Third party contenders bask in election limelight

Dubai: Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are not the only ones running for president this November. There are three other people in the fray, representing three other political parties: Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party, Jill Stein of the Green Party, and Virgil Goode Jr. of the Constitution Party.

These parties have had very little support in general elections historically. Dr Mark Rush, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the American University of Sharjah, says that they will not have a serious impact on the US election. “They offer very little in viable political options,” he says.

Rush, a scholar of American government, says that the nature of the American political system has always made it difficult for third party candidates to carve out a place for themselves. Unlike the proportional representation system popular in Europe and other democratic countries, the majority vote system of the US “favors candidates with deep local support,” Rush explains.

That kind of support has given some third party candidates a voice in localized politics. Rush points out that third party candidates have seen some success in the state legislatures of New York, New Mexico, California and Oregon.

In fact, Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson was governor of New Mexico for two terms, although he was running as a Republican at the time.

The lack of interest in third party candidates is reflected in the amount of money they raise and spend on their election campaigns. While Obama and Romney have raised millions of dollars for their campaigns, the Federal Elections Commission reports that Goode has received around $150,000 for his campaign from PACs and donors. Stein has received $398,116, and Johnson leads the pack with $1.8 million in campaign funding.

Third party candidates will also not be making an appearance in the presidential debates. The Commission on Presidential Debates, which runs and moderates election debates, has a rule that only candidates who have at least 15 percent of the vote through five national polls can participate, something that has always been an issue, according to Rush.

“There is a real question of whether or not any and all [candidates] should be included,” he says.

Stein and her running mate were arrested on the grounds of Hofstra University where the Obama-Romney debate was taking place after they attempted to enter the debate hall, ABC News reported. According to a Washington Post blog, they were denied entrance because they lacked credentials, then arrested when they sat down and refused to move.

Despite (or perhaps, because of) the exclusion from the mainstream debates that are widely seen as the first change for many voters to get a real sense of where the candidates stand, third party candidates are conducting their own debates. On October 18, Stein and Johnson will participate in an online debate organised by the Independent Voter Network and Google+ Politics, focusing on much the same issues that Romney and Obama will discuss on Oct. 16, including the economy and foreign policy.

Rush says that third parties stand to learn some from the Tea Party movement that launched some of its members into congressional seats in 2010.

Although the movement’s momentum has slowed down recently, Rush says that the Tea Party was able to have a big impact on the general elections by influencing the results of the Republican primaries. They would have been less successful if they had tried fielding their own presidential candidate, Rush says.