriously competitive against the other two parties.
Most of all, it’s hard to imagine that a Trump candidacy would be anything more than a vehicle for media attention — less a third-party candidacy than a promotion of the Trump brand.
MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG: The billionaire mayor of New York has repeatedly said that he is not really interested in running for president as a third-party candidate. But that hasn’t kept his top aides and boosters from stoking the fires every now and then.
Several years ago, Mr. Bloomberg, who left the Republican Party to officially become an independent, hinted that if he did run, he might spend as much as $1 billion of his own money. But he also has repeatedly said that the structural impediments to a third-party candidate are simply too great to overcome.
Still, there are plenty of people urging Mr. Bloomberg to seek the Americans Elect nomination and try to bring his brand of no-nonsense business skills to the White House.
JILL STEIN: Ms. Stein is one of the people running for the presidential nomination from the Green Party. A former doctor, she has run for office before — in fact, her campaign in Massachusetts was running for governor against Mr. Romney.
But this time, Ms. Stein is trying to tap into the passions of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which she says reflects the anger and frustration of millions of people at the corporate structure and the two parties that enable it.
Money would clearly be a problem for Ms. Stein or anyone who gets the Green Party backing. That’s because they would start out with little name recognition, but also because Ms. Stein (and presumably her rivals) reject the kind of wooing of moneyed interests that donate to the other parties.
DAVID WALKER: Perhaps the least known of the bunch, Mr. Walker served as the comptroller general of the United States for a decade, from 1998 to 2008, and was the subject of a column by The New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman earlier this month. Mr. Friedman argued that he would make a good independent candidate.
“After months of nutty, gravity-free Republican primary debates, how great would it be to have presidential debates in which a smart independent like Walker was in the middle to challenge both sides and offer sensible solutions?” Mr. Friedman wrote.
Mr. Walker hinted at the possibility that he might run in a statement that he put out — conveniently on the anniversary of the announcement by Mr. Perot of his own candidacy.
“No one can deny that Ross Perot had a major impact in 1992, even though he did not receive a single electoral vote,” Mr. Walker wrote. “His focus on fiscal responsibility made the presidential debates more substantive, and resulted in President Clinton making fiscal responsibility a top priority for his administration.”
An earlier version of this article misstated the year of John B. Anderson’s presidential run. It was 1980, not 1976.
No comments:
Post a Comment