RPUSA Constitution

[PeroW_Cheney]

I'm a little confused by this question, but I admit I was confused before I read it.

"WHICH Reform Party is this? I want the ORIGINAL Party--the Party of Ross Perot-Pat Choate-Russ Verney and the Party that had the Perot-Lamm contest. I DON'T want the nutty Buchannan-Fulani Party. Also, which Party is this?

ColorBlindDJ wrote
He is referring to John Blare's/Frank MacKay's "Reform Party," which claims to be the "Reform Party" but is not recognized as such. MacKay often makes the claim he is the RP "chairman," which he isn't. He also "endorses" candidates (John McCain in 2008, and most recently Dede Scozzafava), and sometimes does so under the RPUSA banner, which he has no authority to do, considering the RPUSA runs it's own candidates, and never endorses other party's.

Okay, which candidates were Reform Party and which candidates are Blare/MacKay?

Perot
Buchannan
Nader

So the Reform Part NEVER endorses other parties? Because in the caravan on the way to see Perot speak in Warren Ohio in 1996, we did, in fact, unanimously vote to endorse Republican David A. Westbrook.

In 1998 before the election, Reform Party Candidate for Governor, Lt. Col ret. John Mitchel oversaw a vote (like 100 to one) to not endorse James Trafficant at the Reform Party meeting held in the Upper Arlington City Council building.

Furthermore, if the Reform Party never endorses, then why is Kevin Zeese elected as the Reform Party Spokesperson and allowed to be quoted on the record saying that Nader does not endorse the Reform Party, but the Reform Party endorses Nader and this is not a nomination???? Zeese said it! Anybody can find the quote.

Where and when and what version of who's constitution was used to say that the Reform Party never endorses candidates from other parties?

[DCAdmin]

Endorsing or not endorsing other party candidates is not part of the Constitution. You are correct there.

However, it is a basic assumption of real political parties that they run candidates, not endorse them.

Why?

Because the primary thing a real political party has that is valuable is its base and its ballot line. Ballot lines are expensive and difficult to obtain in many states. Usually, to maintain that ballot line, XXX percent of the voters must vote for a candidate that runs on your ballot line.

If you endorse a Republican or a Democrat, then people vote for that candidate and you get nada, zip, zilch. In fact, if you opted to endorse rather than run your own candidate, you are basically saying "we don't want to be a party, we want to be an advocacy group".

Because of NY state law, NY is one of the few states with fusion, where a candidate can run on more than one ballot line at a time. Thus McCain can run as the IPNY candidate AND as the GOP candidate. The voters could vote for him on one ballot line or the other.

But even if the IPNY managed to get a ballot line in all 50 states with their national Independence Party of America, they COULD NOT nominate McCain nationally if he also ran as a Republican. The IPNY doesn't understand that their state model doesn't work nationally one bit. So what did they do? They tried to NOMINATE them as the national candidate, but use it as an ENDORSEMENT in every state but NY.

So think this way, I'm in Nebraska, I need a 5% statewide vote for a Reform Party candidate to maintain ballot access, and some ******* in New York tells me to ENDORSE the Republican instead of running my own candidate.

Yeah, that makes all kinds of sense...not...

[PeroW_Cheney]

You seem to be able to get attention of the powers that be in the party right now. I think you should offer that a clear non-endorsement policy be defined. Off the top of my head, Ohio has endorsed across party lines at least 1 republican and 2 libertarians. And Kevin Zeese was an idiot to downgrade our Nader nomination into an endorsement. This precedent needs to be stopped by a clearly defined policy, and our candidates must understand in advance that they will not be allowed to endorse anybody if they drop out.

The non-endorsement intuition you descibed is not practiced and endorsements fly easily all the time.

Ohio needs the 5% also, but it needs to happen 2 election cycles in a row because the first time is the benchmark for the ballot access.

[DCAdmin]

Good point. I will definitely suggest that for the next revision we state clearly that we do not endorse.

We are doing our best to educate members that this is a losing strategy for a political party.