by David French June 7, 2016 1:43 PM
@DavidAFrench
A credible candidate would earn a serious look by voters. In the days immediately before and after the news broke that I was weighing an independent run for president (it’s still strange to type those words), I was hit with two primary questions. First, “Who the heck are you?” And, second, “How can you believe an independent run will work?” As for the first question, I’m the guy not running for president. The second question deserves a much closer look.
Over the last eight days, I’ve enjoyed what amounts to a crash, graduate-level course in the potential for an independent candidate in 2016. Contrary to popular belief, the quest to find a candidate to confront Clinton and Trump isn’t simply the idle work of frustrated pundits, tossing names out until one finally sticks. In reality, there exists a serious foundation — with a comprehensive strategy, key assets, and seed funding in place. Let’s look at the key factors, in turn.
The public is ready to look at a third option First, let’s begin with a dose of reality: Polling for independent-candidacy demand can be imprecise — and optimistic. When the public dislikes two candidates (as they dislike Trump and Clinton), it’s easy for them to express a preference for an idealized, unknown third person. But in this cycle, we not only have polling demonstrating that a generic independent candidate could reach 21 percent, we also have polls putting Mitt Romney at 22 percent, Libertarian Gary Johnson at 11 percent and 10 percent, and polling showing up to 65 percent of Americans (and upwards of 90 percent of Millennials) are willing to at least consider an independent candidate. RELATED: Inside the #NeverTrump Candidacy that Almost Was None of this is news to political junkies.
I’m not going to pretend that this polling means a third-party candidate would sweep the field in one of history’s great political revolutions, but it does indicate that a credible candidate would earn a serious look, with Millennials (unsurprisingly) most likely to jump the major-party ship. A serious look is the critical first step. The ballot-access problem is overblown Pundits who like to toss cold water on independent runs always go back to the same two words — “ballot access.” As the argument goes, it’s just too late and too expensive to get on enough ballots to either win or impact the race meaningfully. At least one writer projected that it would cost $250 million, a staggering sum. This is fundamentally off — by a factor of more than ten. Even if one assumes that an independent candidate has to pay a petitioning firm for every single signature (no volunteer involvement) and hire litigators to challenge ballot rules in particularly onerous states, we projected that the ballot access would cost less than $25 million. That’s a formidable amount, to be sure, but not significant in the context of a viable and meaningful national campaign.
More at:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/436303/independent-presidential-run-candidate-foundation
