Comments:Prohibition Party holds convention; nominates Jack Fellure for U.S. President

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My reservation has liquor prohibition on the books. They say they enforce it, but damned near every resident of my tribe are alcoholics. If he wants to cut down on alcohol usage, he should set it to "no age required" but, make it illegal to advertise the product in print, video or audio form. It's a culture of "cool" surrounding that poison. I never drink it, but don't care about those who do. It's just asuggestion.

Grateful for information.

ඟච QWE

I too appreciate your coverage of third parties. Too bad none of them stand a chance and only exist to leech votes from the two main parties!

I appreciate these articles as well, though I can't quite say I agree with Fellure's stance. Prohibition was tried. We got Al Capone.

Agreed. I can't say I care for his apparent one-issue campaign either, but hey... at least he's challenging the status quo.

yeah... I've always wondered how many people vote for third party candidates not because their ideological view align, but because the voters are so disgruntled with the two-party system

If I recall correctly, about one percent of the popular vote goes to third party candidates.

Yes, that's what happened in the 2008 presidential elections. But I'm wondering why people are voting for third party candidates.

I've heard that most people who are dissatisfied with the Democratic and Republican candidates just don't vote at all. I wonder what would happen if all voters were required to vote, similar to what is done in Australia.

Unfortunately, an election law bill passed by the Florida legislature this year, HB 1355, removes the Prohibition Party from the presidential part of the Florida ballot. Parties not recognized by the Federal Election Commission now need 335,000 valid signatures on a petition with their presidential nominee listed. Furthermore the petition needs about 10,000 signatures from each of 14 U.S. House districts, and no one even knows what the boundaries of those districts will be in 2012. There will be a lawsuit filed against that new law, which will probably win, so the Prohibition Party will probably gain its presidential ballot status back via the lawsuit.

Democracy in the US really is dead, isn't it?

Not dead, no. It's struggling; there's a two-party duopoly, which is unhealthy for the system as a whole, for both of those two parties, and for struggling third parties; and right now one of the two entrenched parties is out on the ideological fringe, which naturally tends to happen in this duopoly and is one of the reasons it's intrinsically unhealthy.

It's dead. Look at the electoral college and the lobbying industry. Pair that with the maintained voter apathy. The people in Washington (hell, even in state capitals) don't represent their constituents anymore, and it's becoming increasingly clear.

It's ironic that you say that on the same day that former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich was convicted of corruption. (worse, he was convicted of trying to sell Obama's former Senate seat!) And the really sad part is that Illinois politics really hasn't seemed to change that much! :(

As much as we try to prevent it, the modern politician simply does not have the incentive to put his or her constituents before anything else! To extend my comments to a more nationwide perspective, take a look at Obama as an example. Despite all of his campaign promises, much of what he does now is political theater. The "beer summit" he held with that Harvard professor and the Cambridge cop was purely a PR stunt. The health care "debate" he held with congressmen from both parties was hardly a debate at all. Political debates, especially debates in Congress, have degenerated into prepared speeches. By the time the congressmen show up for "debate", they made up their minds on how they're going to vote already, and there really is no effort by anyone to persuade the other side about the merits of their own position.

All of this, however, is not a sign that democracy is dead, per se. Rather, it is a reminder to all of us about its harmful side effects. If you take a look at California's political system, you would see that direct democracies really aren't that great. Sure, the people get to vote on their own laws, and they do so only after vigorous debate throughout the state. But the resulting set of laws is one that not that many people are happy with, and the government is now stuck with a huge budget crisis.

So while it would be nice to give the electorate more choices in the ballot, I think we should be wary of any efforts to hand large, unrestricted powers to the people. That would be too far of a step beyond where we need to be.

An excellent piece of OR! I really like the fact that we're covering third parties, since they don't seem to get that much attention in the mainstream media.

While I had told James Hedges by email that I would fully support his candidacy if he was nominated our party's presidential candidate, I will now fully support Jack Fuller. Fuller brings a newness to the Prohibition Party which badly needs new voices and new ideas. Although Fuller is older than most political candidates, his views seem to be the views held by most Prohibitionists and he seems very experienced in the area of campaigning.

It is my opinion that the Party Platform actually expresses the Party beliefs much better than the standard bearer. This is true of every political party, including both major parties. So, while some of Fuller's views may seem to be more conservative than those of the Party Platform, it is the Platform which truly expresses Prohibition Party beliefs. We are a Christian Populist party with Progressive/Conservative roots. This can be seen by going to http://www.prohibitionists.org/Background/Party_Platform/Platform_Index.htm and compare with http://www.prohibitionists.org/Background/Party_Platform/party_platform.html You will notice elements of both Progressivism and Conservatism in the same platforms! To get a good understanding of the Prohibition Party, you may go to my blog entry http://www.dailystatesman.com/blogs/1576/entry/41100

Missouri Prohibitionist, Richard D. Swift