{"id":2035,"date":"2010-06-26T01:33:50","date_gmt":"2010-06-26T08:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=2035"},"modified":"2010-06-26T01:33:50","modified_gmt":"2010-06-26T08:33:50","slug":"the-danger-of-third-parties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/26\/the-danger-of-third-parties\/","title":{"rendered":"The Danger of Third Parties"},"content":{"rendered":"

On several occasions, I have warned progressives against voting for third party candidates.  Here is an excellent illustration.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"26GP_logo\"<\/a> Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas GOP know they are in serious danger of losing the governorship to Democratic nominee Bill White. If only there were some useful idiots around to help the secessionist governor keep his job … <\/span>Aha<\/a>!<\/span><\/p>\n

Mike Toomey, a lobbyist and former chief of staff to Gov. Rick Perry, personally paid for an aborted effort to qualify the Green Party of Texas for the ballot, according to court testimony Thursday morning<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The testimony came from Garrett Mize, who led the failed petition effort beginning last fall. He said Toomey paid him $2,000 a month for about six months with a personal check.<\/p>\n

Mize was subpoenaed by the Texas Democratic Party, which has filed suit to block the Greens from certifying their candidates for the November ballot.<\/p>\n

Another subsequent petition gathering campaign, paid for by an out-of-state corporation called Take Initiative America, did get the requisite signatures to get the party on the ballot. It is unclear where the money for that $500,000 effort came from.<\/p>\n

But the Democrats contend that the in-kind contribution from Take Initiative America is an illegal corporate contribution that should preclude the Greens from qualifying for the ballot. <\/p>\n

Is the Texas Green Party really trying to move forward with petition signatures paid for by a shadowy outside corporatist group? That would demonstrate a shocking lack of principle, and isn’t that really the only thing the Greens have going for them?<\/p>\n

Update<\/span>: (from the comments): <\/span>State judge ruled against the Greens<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

An illegal corporate contribution used by the Green Party of Texas to field statewide candidates will keep the party’s nominees off the November ballot, a judge ruled Thursday.<\/p>\n

At issue was the origin of about 92,000 petition signatures, valued at $532,500 , that qualified the party for a place on the ballot. Take Initiative America, a Missouri-based nonprofit corporation, gave the Green Party the petitions in May and has not disclosed who paid for the petition-gathering effort at a cost of $4 per signature. <\/p>\n

Good. Still, this will be appealed to the state Supreme Court, which is dominated by Republicans\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Daily Kos<\/a>><\/p>\n

I have absolutely nothing against the Green Party.  I support their goals almost across the board.  But realistically speaking, the only thing the Green Party will accomplish in Texas is to pull votes away from the Democratic party.  If having them on the ballot would not benefit the GOP, the GOP would not be paying their way.<\/font><\/p>\n

Unless there is no viable Democrat on the ballot, any vote for a third party is a vote for a Republican.<\/font><\/p>\n

However, the best thing the right wing can do for America is to ignore this advice.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On several occasions, I have warned progressives against voting for third party candidates.  Here is an excellent illustration. Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas GOP know they are in serious danger of losing the governorship to Democratic nominee Bill White. If only there were some useful idiots around to help the secessionist governor keep his […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}