3rd Parties Weave Dreams on the Fringes

They are not like the rest of us; that, of course, is precisely the point.

Richard Becker, a lifelong member of the Peace & Freedom Party, believes government’s sole priority these days is to “meet the needs of corporate America” to the detriment of everyone else. Libertarian voter Richard Lowry takes a dim view of the war on drugs and thinks government treats Americans like children.

John Reynolds, a member of the Natural Law Party, argues that the federal deficit really hasn’t been erased, that America is “a bankrupt nation . . . [and] just continues to print money that’s not real, that should be backed by gold and silver, but it’s not.”

As they race headlong toward the November election, not all of California’s voters obsess about things like classroom size and crumbling campuses, teacher training and standardized tests. Not all of them sit around at home engulfed by apathy, wondering whether to cast a ballot at all.

Toiling far below the radar of traditional media, California’s thousands of third-party voters--perhaps America’s most persistent practitioners of democracy--instead are working hard for candidates whose names most people never have encountered, men and women who probably have a better chance of winning lottery millions than a major election.

Barely registering when ballots are counted, scorned by the nation’s major parties, these voters point proudly to the ideas that floated in from the fringes of minority politics before lodging firmly in the mainstream of American thought.

The abolition of slavery, suffrage for women, the progressive income tax, an end to the Cold War, they argue, all were pushed first by people accused of “wasting their votes” on the margins of politics.

Today, those who turn their backs on Republicans and Democrats hope for policy home runs from their current agendas: the teaching of transcendental meditation in prisons, for example, or a ban on the importation of coral products, the “democratic control of major industry,” or maybe government based on proportional representation.

And for the most part, they do not feel like they are throwing their votes away when they bypass candidates they scorn as “Republicrats” and “Demopublicans” to follow their inner political voices. Even when those voices tell them to support people who rarely snare more than 4% or 5% of the vote.

“Oh, God, no,” says Suzanne Reynolds, a newcomer to the Natural Law Party. “I believe that all it takes is one vote. I’ve found a party that stands for everything I believe in in my life, what I’ve been working for for the past 10 years. . . . I’m politically on fire.”

And just a little unsure. Waiting for the start of a recent debate among the five minority candidates for governor, Reynolds says that she stumbled onto her new party just two weeks before in the pages of a spiritual periodical, called their offices, was told about the event at Chapman University in Orange County and decided to attend.

“I’ve never been to a debate,” she says with a laugh. “How do you dress?”

Casually, of course. The debate ran long and began late, after Green Party candidate Dan Hamburg’s ponytail bobbed in half an hour after the scheduled start, and he was the first to slide denim-clad legs behind a lectern with an “Oooh, this looks official.”

If you don’t believe that the California ballot provides alternatives for disaffected voters like Reynolds--those 750,000 or so adventurous souls registered to parties outside the mainstream--consider one particular exchange at this event.

First, the audience question: As governor, what would you do to ease the pain of the victims of California’s tough three-strikes law--the men and women behind bars and the families they’ve left behind.

Steve Kubby, Libertarian: “It’s absolutely the governor’s responsibility to exercise his power of pardon.”

Gloria La Riva, Peace & Freedom: “I’m very much in solidarity with the prison movement in this country. Prisons are prison camps for the poor.”

Harold Bloomfield, Natural Law: “Transcendental meditation is proven to reduce recidivism by 20% to 40%, and yet there’s been difficulty in trying to get meditation taught in our prisons.”

Hamburg: “I will do everything in my power to eliminate three strikes and eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing.”

American Independent Party representative Nathan Johnson was the only candidate to give the tough-on-crime front-runners in the race for governor anything close to a run for their money.

“The people who belong in prison should be there,” Johnson said, still coming up just a little short of Republican Dan Lungren and Democrat Gray Davis, who bicker through their television ads over which man really, really, really supports the death penalty. “If it takes three strikes to get people off the street so your grandma can walk to the store in peace, so be it.”

Three days earlier and 410 miles north, San Francisco’s Libertarians were throwing a cocktail party for their current slate of statewide candidates--men and women who have just ferried over from a wine-tasting event.

Chicken satay hors d’oeuvres scent the air. Starchild--local Libertarian party chairman, erotic masseur and former young Republican--pours Chardonnay. Conversation swirls: Medical marijuana, yes. Tobacco regulation, no. Shoot, any regulation, no, because the only good government is limited government.

But even on this festive night in this supportive place, some of the party faithful voice at least a little doubt--about their impact, not their mission.

“Whenever a Libertarian goes to the polls, they have to think, ‘Do I vote Libertarian because it’s what I believe?’ ” says Wayne Shepard, “ ‘Or do I vote for the one candidate I can live with because I want the other to lose?’ This effort forces a lot of Libertarians into the Republican Party. It forced me in. I wanted a larger field to play in.”

Which explains why Shepard’s No. 1 concern as this--and every--election looms is the “not easy enough for prime time” issue of election reform. Our current system, while not constitutionally mandated, is winner-take-all, which Shepard argues relegates third-party voters to electoral obscurity.

By voting for minority candidates, “we are sending a message, and no one is listening,” he says. “So ballot reform is my major issue. Other than that, I’m apolitical.”

Shepard is like many third-party voters, flirting at the edge of traditional politics, forced out of the mainstream by their core beliefs, but drawn back in when it gets too lonely on the fringes.

For others, though, third-party politics can be a step in from the cold, a means of engaging in as much of the political process as they can stomach, the closest thing to an electoral home in a world that really doesn’t understand them.

“Libertarian is the only way I would vote,” said Mike Vardoulis, operations manager of the Kubby for Governor campaign. “I used to be an anarchist. I used to not want to have any government at all. . . . I’m not all that personally concerned about outcomes, but I want something out there to challenge oppressive government, which I believe we have in this country.”

Vardoulis would get very little argument from Eric Cardenas, a Santa Barbara Green and community activist who on this night is pushing local Proposition K--save the fragile oaks from the corporate wineries--and waiting for the university’s Environmental Affairs Board meeting to begin.

“I think there needs to be an alternative party to the traditional Democrats and Republicans, one that actually has a more progressive agenda,” Cardenas said.

On the top of this man’s mind, just weeks before the November election, are all things environmental: air and water quality, a ban on the subsidy of logging roads, things “the major parties can’t focus on.”

“To me, a lot of environmental and social issues are all tied together,” Cardenas said. “We need a party that can look at these issues as one common thing and act upon that.”

A party like the Greens, whose standard bearers--Hamburg and lieutenant governor candidate Sara Amir--have just arrived at UC Santa Barbara to address about 100 student environmentalists.

“I’m really, really, really excited about this meeting tonight,” says Meghan Conklin, chairwoman of the student Environmental Affairs Board, by way of candidate introduction. “I just want to remind you folks that three weeks from today is voting day. We have some Green Party folks here. It’s really awesome. I just want to remind you to vote environmental.”

Does Conklin? Of course. Is she registered Green? Uh, no. She’s a Democrat, not that it’s a terminal condition. And at least she votes.

“Considering the low voter turnout by UC Santa Barbara students and young people in general,” she tells the polite young crowd, “I want you to know about alternatives to Democrats and Republicans. I’m really, really excited.”