Is the fact that Delaware’s most qualified candidate got 186 votes. It goes to show the ineffectiveness of running on a third party ticket against an incumbent and the challenger from the previous election before.
It was a noble effort and had an unbelievable amazing amount of support from those outside his district who unfortunately were not able to vote for that candidate. I think it does point out the prejudice many people have to third parties here in America. “If you truly were a good candidate, you’d be on the ballot of one of the major parties, so therefore you can’t be that good, especially if I’ve never heard of you.” … I think that line best sums up the thought-process of most average Americans when they go into a booth and decide which button to push…..
It also does show that although voting (for us who love politics) is a never ending passion, it is an enthusiasm that many of our neighbors do not share… When we espouse the absolutely necessity of certain events taking, because they lead to other events to follow which will better their lives, their eyes glaze and they give it as much worth as if the Titans had to beat the Jaguars for your fantasy team to excel….
And it may be for the best. Our blogging world as lagged without Steve’s daily input. Fights that should have seen the light of day, have languished without the right set of eyes to pull them out from their hiding holes… Perhaps it is better that the brilliance and wisdom of Steve be not confined to the floor of our General Assembly where a coalition could effectively bottle it up and silence it, but be strewn again to the winds of cyberspace where unlimited possibilities lie for it to land and become fertile. An active activist can not be an activist unless he remains active (or something like that).
He will surprisingly find that very few of his acquaintance will ever know the outcome… If they ask, just say you fell short and leave it at that. That is all they want to know anyway, is if their Steve is back… The rest of the world goes on, and if you quickly forget, so will they….. (That will be your biggest surprise; how quickly you fit right back into old and people don’t even seem to know you’ve been away.)
Through Steve’s and Catherine’s endeavor to try to launch through a third party, I have received insight…. Money. One needs a sponsor, a patron with a pocket book, to first build a party; one needs mailers comparable to the other two parties arriving on doorsteps and mailboxes first outlining the need for a third party; and to arrive in off- times long before the election, when one does not automatically throw every lit drop piece in the trash, and is so grateful for a piece of mail, they will actually read it…. Build the idea of a third party first, and see if they will come…
As for a name, from watching this cycle I now lean more to the Greens than either Independents or Libertarians as a name to head the third party… However to counter the notion that Greens are a flaky liberal party of unrealistic aspirations, I would change the name to the Green Money party… (how can anyone not like green money) and a platform as this: we are for the growth of small businesses, people’s prosperity, which are done in ways to enhance the environment, not destroy it.
Something along those lines… Could we launch a third party in time for 2016? We’d need 40,000 people and then in Delaware we could no longer be ignored. Though not capable of winning on our own, we would by playing off one party against the other, make them both forced to listen to us. One would think, at least.
7 comments
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November 5, 2014 at 1:46 pm
Kevin Ohlandt
By the time I got into this blogging world, Steve had already announced his candidacy. I had no idea he posted daily on his blog before that. If he goes back to that, I look forward to seeing it. I like your idea about a 3rd major party in DE, and I am up for it. Anyone else?
November 5, 2014 at 7:09 pm
snewton929
Appreciate this, and other statements of support following my underwhelming performance at the polls this week. Right now my plan is to take a short hiatus from blogging, Facebook, and politics–starting this weekend–to recharge batteries, gain perspective, and finish the book on Golden-Age Science Fiction I have to have done before New Year’s Day.
But there will soon thereafter be more Steve Newton Whiskey.
November 5, 2014 at 11:05 pm
Rob
Do not give-up! Run for County or City Council to build a base in your local Hockessin Community. Take Lessons from Independent Senator-Bernie Sanders from Vermont. He lost 2x before getting elected as Mayor. Let’s pushing for Publicly Funded Campaigns & get ‘Big Money’ out of the Election process Period. Go Greens!
November 6, 2014 at 6:39 pm
delacrat
Steve,
What Rob said. Most people are elected after 1 or more runs at something, not necessarily the first office attempted, to build name recognition.
2 words: School Board. With your Ed. background you’re a natural.
delacrat
November 7, 2014 at 3:06 pm
snewton929
delacrat–school board would be a problem. Would be uncomfortable to have to run election race against my own wife.
November 11, 2014 at 10:17 am
snewton929
by the way, kavips, with complete appreciation to you for the particular nom de plume, I am back to bloggin in a new format: Steve Newton Whiskey is now up and running here : http://stevenewtonwhiskey.blogspot.com
November 11, 2014 at 10:40 am
kavips
I tried putting this on your comment thread, as your first comment, but got as far as having it disappear each time I hit “preview”… (I tried all the options) While it is still stored in cache I’ll post it here….
While browsing for you site on search engines, this came up.. What better way to open this blogs comment thread… 🙂