When A Third Party Vote Is Necessary
By Hans Zeiger (09/14/04)
I am generally opposed to third parties, because they don’t often work within the realm of the possible of the American political tradition. That’s the rule, but there are occasional exceptions. The origin of the Republican Party was as a third party at the bedside of the dying Whigs, and Theodore Roosevelt energized the Bull Moose Party to advance the Progressive agenda in the early twentieth century.
Today, the Republican and Democrat parties usually offer broad enough tents to incorporate a diversity of similar political philosophies, yet narrow enough to compose platforms acceptable to their respective grassroots and contrastable to the opposing party. But when a platform is rejected and the contrast dimmed by a candidate claiming membership in a party, the big tent can become so humungous that explosion is inevitable.
This is the problem with Joe Schwarz, candidate for Congress in Michigan’s Seventh District. Former State Representative Schwarz is a Republican, and as such he is the expected winner of Nick Smith’s retired seat in the House. Yet Schwarz – pro-abortion and anti-life, pro-radical environmentalist, pro-tax, pro-spending, anti-constitution, anti-family – is no adherent to the Republican platform; if anything, he is even more liberal than his Democratic opponent, Sharon Renier.
The Seventh District is conservative, so if the voters are people of conscience, they will see the folly of a vote for either major party candidate. This is a rare case when a third party is an acceptable alternative.
David Horn of the Constitution Party (www.hornforcongress.com) says he is running for Congress because “this country has strayed from the principles that made it the greatest nation in the world. I am committed to restoring the Constitutional foundations of our government and renewing the American Dream for everyone willing to pursue it.”
Neither Mr. Schwarz nor Ms. Renier will have much to say about the constitution in the coming weeks. That’s because both the major party candidates in this race are part of the straying from principles that motivated Mr. Horn to run. This year’s Democrat and Republican are like carbon copies – the contents of which copies are concentrated on the left side of the page.
In this race, only David Horn is pro-life, and only David Horn supports traditional marriage. He proposes abolishing the income tax in favor of a national sales tax. He alone among the candidates would vote to cut runaway federal spending, to prune excessive bureaucracy, and to halt judicial tyrants seeking to dismantle our constitutional government.
And it seems that most citizens in the Seventh District hold similar views. 90,672 votes were cast in the August primary election, only 19 percent of which (17,205) were Democratic votes. Joe Schwarz garnered a mere 22.5 percent of the total votes in the Seventh District. Non-Democrat, non-Schwarz primary votes totaled a majority of the district; 58.5 percent of the vote was divided among five conservative Republican candidates.
So at least 58 percent of the Seventh District is more conservative than either Joe Schwarz or Sharon Renier. David Horn is also more conservative than Joe Schwarz or Sharon Renier, and this race is winnable by a third party if the momentum presents itself between now and the election. By any estimation, a David Horn victory seems unlikely, but this is an unusual race and the conservative voters of the Seventh District seek a voice, a voice wholly unattainable in Schwarz or Renier.
If the Constitution Party’s national leadership has the strategic will to enter the American political equation, it will invest its greatest energy this year in the support of Mr. Horn during the next seven weeks.
Consider the following math experiment that would demonstrate a narrow win by David Horn. Factoring in the other third parties, assuming Renier picked up the same vote percentage as all three Democratic candidates received in the primary, and assuming that Joe Schwarz gained an entire quarter of the conservative Republican voters who voted against him in the primary, the November 2 vote totals would look like this.
Sharon Renier, Democrat - 19%
John “Joe” Schwarz, Republican - 37%
David Horn, Constitution - 38%
Jason Seagraves, Green - 3%
Ken Proctor, Libertarian - 3%
One of two things will happen on November 2. First and obviously of greater likelihood, Joe Schwarz could be elected and enjoy the political benefits of incumbency. Or, David Horn could barely eke out a victory by merit of an electorate who understand that he is both qualified and far more capable of representing the district than either of his major party opponents.
If this were a typical race, I would cheer for the Republican, but since I cannot reasonably consider Mr. Schwarz a Republican (he does not adhere to the platform of the party), I find it necessary to look to a third party.
David Horn is an alternative (www.hornforcongress.com) – a strong alternative – in this race. Mr. Schwarz ought to be a Democrat, but since he’s apparently ignorant of the differences in the party platforms, he ought to be defeated by a third party candidate.
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