excerpts from the book
Third Parties in America
by Steven J. Rosenstone,
Roy L. Behr, Edward H. Lazarus
Princeton University Press,
1984, paper
p16
CONSTRAINTS ON THIRD PARTIES
To UNDERSTAND the significance of a third
party vote, one must first recognize how difficult an act it is
to undertake. A host of barriers, disadvantages, and strategies
block the path of would-be third party supporters. So formidable
are these hurdles that third party voting occurs only under the
most extreme conditions... third parties will never be on equal
footing with the two major parties and help explain why a third
party vote signifies something very different from a vote for
either the Democrats or Republicans.
The two major parties, in Schattschneider's
words, "monopolize power" (1942, p. 68). They are able
to do so via three routes. First, barriers-powerful constitutional,
legal, and administrative provisions-bias the electoral system
against minor party challenges and discourage candidates and voters
from abandoning the major parties. Third party movements are further
handicapped because they have fewer resources, suffer from poorer
press coverage, usually run weaker, less qualified candidates,
and do not share the legitimacy of the major parties. Citizens
do not accord minor party candidates the same status as the Democratic
and Republican nominees; they see third party challengers as standing
outside the American two-party system. These handicaps, by and
large a side effect of the way the electoral system is set up,
raise the cost of third party voting. A third party vote, therefore,
does not merely signify the selection of one of three equally
attractive options; it is an extraordinary act that requires the
voter to reject explicitly the major parties.
Finally, just as the Democrats and Republicans
try to win votes from each other, they also pursue minor party
supporters. By coopting third party issue positions, and pursuing
other more devious political strategies, the major parties win
over third party voters and delegitimize third party candidacies.
Although the United States Constitution does not even mention
political parties, through these barriers, handicaps, and political
strategies the Democrats and Republicans have attained a privileged
position in American politics.
BARRIERS
The rules that govern elections in the
United States are far from neutral. They form barriers that block
the emergence and discourage the growth of more than two parties.
These biases help ensure that the Democrats and Republicans retain
their position of dominance. The founding fathers created some
of these barriers; the two major parties have helped erect others.
Constitutional Biases
The single-member-district plurality system
governing most American elections discourages the emergence, growth,
and survival of third parties. Under this arrangement, parties
compete for an individual office-say, a Senate seat-and the candidate
who obtains the most votes wins. The only way for a party to receive
any immediate rewards (other than psychic ones) is for it to gain
a plurality of the votes. Unlike a proportional representation
system where 20 percent of the votes usually yields some seats
in the legislature, in a single-member-district plurality system
a party can receive 20 percent of the votes in every state and
yet not win a single seat. Because citizens know third parties
have very little chance of winning, they prefer not to waste their
votes on them. Small parties become discouraged and either drop
out or join with another party. At the same time, the system encourages
the two major parties to try to absorb minor parties or prevent
them from flourishing in the first place.
The presidential selection system is a
peculiar variant of the single-member-district plurality method
and hence poses similar problems for third parties. The Electoral
College tallies the number of times each candidate wins one of
the fifty-one single-member-district plurality contests held in
the fifty states and the District of Columbia, weighting each
outcome by the state's electoral votes. A candidate who comes
in second or third in a particular state does not win a single
electoral vote regardless of his percentage of the popular vote.
Short of winning the election, the only way a minor party can
hope to gain any power is to secure enough electoral votes to
throw the election into the House of Representatives.
The Electoral College system is particularly
harsh in its discrimination against nationally based third parties
that fall short of a popular vote plurality in every state. John
Anderson, for instance, did not capture a single electoral vote
in 1980, though he polled 6.6 percent of the popular vote. The
Electoral College does favor regionally based third party candidates
who are strong enough in particular states to gain pluralities.
For example, in 1948, States' Rights nominee Strom Thurmond obtained
7.3 percent of the Electoral College vote with only 2.4 percent
of the national popular vote.
Contrary to popular belief, most current
proposals for eliminating the Electoral College would not benefit
third parties. The most widely supported plan calls for the direct
popular election of the president with a runoff if no candidate
receives 40 percent of the votes cast. But as long as a president
can be elected with less than an absolute majority of the popular
vote, the plan would, for all practical purposes, work like a
single-member-district plurality system. To prevent either the
Democrats or Republicans from collecting 40 percent of the vote,
minor parties would obviously have to poll at least 20 percent.
This has happened only three times since 1840. Any direct vote
system that allows a party to win with less than a full majority
of the popular vote would hinder third parties, though the larger
the plurality required to elect a president, the lower the barrier
becomes.
The single-member-district plurality system
not only explains two-party dominance, it also ensures short lives
for third parties that do appear. If they are to survive, political
parties must offer tangible benefits to their supporters. Of the
forty-five different minor parties or independent candidates that
have received presidential popular votes in more than one state
since 1840, 58 percent ran just once; 87 percent ran in three
or fewer elections {able 2.1~4 Even George Wallace- who as an
independent in l968 won 13.5 percent of the popular vote, 46 electoral
votes, and had a relatively well-oiled organization in place-ran
for the Democratic Party nomination in 1972 and vowed, both before
he was shot in May and again at the July Convention, to work within
that party.
Third party voters must be willing to
support candidates who they know have no chance of winning. Moreover,
because third parties wither so quickly, there is little opportunity
for voters to grow accustomed to backing them or for this cycle
of discouragement to be broken. The single-member-district plurality
system is the single largest barrier to third party vitality.
Ballot Access Restrictions
The Democrats and Republicans have constructed
a maze of cumbersome regulations and procedures that make it difficult
for minor parties and independent candidates to gain a spot on
the general election ballot. Whereas major party candidates automatically
appear on the ballot, third parties must petition state election
officials to be listed. A candidate whose name does not appear
is obviously disadvantaged: voters are not cued when they enter
the polling booth; it is difficult and at times embarrassing for
a voter to cast a write-in ballot.
Ballot access was not a problem for third
parties in the nineteenth century, because there were no ballots
as we now know them. Prior to about 1890, the political parties,
not the states, prepared and distributed election ballots (or
"tickets," as they were called), listing only their
own candidates. Party workers peddled their ballots, usually of
a distinct color and shape, at polling stations on election day.
The voter would choose one of the tickets and drop it in the ballot
box-an act not commonly performed in secret. Poll watchers, of
course, could easily identify how the citizen voted. The voter,
unless he scratched names off the party slate and substituted
new ones, or combined portions of two or more ballots, was forced
to support a party's entire ticket.
This all changed when states adopted the
Australian ballot. Under the new system, each state now prepared
an "official" ballot listing all the party slates, and
voters could mark it secretly. It was both more difficult for
parties to intimidate citizens and easier for voters to split
their tickets (Rusk 1970).
However, this shift to the Australian
method generated an obvious question: which parties should be
listed on the official ballot? To keep the list of candidates
relatively short, states had to restrict some candidates' access
to the new ballot. Laws soon emerged making it difficult for non-major
parties to appear. Half the ballots cast in 1892 were governed
by these access laws; by 1900 nearly 90 percent of the votes cast
were subject to such ...
Because the states determine their own
ballot access laws, minor party candidates wishing to place their
names before the voters must overcome fifty-one different sets
of bureaucratic hurdles. This is an arduous task for third party
contenders, even well-financed ones. Petitions must be circulated
within a specific time period that varies from state to state.
They can be distributed only between early June and early August
in California, for instance, and between August 1 and September
1 in Indiana. Filing deadlines also vary by state, and many occur
relatively early in the election cycle-before the major parties
have held their conventions. Five deadlines had already passed
by the time John Anderson announced his candidacy on April 24,
1980 (Ohio, Maryland, New Mexico, Maine, and Kentucky). The remaining
deadlines were scattered between May and late September. This
lack of a uniform petition period or filing deadline means that
a third party or independent candidate cannot mount a nationwide
effort; instead, he must hold fifty-one different drives at different
times during the campaign.
The number of signatures a candidate must
gather varies from 25 people (Tennessee) to 5 percent of the state's
registered voters (Montana, Oklahoma, and others). A candidate
needed over 100,000 signers to qualify in California in 1980 and
57,500 to make the Georgia ballot. To qualify for all fifty-one
ballots in 1980, each third party presidential challenger had
to gather over 1.2 million signatures (Cook 1980a, p. 1315).
Other provisions define which voters are
eligible to sign a candidate's petition. West Virginia forbids
petitioners from voting in its primary; New York and Nebraska
disqualify signatures of citizens who have already participated
in a primary. Some states also have onerous provisions for validating
signatures. Citizens in South Carolina must record both their
precinct and voter registration numbers exotic bits of information
that few people know. New Hampshire requires that signatures be
certified. Some states also impose complicated procedures on the
distribution of signatures. Petitions must be collected by magisterial
districts in West Virginia-a designation with which even most
politicians are unfamiliar. New York requires candidates to obtain
a specified number of signatures in each county.
Nine states in 1980 had either a sore
loser law prohibiting a candidate who ran in the state's primary
(but lost the nomination) from running in the general election
or a disaffiliation statute forbidding independent candidates
from belonging to a political party.
Since their introduction, every state
has made at least one change in its ballot access laws. Because
nearly all third parties are short-lived, the requirements governing
initial access are the pertinent ones. The hostile and suspicious
political climate surrounding the two world wars prompted many
restrictions on ballot access (American Civil Liberties Union
1943; Bone 1943, p. 524; Schmidt 1960, pp. 31, 125). Between Theodore
Roosevelt's run in 1912 and Robert LaFollette's 1924 candidacy,
ten states significantly increased the number of signatures required
to qualify a candidate; some of these instituted restrictions
for the first time. Only one state, Nevada, reduced the number
of signatures needed. Although in the years preceding World War
II states did not further boost the number of signatures required
for a candidate to appear on the ballot, they instituted filing
fees, changed filing deadlines, and shortened the length of the
petitioning period (Columbia Law Review 1937; Yale Law Journal
1948). The laws were more strictly enforced. In addition, by 1942,
nineteen states had barred from their ballots (by legislation
or election officials' rulings) Communists or parties that advocated
the overthrow of the government by force or violence (Bone 1943,
p. 526).
Recent court decisions have reversed this
trend. As a result of the lawsuits initiated by George Wallace
in 1968, Eugene McCarthy in 1976, and John Anderson in 1980, ballot
access laws are now as lenient as they have ever been in this
century. Even Libertarian Ed Clark was able to gain a spot on
all fifty-one ballots in 1980.7
Despite these changes, which for the most
part have been at the margins, it is still no easy task for third
party candidates to win access to the ballot. All twentieth-century
third party presidential candidates have had to struggle to obtain
positions on the ballot. LaFollette found in 1924 that the laws
were "almost unsuperable obstacles to a new party" (MacKay
1947, p. 179). He was forced to run under a variety of labels:
"Progressive," "Independent," "Independent-Progressive,"
and "Socialist." Such a predicament can only contribute
to voter confusion and the general perception that third parties
are temporary and makeshift, not deserving of equal consideration.
William Lemke succeeded in getting his Union Party on the ballot
in only thirty-four states in 1936 (Tull 1965, p. ]67; Bennett
1969, p. 212). He failed to secure a spot in populous states like
New York, where Father Charles Coughlin's National Union for Social
Justice had a large following; California, home of Townsendism;
and Louisiana, stronghold of the Share Our Wealth movement (Leuchtenburg
1971, p. 2843). Like LaFollette, Lemke could not always run under
his own party name: he was forced to run as the "Royal Oak
Party" candidate in Ohio and Pennsylvania, the "Third
Party" challenger in Michigan, and the "Union Progressive
Party" nominee in Illinois. In 1948 Henry Wallace not only
confronted provisions that denied Communists a spot on the ballot
but encountered capricious administration of other access laws
as well (Schmidt 1960, pp. 124-52). George Wallace qualified for
every ballot except the one in the predominantly black District
of Columbia, but he was forced to run under six different party
labels. Eugene McCarthy secured a spot on only twenty-nine state
ballots; fifteen of these required court battles to win his position.
(He won three additional suits after the election.) McCarthy did
not appear on the ballot in crucial states like New York and California.
John Anderson won positions on all fifty-one November ballots
but only after a costly effort. The campaign spent more than half
of the $7.3 million it raised between April and September on petition
drives and legal fees (Whittle 1980, p. 2834). While the major
parties prepare media ads, buy television time, and plan campaign
strategy, third party candidates devote their scarce resources
to getting on the ballot.
Although it is clear that, relative to
the Democrats and Republicans, ballot access laws discriminate
against independent challengers, we are less certain whether this
bias is greater than the one that existed prior to the 1890s when
the parties themselves prepared the ballots. Obviously, in one
sense, the earlier arrangement was less onerous for third parties.
They simply printed their own tickets; there was no maze of legal
procedures. But, at the same time, the unofficial ballot system
disadvantaged third parties in ways that were ameliorated with
the adoption of the Australian ballot. First, under the old system,
it was difficult for citizens to vote a split ticket since each
ballot listed only a single party's slate of candidates. This
in effect required voters to abandon their party for every office
at stake in the election, even if they were attracted to only
the third party's presidential nominee. Compared to an arrangement
where split-ticket voting is easier, this probably reduced the
likelihood of third party voting. Second, since a bolt to a third
party was a public act, the cost of betraying long-standing loyalties
was high (Woodward 1951, p. 244; Rusk 1968, pp. 128-30). Moreover,
under the unofficial ballot system, a party needed organization
and resources to print its tickets and distribute them on election
day. But organization and resources are two commodities that third
parties have always lacked. The shift to the official ballot eliminated
these costs; the ballots were now printed and distributed at public
expense. It is not clear that the official ballot adversely affected
third parties more than the system it replaced. Nonetheless, these
new restrictions still constitute a bias.
Campaign Finance Laws
The 1974 Federal Election Campaign Act
(FECA) is the most recent instance of the major parties adopting
a "reform" that freezes out third party challengers.
Under the law, the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) provides
the major party presidential nominees a lump sum ($29.4 million
in 1980) for their campaigns. On top of this, the Democratic and
Republican National Committees can raise and spend as much as
they need to pay for legal and accounting expenses incurred in
complying with the act. State and local party committees can raise
and spend an unlimited amount on voter registration, get-out-the-vote
drives, and other volunteer activities. "Independent"
committees can also spend freely on behalf of the major parties.
Third parties, on the other hand, are
eligible to receive public funds only after the November election,
and then only if they appear on the ballot in at least ten states
and obtain at least 5 percent of the national popular vote. The
exact amount a candidate receives increases with his total vote
(assuming the initial ten state provision is met). Given these
requirements, only 10 of the 148 minor party candidates (7 percent)
that have emerged in more than one state since 1840 would have
qualified for retroactive public financing. Although third party
candidates are denied the benefits of the pre-election subsidy,
they must still comply with the FECA rules on disclosure of campaign
contributions and are bound by the ceilings of $1,000 per election
from individuals and $5,000 from political action committees.
Because the FECA mentioned only "minor
party" candidates, "independent" Eugene McCarthy
had to petition the FEC in 1976 to extend its coverage to him.
Had a favorable ruling been received, and had McCarthy stayed
above 5 percent in the polls, he may have had an easier time attracting
contributions and securing loans. But the FEC took six long weeks,
until mid-October, to rule against McCarthy on a straight party
vote: Republican commissioners supported McCarthy, Democrats opposed
him. (It was widely believed at the time that McCarthy would have
taken more votes from Carter than from Ford.) John Anderson succeeded
in 1980 where McCarthy failed. In early September, by a 5-1 vote,
the FEC ruled that Anderson was the functional equivalent of a
third party and that he would receive post-election funding if
he cleared the appropriate vote and ballot hurdles.
The FECA is a major party protection act.
Democrats and Republicans receive their funds before the election,
minor parties after. During the primaries, when name recognition
is built and legitimacy established, contenders for a major party's
nomination receive matching federal funds; minor parties, which
do not hold primaries, receive none. During the general election,
major party candidates are freed from time-consuming and costly
fund-raising activities; minor parties are not. National party
committees may accept individual contributions of up to $20,000;
independent candidates cannot. In short, this law ensures a large
gap between the financial resources available to major and minor
parties.
HANDICAPS
Most of the other constraints that third
parties confront are consequences of the structure of the electoral
system. Independent candidates are disadvantaged: they have fewer
resources, receive poorer press coverage, are usually less qualified,
and are not seen as legitimate contenders. Although these handicaps
do not result from formal rules that discriminate against minor
parties, they have a similar impact: they make voting for a third
party an act requiring unusual energy, persistence, or desperation.
Campaign Resources
Without resources, an American political
party's struggle is grim indeed. And, as a rule, third party candidates
have had fewer resources than the major parties. This was true
long before the Federal Election Campaign Act. The major parties
grossly outspent Abolitionists in 1840, Free Soilers in 1848,
and Populists in 1892 (Morgan 1971, p. 1728; Sewell 1976, pp.
75, 167). Even the most successful minor party challengers amass
only a fraction of the resources available to their Democratic
and Republican opponents. Former President Theodore Roosevelt,
the best financed third party candidate on record, spent only
60 percent of the average major party total in 1912; George Wallace
spent 39 percent and John Anderson only 49 percent when they ran.
Few minor party candidates achieve anything near even these levels
of spending: LaFollette in 1924 only spent 9 percent of the average
major party total, and Thurmond only 7 percent in 1948. Almost
every other minor party candidate was outspent by at least 50
to 1.
This disparity in resources means that
third parties are significantly disadvantaged, if not crippled.
Their ability to rent technical expertise, gather political intelligence,
and campaign-especially through the media-is obviously restricted.
Moreover, because major parties do not have to allocate a huge
proportion of their campaign chest to ballot access drives the
way third parties do, the disparity in real available resources
is greater than the simple proportions reported in table 2.2.
After the ballot drives and court battles, Eugene McCarthy had
only $100,000 left for media advertising in 1976 ($137,651 in
1980 dollars) (Cook 1980a, p. 1316). The 1980 Anderson campaign
could not even afford to conduct polls- an essential weapon in
a modern political arsenal. Staff were let go or went unpaid,
little media time could be purchased, and campaign trips were
cancelled (Weaver 1980a, p. B12; Weaver 1980b, p. D22; Peterson
1980a, pp. A1, A4).
The McCarthy and Anderson experiences
are not unique: all third party and independent candidates have
been strapped for campaign funds. The 1936 Lemke campaign, despite
the backing of the National Union for Social Justice and Townsend
Movement, was constantly plagued by financial problems. By mid-summer
the Union Party had raised only $20,000 ($121,462 in 1980 dollars)
(Bennett 1969, p. 211). LaFollette experienced similar problems,
raising most of his money in one-dollar contributions (LaFollette
and LaFollette 1953, p. 124). The campaign was in such dismal
financial shape that it could not afford to send its cross-country
rail campaign farther west then St. Louis (MacKay 1947, p. 156).
This scarcity of resources means that
third parties are able to purchase only a fraction of the political
advertising bought by the Democrats and Republicans. Even in 1968,
George Wallace, the best financed of recent~third party contenders,
was able to secure only one-sixth of the radio and television
time the major parties bought. In most years the situation is
much worse: minor parties, on average, acquire one-twentieth of
the television and radio time the major parties do.
Money, although certainly the most important
campaign resource, is obviously not the only one. Elite support
and a well-oiled, experienced party or candidate organization
have always been essential. Here too the major parties are advantaged.
As Haynes noted in 1924: "Party machinery has become so complex
and requires so much technical skill in its manipulation that
there seems less and less chance of its overthrow or seizure by
inexperienced workers. It almost seems as though the Republican
and Democratic parties must go on indefinitely" (p. 156).
It is easy to see why Haynes reached this
conclusion. Few minor parties can compete with the major party
organizations. The Liberty Party was "hopelessly outmatched
by Whigs and Democrats in organization, experience, financial
resources and political savvy," as was the "haphazard"
Free Soil campaign eight years later (Sewell 1976, pp. 75, 166).
William Lemke's total lack of a regular political organization
contributed to his poor showing in 1936 (Tull 1965, p. 167; Bennett
1969, p. 241). Similar problems gripped Henry Wallace in 1948
(Schmidt 1960, pp. 92-123).
There are several reasons why these organizations
flounder. Because third parties are short-lived, they have little
time to build an electoral apparatus. Moreover, unlike the major
parties, most presidential third parties do not run slates of
congressional, state, and local candidates, so they have no other
campaign organizations to draw upon. And since few third parties
win federal, state, or local elections, the party lacks patronage
an important political resource through the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries.
Some of these organizational problems
would be alleviated if minor parties were able to persuade elected
officials to join their independent cause. But they rarely can.
Even strong Progressives like Senators William Borah and George
Norris did not campaign for LaFollette, fearing Republican reprisals.
Former President Theodore Roosevelt, who had the best opportunity
for victory of any third party candidate, was unable to maintain
his elite support. Most officials who had rallied behind his selection
as the Republican nominee, including seven of the eight governors
who originally advocated his candidacy, did not abandon the Republican
Party (Mowry 1971, p. 2151). William Lemke could not attract the
support of progressive or farm state politicians from either side
of the aisle (Bennett 1969, p. 205), and few liberal politicians
backed
Henry Wallace in 1948 (Schmidt 1960, pp.
37-39, 64-67). Only a handful of officeholders came out on behalf
of George Wallace's 1968 presidential bid. Even when John Anderson's
level of support in the polls stood at 20 percent, he had trouble
finding a running mate, finally settling on former Wisconsin Governor
Patrick Lucey.
Despite the many changes in presidential
campaigns over the years, the need for superior resources and
a strong and effective grassroots organization remains. Few if
any major party candidates have won without them. Few if any minor
party candidates have had them.
Media Coverage
Media coverage is also an essential component
of a successful modern campaign. It supplies legitimacy and generates
name recognition, both indispensable in attracting votes. But
there is a huge disparity between the amount of coverage the media
give minor parties and the attention they devote to the Democrats
and Republicans. In 1980 the leading newspapers and weekly news
magazines gave Reagan and Carter about ten times more coverage
than all eleven third party and independent candidates combined.
This disparity showed up in network television news as well: between
January and September the CBS Evening News devoted 6 hours, 10
minutes of coverage to Carter, 3 hours, 9 minutes to Reagan, and
1 hour, 46 minutes to Anderson (Leiser 1980).
Despite this imbalance, the media did
treat Anderson relatively favorably in the opening months of his
independent campaign. Time praised Anderson's intellect, his skills,
and his willingness to confront issues. Newsweek pointed out that
Anderson's intellectual and oratorical skills had long been acknowledged
"even by House foes." They called his 26 percent support
in the California Poll a "close third" and his 22 percent
standing in New York a "competitive third" (Goldman
1980, pp. 28-38). Time's headline read: "Despite Problems,
Anderson's Campaign is Starting to Move" (Warner 1980, p.
21). The reports were upbeat.
But the media's tendency to focus on the
horserace soon brought stories highlighting the hopelessness of
Anderson's cause. They no longer viewed Anderson as a serious
challenger, but a "certain loser" (Lewis 1980). On the
front page of the September 26 Washington Star, Jack Germond and
Jules Witcover (1980) concluded: "With some exceptions, Anderson's
leading supporters and advisors have abandoned their dream of
winning the election.... This does not suggest that Anderson's
backers are throwing in their cards, but only that they now see
the rest of the campaign as a case of playing out their hands
against essentially hopeless odds." A similar obituary appeared
in the following day's New York Times where Warren Weaver, Jr.,
pronounced: "The independent candidate no longer has a serious
chance of winning." The same day CBS reported that the Anderson
campaign was "sputtering," and on September 28 David
Broder, in the Washington Post, tossed in the final spade of dirt
when he called the candidacy a fiasco and concluded it was going
nowhere. From that point on, the press focused almost exclusively
on Anderson's decline in the polls, his money problems, and his
inability to gain endorsements. By the end of the campaign Anderson
was no longer the star orator he was in June, but "fuzzy,"
"too preachy," "humorless," and "highflown"
(Stacks 1980, p. 52).
This sort of coverage is understandable.
We doubt that the media intentionally tried to undermine Anderson's
cause. Nonetheless, the media can affect voters' perceptions by
concentrating on who will win instead of what the candidates are
saying. The de facto result benefits the major parties. We cannot
unravel how much the media's treatment of Anderson
caused his drop in standing or merely
reflected it. But the fact remains that in the final crucial weeks
of the campaign, voters saw little of Anderson in the press (not
to mention Ed Clark, Barry Commoner, or John Rarick), and what
little they did see was about Anderson the loser.
Televised presidential debates also exclude
third party candidates. Only Nixon and Kennedy debated in 1960;
only Ford and Carter appeared in 1976.l2 Although Anderson did
debate Reagan in September 1980, Carter's unwillingness to participate
delegitimized Anderson's candidacy and, along with ABC's simultaneous
airing of the film "The Orient Express," contributed
to a much smaller viewing audience than in 1960, 1976, or in the
Carter-Reagan confrontation a week before the 1980 election.
The primary reason third party candidates
receive so little coverage is that broadcasters and publishers
do not think they warrant attention. Nearly two out of three newspaper
editors thought that their readers had little interest in third
party candidates in 1980 (Bass 1982, p. 12). As James M. Perry
of the Wall Street Journal put it:
We base [our decision] on the simple
proposition that readers don't want to waste their time on someone
who won't have a role in the campaign. We're not going to run
a page-one spread on a fringe candidate. We don't have a multiparty
system. Until we do, nobody's going to cover these candidates.
(Bass 1982, p. 11)
Marshall Field, publisher of the Chicago
Sun Times, echoed this sentiment: "The country is run by
a two-party system and those candidates 'chosen by the people'
are the ones who deserve serious consideration" (McCarthy
1980, p. 149).14
The press does more than simply ignore
minor party candidates; at times they are overtly hostile towards
them. Metropolitan newspapers routinely attacked the Populists
(Goodwyn 1978, p. 210). The press committed two sins against the
Progressives of 1924: one of omission (lack of coverage), and
the other of commission (the distorted reporting of Progressive
issues and activities, sometimes accidental, sometimes intentional)
(MacKay 1947, p. 211). The same scenario unfolded in 1948. The
few stories that did appear on Henry Wallace focused on his Communist
affiliations (Schmidt 1960, pp. 90-91, 229-31; Yarnell 1974, pp.
47-49; Time, 1948a, p. 16). To discourage support for Henry Wallace,
newspapers in New Haven, Pittsburgh, Boston, Milwaukee, and Cleveland
published the names, addresses, and occupations of people who
signed his ballot petitions (Schmidt 1960, pp. 133-34).
In the past, minor parties have tried
to overcome the media's neglect and abuse by relying on their
own tabloids to get their messages across. The Union Party had
the Townsend National Weekly with a circulation of 300,000; the
Prohibitionists had several periodicals such as the Voice, which
began in 1884 and rose to a circulation of 700,000 by 1888. In
addition to his own publishing house, Socialist candidate Eugene
Debs could rely on over three hundred English and foreign language
newspapers and magazines with a combined circulation exceeding
two million (Greer 1949, p. 271; Bennett 1969, p. 171; Storms
1972, p. 13; Weinstein, 1967, pp. 84-102). But unlike television,
radio, or non-party newspapers, party publications allow a candidate
to communicate only with the already faithful; they are ineffective
at reaching non-supporters.
Although the media are the voter's primary
source of information about politics, neither print nor electronic
journalists do much to alleviate the voters' dearth of information
about third party candidates. The little that voters do learn
about these candidates helps convince them that their cause is
hopeless. When voters support third party candidates, they do
so in spite of, not because of, the media's coverage of their
campaigns.
Unqualified, Unknown Candidates
In every presidential election, a portion
of the electorate makes their voting decision on the basis, not
of issues or parties, but on who the candidates are. Thus another
reason third parties generally do so poorly is that they run weak
candidates who lack political experience and the credentials to
be credible presidential contenders. While it is difficult, particularly
in a historical perspective, to assess how voters perceive a candidate's
capacity to perform as president, we may reasonably assume that
one cue voters rely on is whether the candidate has had prior
experience in an important office (like governor, U.S. senator,
or member of the House of Representatives). All other things being
equal, voters probably view candidates without these credentials
as less qualified.
There is a striking difference between
the political backgrounds of major and minor party candidates.
Nearly all (97.2 percent) of the 72 major party presidential nominees
between 1840 and 1980 had held the post of president, vice-president,
U.S. senator, congressman, governor, military general, or cabinet
secretary. Less than 20 percent of the minor party candidates
had attained these positions.
By now the reason for this disparity should
be clear. The biases against third parties created by the single-member-district
plurality system and ballot access restrictions, as well as their
disadvantages in organization, resources, and media coverage,
all effectively discourage qualified candidates from running under
a third party label. Well-known, prestigious candidates know that
a third party effort will be hopeless and can end their political
careers. Only extraordinary circumstances will push established
politicians (and voters) into a third party camp.
The political obscurity of most minor
party candidates, their inability to publicize themselves as major
party contenders can, and their neglect by the media mean that
many voters simply do not have information on these candidates.
An unknown candidate is obviously unlikely to win many votes.
Only 3 percent of the 1980 electorate claimed they did not know
enough about Jimmy Carter to have an opinion about him; 18 percent
said the same about Ronald Reagan. Yet 28 percent of the electorate
had no information about John Anderson, 77 percent knew nothing
about Ed Clark, and 85 percent knew nothing about Barry Commoner
(CBS/New York Times Poll, October 1980). This disparity is even
more striking among vice-presidential candidates: 15 percent of
the electorate had not heard of Walter Mondale, 28 percent had
never heard of George Bush, but 78 percent had never heard of
Anderson's running mate Patrick Lucey (Los Angeles Times Poll,
no. 35, September 2-7, 1980).15
Negative Attitudes Toward Third Parties
Third party candidates also do poorly
because most people think they will do poorly. The prophecy that
a candidate cannot win is self-fulfilling: money is harder to
raise, political support becomes more difficult to attract, media
attention dwindles, and people are unwilling to waste their votes.
Few citizens ever think that third party candidates-even strong
ones-can win. Only 4.3 percent of the electorate believed George
Wallace stood a chance in 1968 (CPS 1968 National Election Study).
At the height of John Anderson's standing in the polls, fewer
than one in five citizens thought he had a "good chance"
to win the presidency; in October less than 1 percent of the electorate
believed he would be the winner (NBC/AP Poll, May 1980; CPS 1980
National Election Study). Not only was it clear that Anderson
would lose, but two-thirds of the electorate thought he would
lose big, trailing far behind Reagan and Carter.
Being perceived as a sure loser costs
a candidate votes, though it is hard to say exactly how many.
Anderson's 1980 pre-election support was 9 points higher when
pollsters asked people how they would vote if Anderson had a "real
chance of winning" (Los Angeles Times Poll, no. 35, September
2-7, 1980; ABC/Harris Poll, October 3-6, 1980). Of voters who
at one point considered casting ballots for Anderson, 45 percent
cited as a reason for their switch his inability to win (CPS 1980
National Election Study).l6
One consequence of a pessimistic prognosis
is that citizens will abandon third party candidates for strategic
reasons (Brams, 1978, ch. 1; Riker 1982, pp. 762-64). As one Anderson
supporter put it, "If at the time of the election a vote
for Anderson would cut into Carter's lead, and let Reagan win,
I'd probably vote for Carter" (Roberts 1980, p. D22). Of
the voters who considered casting ballots for Anderson but did
not, over half feared that if they voted for him it would help
elect their least preferred choice (CPS 1980 National Election
Study). Major parties, of course, play on this fear.
A second prevalent belief is that the
two-party system is a sacred arrangement-as American an institution
as the Congress, the Super Bowl, or M*A*S*H. Third party candidates
are seen as disrupters of the American two-party system. Thus
minor parties do not start out on an equal footing with the Democrats
and Republicans; they must first establish their legitimacy-something
the voters do not demand of the major parties. This two-party
sentiment, of course, reinforces itself: minor parties do poorly
because they lack legitimacy, their poor showing further legitimates
the two-party norm, causing third parties to do poorly, and so
on.
Few citizens want to modify the electoral
system to aid third parties. A mere 2 percent of the 1976 electorate
suggested that the conduct of political campaigns should be changed
to give more attention to third parties; just 2 percent thought
that the presidential debates should be changed to include third
party contenders (American Institute of Public Opinion [AIPO],
no. 962, November 8, 1976). Only 3 percent of the 1980 electorate
were in favor of more attention being paid to third parties; less
than 1 percent expressed this opinion in 1972 (Gallup Opinion
Index, no. 183, p. 60).
While nearly all Americans (85 percent)
have leanings or outright allegiance to one of the two major parties,
less than one in a hundred identify with a minor party (the rest
being independent or apolitical) (CPS 1980 National Election Study).
If partisanship is a lens through which people interpret politics
and evaluate candidates (Campbell et al. 1960), then few voters
see the world in ways supportive of minor parties. Even though
early in the campaign citizens may flirt with minor party candidates,
by election day the pull of partisanship, the inevitable "he
can't win-it's a wasted vote" argument, and the wearing off
of the third party novelty bring voters home to the major parties.
Third party support fades as the election approaches. This pattern
of declining support has been apparent since the advent of survey
data (figure 2.2). Strom Thurmond, whose regionally concentrated
support in 1948 gave him a clear chance of carrying states in
the deep South, is the only exception.
Major party loyalties and hostile community
reactions often make it tough for voters to support a third party
(Gaither 1977, pp. 26-29; Sombart 1976, p. 40). C. Vann Woodward
described the difficulties Southern Populists faced:
Changing one's party in the South of the
nineties involved more than changing one's mind. It might involve
a falling-off of clients, the loss of a job, of credit at the
store, or of one's welcome at church. It could split families,
and it might even call into question one's loyalty to his race
and his people. An Alabamian who had "voted for Democratic
candidates for forty years" wrote after breaking with the
old party that he had "never performed a more painful duty."
A Virginian declared after taking the same step that "It
is like cutting off the right hand or putting out the right eye."
(1951, p. 244)
The Lynds observed a similar phenomenon
in Middletown:
In 1924 it was considered such "bad
business" to vote for the third party that no one of the
business group confessed publicly either before or after the election
to adherence to this ticket. "If we could discover the three
people who disgraced our district by voting for LaFollette,"
declared one business-class woman vehemently, "we'd certainly
make it hot for them!" (Schmidt 1960, p. 243)
Parties of the left suffered still harsher
repression in the first half of this century. The Socialist Party's
opposition to U.S. entry into World War I brought it endless abuse
that continued through the postwar Red Scare. The mass hysteria
was fueled by memories of Socialist Party opposition to the war,
fear of a spreading Bolshevik Revolution, and the belief that
Germany (and hence German-Americans) controlled the Bolshevik
movement (because of the separate peace the Soviet Union reached
with Germany in 1918). Labor unrest and riots spread, the newly
formed American Communist Party became more visible, and as war
prosperity waned, "the assumption that the country was under
serious attack by the
Reds found wide acceptance" (Murray
1955, p. 16). Socialist leaders were prosecuted under the Espionage
and the Sedition Acts of 1918. Local chambers of commerce maintained
"their fight for 'Americanism' breaking up radical meetings,
terrorizing Party members and supporters" (Weinstein 1967,
p. 235).
The Red Scare helped neutralize parties
of the left. Eugene Debs, who in 1912 had polled 6.0 percent of
the presidential vote, drew only 3.4 percent in 1920 when he ran
from the Atlanta cell where he had been imprisoned for sedition.
The party organization survived in only seven states (Weinstein
1967, p. 235).
MAJOR PARTY STRATEGIES
The American presidential election system
not only discourages third party candidates from running but provides
an incentive for the major parties to squelch third party competition.
The strategies the Democrats and Republicans employ are, of course,
the same ones they use against each other, but because minor parties
are handicapped, they are less able to fend off these attacks.
Cooptation
Minor parties often advocate policies
not embraced by the major parties. Frequently, the major parties
respond rationally to this signal that there are disgruntled voters
and adopt the third parties' positions as their own. Often these
new positions can be accommodated with relatively little discomfort
to the party. Indeed, a major party's very survival depends on
its ability to build a broad, heterogeneous coalition. Only third
parties with the most extreme beliefs or narrowest of constituencies
are immune from these raids.
As we shall see in detail in the next
two chapters, the major parties successfully coopt third party
votes through a variety of methods-campaign rhetoric, policy proposals
and actions, political appointments and patronage. It is ironic
that third parties bring about their own demise by the very support
they attract. Although adopting their issue clearly steals the
thunder from third parties, this is how minor parties have their
impact on public policy. Third parties usually lose the battle
but, through cooptation, often win the war.
Delegitimizing Tactics
The major parties also undermine third
parties by delegitimizing them. It is common for major party candidates
to argue that a third party vote is wasted, or that third party
challengers are "fringe" candidates who stand outside
the bounds of acceptable political discourse. As President Truman
argued before a Los Angeles audience in 1948: "The simple
fact is that the [Progressive] third party cannot achieve peace,
because it is powerless. It cannot achieve better conditions at
home, because it is powerless.... I say to those disturbed liberals
who have been sitting uncertainly on the outskirts of the third
party: think again. Don't waste your vote" (Ross 1968, p.
189). The major parties also try to undermine third party challengers
by raising fear that a "constitutional crisis" would
result from an Electoral College deadlock. This cry is heard whenever
it looks as if a third party will capture some electoral votes,
as in 1912, 1924, 1948, and 1968 (Hicks 1960, p. 101; Burner 1971,
pp. 2485-86).
The major parties have employed a full
array of dirty tricks against independent challengers. Populist
speakers in 1892 spent a good part of the campaign contending
with hecklers and dodging rocks, rotten eggs, and tomatoes, all
courtesy of the major parties (Morgan 1971, p. 1727). The Omaha
Tribune, which endorsed LaFollette in 1924, changed its mind and
threw its support to Coolidge after receiving $10,000 in advertising
from the Republican National Committee (MacKay 1947, p. 191).
The Nixon White House employed a host
of devious tactics to sabotage George Wallace. As Watergate confessions
later revealed, Nixon strategists contributed $400,000 to Wallace's
1970 gubernatorial primary opponent (Hersh 1973, p. 1; Rosenbaum,
1973, p. 1). They also leaked a story about an IRS investigation
of Wallace's brother (Shanahan 1974, p. 1) and sent federal registrars
into Alabama to sign up blacks. The Committee to Reelect the President
paid a California Republican official $10,000 in 1971 to purge
names from the state's American Independent Party rolls (Franklin
1973, p. 27).
On several occasions John Anderson's 1980
campaign was subjected to Democratic pranks. Carter forces tried
to disrupt Anderson advance men (Peterson 1980b, p. A2), and administration
officials distributed anonymous derogatory campaign literature
to discredit Anderson's independent challenge (Associated Press
1980, p. 30).
The major parties also do not sit idly
by as third party candidates battle state election laws. Instead,
they actively fight to prevent minor parties from securing spots
on the ballot. As Robert Neumann of the Democratic National Committee
candidly boasted in June 1980: "We don't know how much it's
going to cost [to keep Anderson off November ballots] but we'll
probably spend what it takes" (Associated Press 1980, p.
30).18
Anderson's treatment was not unique. The
major parties mounted comparable assaults against William Lemke
in 1936, Henry Wallace in 1948, and Eugene McCarthy in 1976 (Tull
1965, p. 131; Schmidt 1960, pp. 151-52; Schram 1977, p. 286).
The New York Democratic Committee alone spent over $50,000 successfully
battling to keep McCarthy off its state ballot (Alexander 1976,
p. 440). Lemke was unable to run under his Union Party label in
Pennsylvania in 1936 because the state Democratic chairman had
already registered that name to undercut Lemke support. As a result,
Lemke was forced to run on the "Royal Oak" ticket (Tull,
1965, p. 131). There are powerful constraints against third party
voting in America. Barriers like the single-member-district plurality
electoral system discourage minor parties from running and encourage
major parties to coopt their policy positions and supporters.
Ballot access restrictions make it difficult for third parties
to get their names before voters and require candidates to devote
huge sums to signature drives and court battles.
Limited resources, poor campaign organization,
and a lack of elite support further handicap third parties. They
are able to purchase only a small fraction of the advertising
bought by the major parties, and to make matters worse, the media
pay little attention to them. Minor party presidential candidates
are likely to be inexperienced and less well known than their
major party counterparts. The belief that a third party cannot
win and that the two-party system is a sacred arrangement delegitimizes
minor parties and discourages voters from supporting them. The
two major parties play on these beliefs to subvert third party
challengers.
All of these constraints, of course, are
interrelated. The single-member-district plurality system discourages
high caliber candidates from running outside a major party; if
a weak candidate runs, he will attract few campaign resources,
ensuring that most citizens will learn very little about him.
This in turn reinforces the belief that the third party candidate
cannot win, so citizens will not waste their votes on him. The
weak electoral performance is self-perpetuating. People expect
third parties to do poorly because they have always done poorly,
so only weak candidates run-and the cycle continues.
Together these barriers, handicaps, and
major party strategies raise the level of effort required for
a voter to cast his ballot for an independent candidate. A citizen
can vote for a major party candidate with scarcely a moment's
thought or energy. But to support a third party challenger, a
voter must awaken from the political slumber in which he ordinarily
lies, actively seek out information on a contest whose outcome
he
cannot affect, reject the socialization
of his political system, ignore the ridicule and abuse of his
friends and neighbors, and accept the fact that when the ballots
are counted, his vote will never be in the winner's column. Such
levels of energy are witnessed only rarely in American politics.
Political
Reform page
Index
of Website
Home Page