Support for a Third Party

 Jeffrey M. Jones at Gallup:

Americans' desire for a third party has ticked up since last fall and now sits at a high in Gallup's trend. Sixty-two percent of U.S. adults say the "parties do such a poor job representing the American people that a third party is needed," an increase from 57% in September. Support for a third party has been elevated in recent years, including readings of 60% in 2013 and 2015 and 61% in 2017.

Meanwhile, 33% of Americans believe the two major political parties are doing an adequate job representing the public, the smallest percentage expressing this view apart from the 26% reading in October 2013.

The latest results are from a Jan. 21-Feb. 2 poll. The survey was conducted before recent news reports that dozens of government officials in prior Republican administrations were in discussions to form an anti-Donald Trump third political party.

The survey found Americans' favorable opinion of the Republican Party has declined to 37%, while 48% view the Democratic Party positively. The poll also shows 50% of U.S. adults identifying as political independents, the highest percentage Gallup has ever measured in a single poll.

Amash Out

Our chapter on political parties discusses the potentially pivotal role of third-party and independent candidates

Zeeshan Aleem at Vox:

Rep. Justin Amash, the independent Michigan congressman who said in April he was considering running for president as a third party candidate, has announced he’s decided not to pursue a bid for the White House.

“After much reflection, I’ve concluded that circumstances don’t lend themselves to my success as a candidate for president this year, and therefore I will not be a candidate,” he tweeted Saturday.

Amash had said last month that he was seeking the Libertarian Party’s nomination, and that he’d pursue the White House to be a “principled president who will defend the Constitution and put individuals first.”

It was a decision that, as Vox’s Jane Coaston explained, brought an “angry response” from a number of groups concerned Amash would draw just enough votes away from their preferred candidate to cost him victory — as well as some concern from libertarians:

...
And while Amash is popular among libertarians, he has not previously identified with the party, leading some to feel as if the Libertarian Party is, as Reason Magazine’s Matt Welch said, “sloppy seconds” for former Republicans.

“If he wins the nomination, it’s the fourth consecutive former Republican elected official [to win],” Welch said. “It kind of starts making you feel a little bit used.”

Confusing Names of Third Parties

Our chapter on political parties discusses the potentially pivotal role of third-party and independent candidates

John Myers, Christine Mai-Duc and Ben Welsh report at The Los Angeles Times:

With nearly half a million registered members, the American Independent Party is bigger than all of California's other minor parties combined. The ultraconservative party's platform opposes abortion rights and same sex marriage, and calls for building a fence along the entire United States border.

Based in the Solano County home of one of its leaders, the AIP bills itself as “The Fastest Growing Political Party in California."

But a Times investigation has found that a majority of its members have registered with the party in error. Nearly three in four people did not realize they had joined the party, a survey of registered AIP voters conducted for The Times found.

That mistake could prevent people from casting votes in the June 7 presidential primary, California's most competitive in decades.

Voters from all walks of life were confused by the use of the word “independent” in the party’s name, according to The Times analysis.

...
Of the 500 AIP voters surveyed by a bipartisan team of pollsters, fewer than 4% could correctly identify their own registration as a member of the American Independent Party.

“That’s what we call a finding with real statistical viability,” said Ben Tulchin, a Democratic pollster who helped craft the survey in collaboration with The Times and Republican pollster Val Smith. “It’s overwhelming and it’s indisputable.”

Tulchin has done polling for Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign and Smith's firm has done polling of California Republican voters on their presidential preferences. No data from this poll, conducted on a pro-bono basis for The Times, was shared with any campaigns.

...
After being read excerpts of the platform, more than 50% of those surveyed in the poll said they wanted to leave the American Independent Party. The more specific the platform position, the weaker the support of those surveyed. Most of the voters who were polled knew little, if anything, about the party to which they belong.

In 2012, The New York Daily News found that the same thing had happened with the state's Independence Party:

When he registered to vote last year, the 34-year-old Queens plumber checked a box beside the name Independence Party, believing he had filed to be independent of any party affiliation.

Informed of his mistake — one made by 85% of Independence Party enrollees interviewed by the Daily News — Marino got to the heart of the deception by which party leaders keep power and exercise undue influence over the ballot. He said:

“I registered as an independent. I didn’t intend to join the Independence Party. They are putting two words that are similar together. If you put them together in the same sentence, if you are not paying attention, you are not going to catch that. We all can’t make the same mistake.

The First Presidential Pollster

At Politico, David Greenberg writes about the first presidential pollster.  In the spring of 1935, FDR worried about a third-party challenge from Louisiana senator Huey Long.

Anxiety about this populist brushfire led Democratic Party chairman James A. Farley to commission a secret poll gauging Long’s prospects. After a dinner with Roosevelt and several top aides, Farley and the pollster reviewed the survey results alongside a “greatly interested” president. The numbers were surprising: In a three-way presidential race, FDR still won, but Long took 11 percent of the vote, faring especially well among the economically distressed. The poll showed that Long’s popularity was far-reaching, confined neither to the South nor to rural areas. He polled strongly in western states (32 percent in Washington) and respectably in midwestern industrial cities (16 percent in Cleveland). Long, Farley concluded, could “have the balance of power in the 1936 election”: A strong showing could peel off enough FDR voters to elect a Republican. Worse still, the poll showed the president to be weaker than at any time since his inauguration.

Farley kept the poll results from the press. He told the Associated Press that he expected “no third-party [bid] of ‘serious proportions.’” Privately, though, he was less assured, and his doubts leaked. The veteran journalist Mark Sullivan reported that FDR was planning to “go so far to the left that there will be no reason for anybody on the extreme left to have a third ticket under Senator Huey Long or anybody else.” The “Soak the Rich” tax hikes on the wealthy and on corporations that Roosevelt signed into law that summer were only the clearest example of a leftward tack designed to steal Long’s thunder.

The man who conducted Farley’s poll, under the anodyne moniker “National Inquirer,” was Emil Edward Hurja, a jowly, somber-looking 43-year-old employee of the Democratic National Committee. An autodidact who taught himself statistics, Hurja rose to national prominence during FDR’s first term, making the cover of Time magazine in March 1936. FDR’s aide Louis Howe dubbed his brilliant prognosticator “Weegee” (a phonetic spelling of Ouija) for his seemingly prophetic powers, while Farley called him “the Wizard of Washington.” Roosevelt’s enemies called him “Farley’s stooge.” This renown was not undeserved: Though little remembered today—only one obscure but indispensable biography exists, by historian Melvin G. Holli—Hurja was, in fact, the first man to poll for an American president.

People Support a Third Major Party, Which Is Unlikely to Happen

Gallup reports:

A majority of Americans, 60%, say a third major political party is needed because the Republican and Democratic parties "do such a poor job" of representing the American ppeople. This matches the high set in 2013. Since 2007, a majority of Americans have generally called for a third party, with the exception of the last two presidential election years.

Prospects for a third major party are bleak.  Key features of the American political system, including the electoral college, ballot access rules, and campaign finance law, strongly discourage minor parties.

Third-Party Fantasies

Many posts have discussed third parties. Ed Kilgore writes at The Washington Monthly:

Since third-party fantasies reemerge every time there is evidence Americans hold their elected officials in minimum high regard, Brendan Nyhan provides a public service with a compendium of “here comes a third party!” predictions dating back to 2005. Moreoever, only a few of them were written by Thomas Friedman.

Aside from underestimating the attachment of Americans to the two major parties, and the structural barriers to successful third parties that exist throughout our political system, the most common problem with third-party fantasies is that they stipulate some sort of common ground for widely disparate people with various grievances against the major parties. Most recently and notoriously, this has led many writers to imagine a third-party coalition focused on a deficit hawkish agenda of tax increases and entitlement “reforms” that is even more unpopular than the existing parties. And for reasons that elude me, a lot of folks impressed with the GOP’s unpopularity don’t seem to notice that about half of rank-and-file Republicans consistently think the party’s not conservative enough, a view that isn’t exactly consistent with some “centrist” third party drawing from both parties.

Is the Time Right for a Third Party?

Our chapter on political parties discussed third parties. Gallup reports renewed interest in the subject:

Amid the government shutdown, 60% of Americans say the Democratic and Republicans parties do such a poor job of representing the American people that a third major party is needed. That is the highest Gallup has measured in the 10-year history of this question. A new low of 26% believe the two major parties adequately represent Americans.

The results are consistent with Gallup's finding of more negative opinions of both parties since the shutdown began, including a new low favorable rating for the Republican Party, and Americans' widespread dissatisfaction with the way the nation is being governed.

The prior highs in perceived need for a third party came in August 2010, shortly before that year's midterm elections, when Americans were dissatisfied with government and the Tea Party movement was emerging as a political force; and in 2007, when the newly elected Democratic congressional majority was clashing with then-President George W. Bush.

In the same vein AP-GfK poll shows dissatisfaction with the political establishment:

 

So should we expect a major third party to emerge in the next year?  The odds stack against it.  For one thing, third parties face daunting obstacles even in getting on the ballot.  In California's "top-two" primary system, for instance, the top-two vote getters in the June primary -- regardless of party -- advance to the general election.  The system effectively bars third party candidates from the November election, except in districts that are so lopsided in favor of one of the major parties that the other does not even bother to field a candidate. (A court has rejected a challenge to the system.)  Campaign finance laws also work against third parties

Yet Another Zombie Video!

Zombie videos are big this year. This one is for Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson.

Third Parties in 2012

Our chapter on political parties discusses the potentially pivotal role of third-party and independent candidates. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports:

"The votes that Ralph Nader received in several states in 2000 would have been enough to give Al Gore an electoral college victory," said Adam Schiffer, a political science professor at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. "Had even one-fifth of Nader's voters voted for Gore instead, Florida would not have needed a recount."

Nader earlier this year said that third-party candidates play an important role in the electoral process.

"I think it's competition," he told MSNBC earlier this year. "I think it's new agendas, new ideas, that are supported by a large number by the American people.

"And I think, above all, it respects the voters by raising their expectation level," he said. "That's the history of small parties."

Texas billionaire Ross Perot, running as an independent, affected the 1992 presidential race -- which pitted then incumbent Republican President George H.W. Bush and Democratic then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton.

Clinton won with nearly 45 million votes to Bush's more than 39 million votes. Perot picked up more than 19 million votes in that race.

"Many observers credit Ross Perot with tipping the 1992 election to Clinton, but the best scholarly analyses of polling data dispute that conclusion," Schiffer said.

What of 2012?  The New York Times reports:

There is one factor in the campaign that has yet to get much attention but could influence the outcome: third-party candidacies in many states, most notably that of former Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico, the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee.

Mr. Johnson, who argued for free markets, fewer wars and the legalization of marijuana during his brief run for the 2012 Republican nomination, hardly shows up in polls. But he is on the ballot in more than three dozen states and is trying for more.

Mr. Johnson shares some of the cross-party appeal of Representative Ron Paul of Texas, who complimented him publicly last week. Advisers said Mr. Johnson’s potential for cutting into Mr. Romney’s support was greatest in Florida, where Mr. Romney is basically tied with Mr. Obama, but could also have an impact in Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire and North Carolina.

They said Mr. Johnson’s potential to eat into Mr. Obama’s support was greatest in Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico, Oregon and Wisconsin.

Republican officials have already tried to challenge Mr. Johnson’s place on the ballot or are trying to in states including Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Many of the challenges have failed — courts recently rejected efforts to throw him off the ballot in Virginia — and Roger Stone, a Republican Party veteran who is advising Mr. Johnson, said he was optimistic that Mr. Johnson would qualify in all 50 states.

The Republican Party of Virginia also failed in a bid last week to remove former Representative Virgil Goode from the presidential ballot there. He is the nominee for the Constitution Party and could draw disaffected Tea Party adherents away from the Republican Party.

Americans Elect, RIP

Our chapter on political parties analyzes the barriers to third parties in the United States.  The latest example is Americans Elect, as AP reports:

A private organization established to run a third-party candidate in this year’s presidential elections has thrown in the towel, saying no one mustered sufficient support for such an effort.

Kahlil Byrd, chief executive officer of Americans Elect, said in a statement that under the rules his group approved for an online primary, the process was ending Tuesday.

Third party presidential candidacies have rarely succeeded in U.S. politics, and Americans Elect had hoped to conduct the “Americans Elect Online Convention” this June.

But Byrd said that “as of today, no candidate has reached the national support threshold required” to enter the online convention. He added that there still is “an almost universal desire among delegates, leadership and millions of Americans who have supported AE to see a credible candidate emerge from this process.”

John Avlon writes at The Daily Beast:

There are a range of explanations for why Americans Elect fell so far short of their nomination goals.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle was the basic fact of this particular election cycle—when a president is running for reelection, it tends to be a referendum. Third-party candidacies do best when there is not an incumbent on the ballot; think Ross Perot ’92 versus ’96.

The endurance of the Republican primary likewise provided plenty of polarizing, and pandering moments were evidence why an alternative is badly needed, but by the time Mitt Romney secured the nomination there was relatively little time for another candidate to make their case, and less urgency than if Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich were the nominee.

Finally, the organization’s emphasis on ballot security proved to be an unexpected barrier to entry. The technology powering the online draft effort won South by Southwest’s People’s Choice Award, won by Groupon last year. It was designed by the team that built the E*Trade platform. It was so secure in terms of ensuring one person one vote that actually signing up to serve as a delegate and support a candidate took several steps and more than 10 minutes. In an era of slacktivists used to ‘liking’ something and quickly moving on, this was a serious hurdle.

Americans Elect is Lagging

A previous post dealt with Americans Elect. Dan Morain writes at The Sacramento Bee:

Americans Elect is a nonprofit corporation created by billionaire investor Peter Ackerman, who is dissatisfied with politics as usual. The organization's goal is to gain ballot access in all 50 states, paving the way for the ideal presidential candidate - no one knows who - who would work across party lines for the betterment of all people.

The concept is to use the Internet to conduct an online primary in June to nominate presidential and vice presidential candidates from opposite parties who would "work together to develop fresh solutions to the serious challenges facing our country."

Americans Elect seems very civic-minded and techie. Mr. Smith enters the Internet age. This would seem to be a good year for a third candidate. Polls show voters are restless and unhappy with the choices in this year's presidential race. At least that's the theory driving the Americans Elect effort to help a third major candidate, to be determined, get on the ballot.

But there are hard political realities, like trying to recruit top-tier candidates to try something that has never been tried, and trying to generate voter interest when there are no high-profile candidates. And then there is the matter of creating a campaign organization in a matter of months. Winning candidates spend years developing their networks.

Not wanting to jump to conclusions, I posed some questions to the organization: What is AE's explanation for the lagging numbers of people supporting candidates? How many people have signed up to be so-called delegates who could cast votes for Americans Elect candidates? In how many states does AE have ballot access? Would AE care to discuss the difficulties of candidate recruitment?

Multiple emails and voicemails during a 24-hour period met with silence, until Americans Elect press secretary Ileana Wachtel responded: "Not ignoring. We just won the People's Choice Award at South by Southwest and on the road doing a tech tour. Perhaps we can catch up at another time."

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/25/4364744/americans-elect-has-many-ifs-and.html#storylink=cpy

Ballot Access News reports:

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/25/4362357/online-alternate-campaign-is-flagging.html#mi_rss=Opinion#storylink=cpy

Only eleven candidates seeking the presidential nomination of Americans Elect have as many as forty supporters within the Americans Elect process. They are:
1. Buddy Roemer, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has 2,221 votes. Here is his web page.
2. Rocky Anderson, Salt Lake City, Utah, has 954. Here is his web page.
3. Laurence Kotlikoff, Brookline, Massachusetts, has 638. Here is his web page. He is a professor of economics and was an economic advisor to President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors.
4. Michealene Risley, Woodside, California, has 588. She makes documentary films and is a published author. One of her films, “Flashcards” was nominated for an Oscar and concerns child abuse. Her other film is “Tapestries of Hope” about Zimbabwe. She doesn’t seem to have a campaign web page.
5. T. J. O’Hara, Rancho Santa Fe, California, has 189. Here is his web page. He is a businessman.
6. Mike Ballantine, registered to vote as a Green Party member in Pennsylvania, but has lived in Vietnam for the last six years. He has 117 votes. Here is his web page.
7. R. J. Harris, Norman, Oklahoma, has 80. Here is his web page. He is also seeking the Libertarian Party nomination.
8. Marlin Miller, Tennessee, has 70. Here is his web page. He is also the presidential nominee of American Third Position Party.
9. Dwight Smith, Detroit area, Michigan, has 58. He doesn’t seem to have a campaign web page.
10. David Jon Sponheim, Oak Harbor, Washington, has 47. Here is his web page. He is also the presidential nominee of America’s Third Party.
11. Verl Farnsworth, Mesa, Arizona, has 46. Here is his web page.

Third Party for Paul?

Ron Paul ran as the Libertarian Party candidate for president in 1988. Might he try another third-party bid in 2012? The issue came up at last night's debate:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Governor Paul -- Congressman Paul, let me bring this to you. You’re running here in the Republican primary, but you haven’t promised to support the party’s nominee in November. And you refuse to rule out running as a third party candidate if you fail to get the nomination. Why not rule that out?

PAUL: Well I essentially have. It’s just that I don’t like absolutes like, I will never do something. But no...

SANTORUM: You’ve never done it for a debt ceiling.

PAUL: Please don’t interrupt me.
(APPLAUSE)

PAUL: So, I have said it in the last go-around, I said -- they asked me that about 30 times. I think maybe you’ve asked me four or five already. And the answer is always the same. You know, no, I have no plans to do it. I don’t intend to do it. And somebody pushed me a little bit harder and said why don’t you plan to do it? I just -- I don’t want to. So I have no intention. But I don’t know why a person can’t reserve a judgment and see how things turn out? You know, in many ways I see the other candidates as very honorable people, but I sometimes disagree with their approach to government.

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, who sought the GOP nomination, is now seeking the Libertarian nomination.

Ron Paul, the Spoiler?

Our chapter on political parties discusses the role of third-party and independent candidates for president. In particular, it looks at the "spoiler effect" whereby the third candidate draws support from one of the major-party candidates, tipping the election to the other. Scott Clement writes at The Washington Post:

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-Texas) is gaining steam in his race for the GOP nomination, up to his highest level yet — 15 percent — in the new Washington Post-ABC News national poll. He trails President Obama by a mere five points among registered voters in a possible general election matchup. But should Paul fall short of winning his party’s nod and opt to run as a third-party candidate, the survey finds he could seriously shake up the 2012 political calculus, largely to Obama’s benefit. 

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney ties Obama at 47 percent among registered voters in the poll, but fully 21 percent of all voters say they’d pick Paul as an independent candidate over either Romney or the president. Obama would win such a three-way match-up by 10 percentage points. The potential damage is less obvious for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who trails Obama by eight points in a two-way contest and 11 points with Paul in the mix.

Ballot Access and Third Parties

Our chapter on political parties discusses third parties, past and present. At The Tennessean, Professor John Miglietta of Tennessee State University argues that his state's ballot access law places too many burdens on third parties.

Our political system rewards those who already have money and name recognition while relegating the rest to an inferior status. The Constitution, Green and Libertarian parties successfully sued the state last year in federal court. The state legislature reworked the law but left several legally problematic requirements intact. The Constitution and Green parties have recently refiled the lawsuit.

Having additional parties on the ballot will provide voters with greater choices. Alternative public policies will be proposed and discussed. This creates a heightened interest in elections and an increase in voter turnout.

Choice is seen as a good thing in consumer goods such as toothpaste and dog food; why should we settle for just two political parties that reflect similar policies? Greater electoral competition would be a win for voters in Tennessee, as we would get greater substantive discussion of the issues and more innovative public policy. The attempt by the state legislature to propagate the monopoly of the political system by Democrats and Republicans is contrary to democracy and wastes public resources in defense of the current system.

Third Party Time?

In The New York Times, Thomas Friedman writes:

Thanks to a quiet political start-up that is now ready to show its hand, a viable, centrist, third presidential ticket, elected by an Internet convention, is going to emerge in 2012. I know it sounds gimmicky — an Internet convention — but an impressive group of frustrated Democrats, Republicans and independents, called Americans Elect, is really serious, and they have thought out this process well. In a few days, Americans Elect will formally submit the 1.6 million signatures it has gathered to get on the presidential ballot in California as part of its unfolding national effort to get on the ballots of all 50 states for 2012.

The goal of Americans Elect is to take a presidential nominating process now monopolized by the Republican and Democratic parties, which are beholden to their special interests, and blow it wide open — guaranteeing that a credible third choice, nominated independently, will not only be on the ballot in every state but be able to take part in every presidential debate and challenge both parties from the middle with the best ideas on how deal with the debt, education and jobs.

“Our goal is to open up what has been an anticompetitive process to people in the middle who are unsatisfied with the choices of the two parties,” said Kahlil Byrd, the C.E.O. of Americans Elect, speaking from its swank offices, financed with some serious hedge-fund money, a stone’s throw from the White House.

As the group explains on its Web site, www.americanselect.org: “Americans Elect is the first-ever open nominating process. We’re using the Internet to give every single voter — Democrat, Republican or independent — the power to nominate a presidential ticket in 2012. The people will choose the issues. The people will choose the candidates. And in a secure, online convention next June, the people will make history by putting their choice on the ballot in every state.”

Similar ideas have been kicking around for some time. In 2005, Ronald Brownstein wrote:

Once it took years of heavy spending on direct mail and other recruitment methods to build a national membership organization; MoveOn.org, the online liberal advocacy group, acquired half a million names -- with virtually no investment -- just months after posting an Internet petition opposing President Clinton's impeachment in 1998.

MoveOn, and groups like it on the left and right, chisel at the power of the major political parties by providing an alternative source of campaign funds and volunteers. But otherwise, the two parties that have defined American political life since the 1850s have been largely immune from the centrifugal current of the Internet era.

Joe Trippi, a principal architect of Howard Dean's breakthrough Internet strategy in the 2004 Democratic presidential campaign, is one of many analysts who believe that may soon change. The Internet, he says, could ignite a serious third-party presidential bid in 2008.

"This is a very disruptive technology," says Trippi. "And it is going to be very destabilizing to the political establishment of both parties."

The Internet could allow an independent candidate to more easily identify an audience and financial base, just as it has allowed blogs like the liberal Daily Kos or conservative InstaPundit to find a community of like-minded readers. More precisely, the Internet has allowed readers to find those blogs. And because the audience mostly finds the product, rather than the other way around, the cost of entering the market is radically reduced.

Trippi believes an independent presidential candidate who struck a chord could organize support through the Internet just as inexpensively. "Somebody could come along and raise $200 million and have 600,000 people on the streets working for them without any party structure in the blink of an eye," he says.

Nevertheless, the obstacles to a third party are steep. As we explain in our chapter on political parties, access to the ballot is not automatic and requires costly petition campaigns or legal battles. Though many Americans say that they like the idea of a third party in the abstract, actual support on the ballot tends to be much lower. Despite a double-digit share of the popular vote in 1992, Ross Perot did not win a single electoral vote, thus illustrating another obstacle: the electoral college, which makes life difficult for third parties that do not have a regional base. When people regard third parties as mere spoilers, they hold their noses and opt for one of the major parties.

More Spoilers

In our chapter on political parties, we discuss the "spoiler" effect, by which a minor party draws most of its support from one of the major parties, thereby tipping an election to the other major party. An earlier post showed how a Republican was trying to exploit the spoiler effect in Arizona by setting up Green Party candidates to siphon votes from Democrats. As a New York Times article shows, Democrats are using the same tactic:

Seeking any advantage in their effort to retain control of Congress, Democrats are working behind the scenes in a number of tight races to bolster long-shot third-party candidates who have platforms at odds with the Democratic agenda but hold the promise of siphoning

The efforts are taking place across the country with varying degrees of stealth. And in many cases, they seem to hold as much risk as potential reward for Democrats, prompting accusations of hypocrisy and dirty tricks from Republicans and the third-party movements that are on the receiving end of the unlikely, and sometimes unwelcome, support.

In California, Republicans have received recorded phone calls from a professed but unidentified “registered Republican” who says she is voting for the American Independent Party’s candidate for a House seat, Bill Lussenheide, not for the incumbent Republican, Mary Bono Mack.

The caller says she is voting that way because “it’s time we show Washington what a true conservative looks like.”

The recording was openly paid for by the Democratic candidate for the seat, Mayor Steve Pougnet of Palm Springs

Spoilers

Our chapter on political parties discusses the "spoiler effect" (pp. 319-320), by which third-party candidates may siphon votes from major-party candidates. Sometimes, major-party operatives deliberately encourage third-party candidates so as to damage their rivals.

The New York Times reports on a case in Arizona:

Mr. Pearcy and other drifters and homeless people were recruited onto the Green Party ballot by a Republican political operative who freely admits that their candidacies may siphon some support from the Democrats. Arizona’s Democratic Party has filed a formal complaint with local, state and federal prosecutors in an effort to have the candidates removed from the ballot, and the Green Party has urged its supporters to steer clear of the rogue candidates.

“These are people who are not serious and who were recruited as part of a cynical manipulation of the process,” said Paul Eckstein, a lawyer representing the Democrats. “They don’t know Green from red.”

But Steve May, the Republican operative who signed up some of the candidates along Mill Avenue, a bohemian commercial strip next to Arizona State University, insists that a real political movement has been stirred up that has nothing to do with subterfuge.

“Did I recruit candidates? Yes,” said Mr. May, who is himself a candidate for the State Legislature, on the Republican ticket. “Are they fake candidates? No way.”

To make his point, Mr. May went by Starbucks, the gathering spot of the Mill Rats, as the frequenters of Mill Avenue are known.

“Are you fake, Benjamin?” he yelled out to Mr. Pearcy, who cried out “No,” with an expletive attached.

The Detroit News reports on a case in Michigan:

The Michigan Supreme Court ruled today the controversial Tea Party group -- criticized as a Democratic ploy to siphon votes away from Republicans -- will not be on the November ballot.

"We are definitely pleased that the scam that was being perpetrated has been stopped," said John Pirich, an attorney for tea party groups around the state. "We also hope that the investigation into this activity proceeds as expeditiously as possible."

...

The ruling comes a day after The Detroit News reported links between Democrats and The Tea Party group with 23 candidates that included the former stepmother of the former leader of the Oakland County Democratic Party being recruited to run as well as another candidate who had placed last in a 2008 Democratic primary.

The scandal over The Tea Party group forced the resignation of Mike McGuinness, the former Oakland County Democratic chairman, and the firing of Jason Bauer, an organizer for the county Democrats who has been accused of notarizing many of the nominations.