Third Parties Run With a Purpose

by MICHAEL RUST

Insight on the News, November 6, 2000, page 21

Whether representing voices that are absent from the political process or raising money for an agenda, third-party campaigns always have had a place in U.S. politics.

It used to be said that any boy can grow up to be president. Actually, an unspoken corollary to this might have been that, in America, any boy or girl can grow up to run for president. Third parties long have been a staple of American political life and this year is no exception (see "Party Crashers," Aug. 21). However, for some of the dissident voices in politics, the third-party route seems to be more a way of life than an insurgency.

Witness Howard Phillips, running this year for the third straight time as the presidential nominee of the Constitution Party, formerly known as the U.S. Taxpayers Party. Phillips is no political novice; in the 1970s and 1980s, he was a seminal figure among "New Right" activists who helped elect Ronald Reagan. In the 1990s, however, Phillips has chosen the lonely path of the outsider complaining from the political wilderness. Scorning most Republicans as sellouts and opportunists, he has presented himself as a candidate for those on the right who prefer their politics undiluted.

Or take the more prominent case of Patrick Buchanan, presidential nominee of the badly divided Reform Party. Buchanan has spent more than three decades at the highest levels of journalism and government. Four years ago, he won the New Hampshire GOP presidential primary, causing great gnashing of straightened, polished teeth in establishment Republican circles. Now, however, Buchanan seems to have isolated himself in the smoldering ruins of what once was Ross Perot's Reform Party. Will this new home turn out to be a self-created ghetto for the pugnacious Buchanan, or will it instead be a redoubt from which he can venture forth to vent against globalists, illegal aliens and social liberals?

Actually, it may be neither. "My guess is that Pat Buchanan is a dilettante in regard to third parties," J. David Gillespie, author of Politics at the Periphery, tells Insight. Gillespie, an authority on third parties who teaches at Presbyterian College in Clinton, S.C., says that during the last hectic year Buchanan has "tried this and it has not led to much more than being a Republican led to. I don't think he has much perception of the Reform Party being his long-term bedfellow."

And Buchanan has admitted that his campaign strategy was built around his being part of the presidential debates. Now that the debates have occurred sans Pat, he faces the question of whether to try to keep the Reform Party alive as his personal vehicle. Many observers are skeptical that the party will be worth much in the wake of this year's turmoil. During its national convention in Long Beach, Calif., anti-Buchanan forces walked out and endorsed Natural Law Party candidate John Hagelin. The Federal Election Commission awarded the more than $12 million owed to the Reform Party for its performance in 1996 to Buchanan, but Hagelin's troops have managed to keep him off the ballot in several states, including Michigan, which four years ago was a Buchanan stronghold.

"I think that the Reform Party has self-immolated," says John Anderson, the liberal former Republican congressman from Illinois who gained 6 percent of the vote as an independent presidential candidate in 1980. Anderson tells Insight that Buchanan's candidacy "has damaged [the Reform Party] substantially. I put credence in the polls that show the party has diminished appreciably because of the infighting and unseemly public displays. I feel [the Reform Party's] on the last lap."

While Anderson, a longtime detractor of social conservatives in general and religious conservatives in particular, never has been a friend of Buchanan, there is little to suggest that his analysis is flawed. Buchanan's campaign this year was conducted without the cadre of longtime supporters who assisted him in his 1992 and 1996 campaigns. And it appears that the tension between a serious national campaign and the vagaries of corralling a vehicle for dissent such as the Reform. Party was more noticeable in this election cycle.

Last June, Neil Bernstein, who was the press secretary for the 2000 Pat Buchanan campaign for almost a year, left his job rather quickly. "At the risk of oversimplifying it," Bernstein tells Insight, "I was insisting Pat needed to show off his lighter side in softer venues and lighter forums, e.g., [Late Night With David] Letterman and [the Tonight Show with Jay] Leno and shows of that ilk. That was not a sentiment shared by most of the senior staffers at the campaign."

That may seem peculiar, given that the campaigns of George W. Bush, Al Gore and even Green Party nominee Ralph Nader eagerly have accepted invitations to appear on late-night television -- a venue where, according to polls, between 20 and 30 percent of the population get the bulk of their political information. However, "at the upper levels of Pat's campaign, there is a fear bordering on paranoia of alienating the base. And everything seems to be about what the supporters are thinking, what the supporters are doing, what they are going to think of A,B,C or D," says Bernstein. "That 3, 4 or 5 percent -- that's what they're concerned about."

Any neutral observer might find this puzzling, even bizarre. But actually, this year's palsied twitches of the Buchanan campaign actually are in keeping with the historical role third parties have played in the past.

"There are two kinds of national third parties," explains Gillespie. "One of those is a kind of third party that is relatively short-lived. And if I had to guess, I think that the Reform Party will be remembered by historians in that way. I don't think Pat Buchanan is going to get 5 percent and I think you're going to see the Reform Party crash and burn."

These kinds of short-lived parties usually are not geared toward doctrine or ideology. Instead, says Gillespie, "they tend to organize around a dissenting movement or around a powerful leader." This sort of third party is best exemplified by the most successful third-party presidential campaign of the last century: Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose Progressive campaign of 1912. TR co-opted the reform-minded Progressives of his day, who might have rallied to the more radical Gov. Robert La Follette of Wisconsin. Roosevelt, four years after he left the White House, united reformers with Republicans who believed that the forces of President William Howard Taft had cheated TR out of the 1912 nomination. The result was a second-place finish, with 28 percent of the popular vote, that elected Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

However, four years later Roosevelt, for his own political reasons, chose to endorse Charles Evans Hughes, the 1916 GOP nominee. Without the dynamic presence of TR, the Bull Moose effort died. In 1924, La Follette was the presidential nominee of a revived Progressive Party. He garnered support among labor unions and liberal intellectuals but carried only his home state of Wisconsin. The national party collapsed, although the state Progressive Party remained a power in Wisconsin for two decades.

"One reason that sort of party doesn't last is their ideas so challenge the strength of the `Republicrats' that one or the other major party-- sometimes both of them -- for the price of putting them out of business, will grab the important issues," says Gillespie. "They oftentimes die a successful death."

Despite Buchanan's efforts, that well may be the fate of the Reform Party. Created from the ashes of Perot's 1992 presidential run, the party's raison d'etre was working for a balanced budget and economic protectionism. These were vital issues during the economic downturn of 1991-92, but they have little impact in today's world of budget surpluses and the "New Economy."

The other kind of national third party, according to Gillespie, is what he calls "the doctrinal third party" that runs on "a kind of Semper Fi institutional motivation." Today, adds the professor, members of the Libertarian Party probably fall into this category, "where you have a central doctrinal ethos that motivates the continuation of the party."

Historically, the Socialist Party -- which garnered more than 1 million votes for Eugene V. Debs in 1912 and 1920 -- was the prime example of this kind of party. Much of the Socialist platform later was incorporated into New Deal liberalism, yet the party and the label retained their fringe aura.

One problem for ideological parties such as the old Socialists and the more recent Libertarians is that they consist of ideologues who live to quarrel and dispute among themselves. Even during the Great Depression, the Socialist Party of Norman Thomas experienced brutal internecine conflict which drained the party of members, funds and energy. In 1980, the well-funded Libertarian campaign of Ed Clark drew just under 1 million votes. Twenty years later, the Libertarian campaign of Harry Browne hopes that, if all goes well, it will draw close to 1 million votes.

Another problem for doctrinal third parties is their seeming relegation to the periphery of U.S. politics, whether deserved or not. "Whether it's true in fact, the doctrine is perceived as quite radical and quite distant from the mainstream," says Gillespie. Nader's campaign, funded largely by small donations, is using the ideological Green Party as a vehicle for Nader, who has over 35 years attracted something of a cult of personality. Anderson, currently a law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., believes that the Greens' anticorporate message may resonate with alienated voters. However, Nader himself, albeit quietly, accepted the nomination of the Association of State Green Parties, while turning down the nomination associated with the explicitly radical Greens/Green Party, which includes in its platform a call for a "maximum wage" of no more than 10 times the minimum wage.

That air of slight, or not so slight, zaniness marks many third parties, says Gillespie. "Objectively, I don't think Libertarian doctrine is that radical," but party members as a matter of course refuse to compromise on myriad issues and questions of strategy. "Then," adds Gillespie, "they divide into the Prags vs. the Purists and they fight over that. Their issues internally become irrelevant to the mainstream. So they last for a long time, in part because they're so distant institutionally and often ideologically from the mainstream."

This is likely where Phillips has located himself. The Constitution Party and the group from which it sprang, the U.S. Taxpayers Party, can rely on a core group of supporters, many of whom were active in third-party movements of the past, such as the American and American Independent parties of the 1970s. Buchanan, some say, would like to make the Reform Party into a similar vehicle.

Bay Buchanan, manager of the Buchanan/Ezola Foster campaign and sister of the presidential nominee, wants "to set up the Reform Party as the successor to the Christian Coalition as a money-making machine," alleges Bernstein. This is echoed, although not for public attribution, by more than several onetime associates of the Buchanans. The once-powerful Christian Coalition has hit hard times, and the assumption is that religious conservatives may be looking for a new organization. However, this desire has led the Buchanan campaign to jettison much of its original strategy of uniting Perot voters with social conservatives.

"Bay doesn't get it," says Bernstein. The former press secretary says he's not recommending that the candidate fire his sister. "But, having said that, if he's serious about running for president of the United States, there's something not connected there."

Indeed, Bernstein adds, "Let's put it this way: Jimmy Carter could have had Billy Carter doing his polls instead of Pat Cadell. Bill Clinton could have hired Roger Clinton instead of James Carville. I don't think these were moves that were seriously considered."

An irony is that for all the intrigue the third parties may be missing some simple goals. James M. Markels, the founder of the libertarian-leaning Constitutionalist Party, readily admits that his party's Website is the principal sign of its existence. But he hopes interest in this site can help him mount campaigns for Congress. "Many third parties waste their time with presidential campaigns, thinking that the exposure will provide a basis for growth," says Markels. "However, the mass media generally don't cooperate, for obvious reasons. Any third party that wishes to be viable for the long term must have one goal: get members into Congress and develop a voting record. Because campaign-finance laws inhibit the ability of third parties to amass funds, the easiest course is to use a personally wealthy member for a targeted House seat bid. One's chances of winning improve dramatically after $1 million is spent. If a party can organize a couple of these in one year, it stands to make more ground than decades of losing presidential campaigns."

Markels' Website has received more than 40,000 hits since its inception two years ago. Certainly the Internet, like the rise of direct mall 30 years ago, has been at least a short-term boon to third parties. But Gillespie warns this may not be permanent.

"I think direct mail and the Internet created situations where there can be instant fame and instant reaching of people," he says, "but in the long run, they undermine institutions in general, including major parties." Fund-raising and communication technology help get a message out, just as TV does, but like the ubiquitous TV, the technology may have an alienating effect, "taking away what parties can give to campaigns -- foot power and hard work," says Gillespie. "So I think direct mail, the Internet and TV are not good for any of the parties in the long run."