After the tepid reaction to the David French trial balloon and the failure of the NeverTrump forces to attract a “big name” candidate, their focus seemed to shift to stopping presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump at the Convention with a delegate coup, so to speak. According to this article at The Federalist, however, there are still active plans to field an independent challenger spearheaded by an organization called Better for America.
This paragraph will be of particular interest to many IPR readers:
The secondary concern regarding a third-party candidate is ballot access, a subject on which a lot of ink has been spilled in the last few months. On this issue, Better For America isn’t just cautiously optimistic, it is downright bullish. Working with several experts in the field, the group is confident that through petition-gathering and legal maneuvers ballot access can be achieved in virtually every state, including those with deadlines that have already passed.
Just Some Random Guy: they should just be trying to back an already existing third party candidate.
No, because their goal is not to win, but to throw the election to Clinton.
The Neocons/GOP Establishment — Bill Kristol leading the way — prefer Clinton to Trump. Sure, they hope Johnson will draw votes from Trump. Castle too. But adding yet another conservative candidate will further assist the anti-Trump effort.
Johnson, Castle — French? Erickson? — all appeal to different types of Republicans, so the more the merrier.
(Yes, I know Johnson says he draws more votes from Clinton than from Trump, but I’m not sure Kristol believes it.)
Richard, were you one of the ballot access experts they consulted?
It’s not a long shot. The US Supreme Court ruled in 1983 that independent presidential petition deadlines can’t be as early as the spring. Since then courts in 5 states have struck down June deadlines.
In 2000 the US State Department charged Azerbaijan with violating human rights, because Azerbaijan had just passed an election law setting a 6 month deadline for parties to file for the ballot. In Great Britain, the filing deadline is only 3 weeks before the election. Back in the early days of ballot access laws, in the U.S., the typical filing deadline was in October. In 1948 Strom Thurmond didn’t announce until mid-July and he got on the ballot in all the southern states, which is all he cared about.
The Republican Party wasn’t founded until July 6, 1854, and it went on to win a plurality in the US House that autumn. That was before there were ballot access laws.
Why are Americans so complacent about election laws that deprive them of freedom to react to late-breaking news?
Honestly, they should just be trying to back an already existing third party candidate. That way they’ve already got a lot of states secured o the ballot and they could try to aid them in picking up the remaining states. Yeah, I know none of them (the big ones being Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, and Darrell Castle) are guys #NeverTrump would be in complete agreement with, but any of those three would have a higher chance of actually beating Trump than whoever #NeverTrump would come up with.
The fact they’re not trying to do that is just showing this is all about posturing rather than actually trying to beat Trump. Yes, third party candidates are a long shot, but trying to field an independent this late in the game is an even longer shot.
Waste of time. Republicans, and independents who lean Republican, aren’t interested in a #NeverTrump candidate. If they were, one of the million #NeverTrump candidates would have won the Republican primary instead of Trump walking away with the nomination and more votes than any other Republican nominee despite falling Republican registration. Also, if there were so many #NeverTrumpers like Bill Kristol and Better for America keep insisting, the #NeverTrump movement (which is small and fractured, despite what Kristol and others insist) would have consolidated around David French. French was CLOSE to running. He flew to Vermont where he held meeting with officials and activists and he was super, super close. But, during the week he was making his announcement, he was repeatedly mocked and bullied by the very conservative voters French and Kristol stupidly assumed he would be able to win over from Trump. After French said no to a run, Kristol seems to have come around to the idea that they won’t have a #NeverTrump candidate and has turned his attention to bullying Reince Priebus about the convention. Better for America should do the same. No one is interested in a #NeverTrump candidate, and a candidate running on that platform will likely garner about a 100,000 votes. Republicans keep downplaying how popular Trump is with their party. The officials hate him, but average Republicans absolutely love that asshole.
Erickson was my guess pre-David French, but he seemed to downplay the idea of an independent challenger after French was floated.
Who might the candidate be? I believe Erick Erickson fits their description as a candidate.
He would have to be persuaded to run.
After Alan Keyes’ interesting efforts in Presidential campaign spending, Federal Law has apparently been changed to permit a Presidential candidate to take a replacement salary for the period that he or she is running for office. Keyes, whatever his other stands, thus did something extremely positive for America by opening up this race for Federal office to people who are not independently wealthy.
They speak pretty confidently about a candidate in the headline, but I sense some ambiguity in the article itself. Maybe I should change the headline to “…still possible.”
I have heard that this group is already petitioning for ballot access in one state, and that petition drives in other states are going to be starting soon.
“The final, and most important piece of the puzzle is obviously the candidate. Better For America did not indicate the identities of the three people who have already committed to a potential run, other than to say they are well-known. The search appears to be ongoing and exhaustive. They are seeking a candidate who “demonstrates honor, lives with integrity, will unite a divided America and seek the good of all citizens.””
Any guesses? My guess is that one of them is Steve Deace.