March 5th Is THE Day For 3rd Parties
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, 3rd Party, BloombergWhy? Because that’s when Texas opens up for 3rd party candidates to get on the ballot. So it makes sense that we should know by then if somebody is going to mount a viable 3rd party bid…those “somebodys” being Michael Bloomberg and/or Ron Paul.
I found the date in the NY Times:
Bloomberg aides have studied the process for launching independent campaigns, which formally begins March 5, when third-party candidates can begin circulating nominating petitions in Texas. If Democrats and Republicans have settled on their presumptive nominees at that point, Mr. Bloomberg will have to decide whether he believes those candidates are vulnerable to a challenge from a pragmatic, progressive centrist, which is how he would promote himself.The filing deadline for the petitions, which must be signed by approximately 74,000 Texas voters who did not participate in the state’s Democratic or Republican primaries, is May 12.
And there it is. Now we know.
This entry was posted on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 and is filed under 2008 Election, 3rd Party, Bloomberg. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 30th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Lol! you just aren’t going to let go of this third-party thing are you Justin? I’m curious why it is you insist on coming back to this topic over and over again.
December 31st, 2007 at 9:10 am
Texas is quite a difficult state when it comes to getting presidential candidates on the ballot. They only let you circulate petitions within a specified period of time (I believe it’s 60 days starting on March 5th) and the total required is very high - 45,000 signatures or so.
Those interested in ballot access in Texas, or anywhere, should take a look at Richard Winger’s Ballot Access News website (www.ballot-access.org). Winger has done more than anybody I can think of to bring the issue of ballot access to the attention of the public at large and his command of every detail of petitioning requirements in all 50 states and D.C. is scary. If access to election ballots is the cornerstone of a democracy, then reading his stuff makes you aware of how fragile ours is, and has been for some time. It’s amazing how difficult it is to actually run for office, especially in places like Texas, because of ballot access obstacles.
December 31st, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Because he’s afraid of a Clinton/Romney election… and rightfully so.
January 13th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
[...] March 5th is coming up soon. That’s the day when he could begin to mount a new campaign centered around his “freedom” platform. And you could keep him going with your moneybombs. Because he wouldn’t be beholden to trying to win primaries at that point. He could run a national campaign and harness the energy and enthusiasm you’ve built through Meetup and Facebook and MySpace, etc. [...]