Growing Field of ’96 Candidates May Help to Propel a New Political Force

Party of five?

How about a setting for six?

It’s now conceivable that five, and possibly six, nationally known presidential candidates will crowd onto next fall’s ballot. The list starts, of course, with President Clinton and Sen. Bob Dole, the presumed Republican nominee. Ross Perot’s new Reform Party also will field a candidate--almost certainly Perot himself.

Then there’s Ralph Nader, who will offer himself in California and several other states as the Green Party’s candidate. Former Connecticut Gov. Lowell P. Weicker is planning to announce soon whether he will make a bid--either for the Reform Party’s nomination or on an independent ticket with Tom Golisano, a deep-pockets New York businessman.

Meanwhile, conservative activist Howard Phillips says his U.S. Taxpayers Party intends to place Patrick J. Buchanan on the ballot, whether he likes it or not. And the Libertarian Party--which was only a blip in 1992 but attracted nearly 1 million votes in the 1980 presidential race--is placing its hopes for revival on Harry Browne, an investment advisor who advocates not flattening but eliminating the federal income tax.

Even setting Browne into a different category, and assuming either Buchanan or Weicker stays at the gate, this could still be the longest list of well-known presidential contenders ever presented to Americans. Even the celebrated divided elections of 1824, 1860 and 1948 offered only four choices. In a political world that has, for generations, effectively amounted to a choice between Coke and Pepsi, 1996 could be the equivalent of introducing Mango Madness, Peach Ice-Tea and Cantaloupe Cocktail.

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The potential proliferation of presidential contenders has implications on two levels: for the 1996 election and for the longer-term structure of American politics in a period of economic turmoil and electoral turbulence.

This year, these outside rail candidates are important for how they might affect Clinton and Dole, the only two contenders with any realistic chance of winning. Even Perot, if he runs, would be hard-pressed to become a serious contender--as he very much appeared to be four years ago this spring.

Perot still consistently draws about 15% to 18% in surveys measuring support for the fall campaign. But his erratic behavior in 1992 left scars that may make it virtually impossible for him to grow back toward the 30% or more that he attracted during the initial infatuation with him four years ago. When the Pew Research Center late last month asked voters what one word came to mind when they heard the name Perot, the top seven finishers were: rich, crazy, idiot, egotistical, nuts, money and arrogant.

Gordon Black, a pollster who has advised Perot, notes that the Texas billionaire turned around similarly negative attitudes in the fall of 1992 with strong performances in the presidential debates; Black insists that Perot could make converts again with a well-run campaign after the Reform Party convention, now scheduled for Labor Day.

But Perot’s constricted base will make it difficult for him to match his 19% showing in 1992. Four years ago, Perot attracted voters from across the educational and income ladder; this time, his support has narrowed toward voters who are younger, less educated and less affluent--the most alienated segments of the electorate.

Political analysts are poring over poll results to determine whether Perot would take more votes from Clinton or Dole. But the concentration of Perot’s support among voters dissatisfied with the country’s direction makes it likely he would hurt Dole more than Clinton. In the end, most discontented voters--at least the ones who vote--tend to vote against the incumbent president. Perot would peel away a measurable slice of that vote from Dole.

None of the other candidates are likely to make anywhere near as big a splash as Perot in 1996, although they all might matter at the margins. To the extent Nader attracts votes with his un-campaign--he will speak out in the press and perhaps distribute audio and videotapes, but says he plans no advertising or conventional rallies--it will come from liberals who would otherwise prefer Clinton.

Buchanan’s presence on the ballot would hurt Dole--although Buchanan’s impact would be far greater if he’s a willing candidate, which now appears unlikely. If he runs as an independent, Weicker would draw some liberal votes from Clinton, although he might mostly cannibalize independent votes from Perot. If Browne can bring the Libertarian Party back anywhere near the million-vote level, that won’t be good for Dole.

It’s far too early to say how all of these competing considerations might affect this year’s outcome. More intriguing, and more important, is whether this flurry of independent activity will advance the development of a viable new alternative to the two major parties beyond 1996.

Nader sees 1996 as a step toward “a negotiated political system” reminiscent of Europe, “where the Republicans or Democrats are going to have to negotiate with parties that are forming on their left, center or right”; he says his goal this year is to lay the groundwork for “a large, small party on the progressive side” that could attract 5% to 7% of the vote in 2000 and push the Democrats to the left.

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Virginia Postrel, the perceptive editor of the libertarian magazine Reason, expects not a lasting third party, but a proliferation of challenges that compels the two major parties to “reconstitute” themselves in new ways to survive--just as the Democratic Party subsumed the Populists a century ago by adopting much of their agenda. Former Colorado Gov. Richard D. Lamm likewise expects a new alternative to gradually “eclipse” one of the existing parties--as the Republicans replaced the Whigs just before the Civil War. “There is an opening right up the middle,” he said.

None of this is inevitable, much less imminent. But dissatisfaction with both parties is cracking open their shared political monopoly. Perot’s 1992 vote marks one measure. Polls offer another: Majorities of Americans now routinely say they would be open to a third party, and in the Pew Center poll, one-fifth of voters said they would be inclined to vote for an unnamed independent against Clinton or Dole. And if the successive stumbles of Clinton in his first two years and the Republican Congress in 1995 demonstrate anything, it is that neither party now controls a stable majority of public support.

Even more fundamentally, the development of new political alternatives fits the ongoing disaggregation of American life. The explosion of new information options (from talk radio to tabloid TV to the Internet) has undercut the hegemony of the mainstream media; big department stores are being undermined by specialty retailers and mail-order distributors; even as the Fortune 500 downsizes, more Americans work for small business or their own companies.

Converting this general sympathy for new choices into a viable political alternative (or alternatives) remains a formidable challenge. Campaign-finance and ballot-access laws favor the existing major parties. Voters remain deeply reluctant to “waste” ballots on candidates unlikely to win.

Ironically, Perot now presents a special problem to the development of alternatives. Only Perot among this flock of independents has the money, determination and following to build a national party infrastructure. But any effort associated with Perot could face a low ceiling of potential support because so many Americans now doubt him. And as long as Perot (or another candidate from his Reform Party) is in the field, he divides the independent vote. “It’s a real dilemma,” said Lamm, who leads a group of politicians trying to craft a new centrist agenda.

Other hurdles persist. Advocates of new alternatives split between those who think the parties are too much alike (liberals like Nader, libertarians like Postrel) and those who think they have abandoned the center by exaggerating their differences (Perot, Lamm). The constituency open to new choices itself divides between socially conservative, economically populist blue-collar voters and upper-income suburbanites at the opposite pole on both sets of issues.

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No one will solve these problems well enough to meaningfully threaten the Republicans or Democrats in 1996--and maybe not in 2000. But anxiety over the country’s future, and the waning authority of all centralized institutions, is likely to continue unraveling the tight two-party weave of American politics since the Civil War. Loose ends are dangling--awaiting a political movement with the imagination and stamina to stitch them into a new partisan pattern.

The Washington Outlook column appears here every other Monday.