Spin Control: Spin Control: Filing week brings out the creativity
The state’s primary system, with its one ballot for all and the top two for November, pushes some candidates to profess allegiance to parties that few have heard of, and even fewer could place on the political spectrum.
At the same time, it draws some candidates like comets to the sun. On one-, two- or four-year cycles, they shoot toward the bright light at the center of the political solar system, plunk down enough for a month’s house payment, quickly round the parabolic arc and stream off into the dark reaches of the political solar system until the next election.
The choice of parties in Washington is mainly a function of a nonpartisan primary that selects candidates for partisan offices. Candidates don’t say they are Democrats, Republicans or Libertarians or Socialists on their official paperwork or the ballot. They say they “prefer” the Democratic, or the Republican, or the Libertarian or Socialist Workers party.
Or this year, the Human Rights, StandupAmerica, Lincoln Caucus, System Reboot parties, all of which are candidate preferences for the U.S. Senate race. Or the Holistic or Fifth Republic party, which each have a candidate in the governor’s race.
These are not “third” parties. They are parties so minor as to be inventions of the candidates themselves. Some are hints about that would-be officeholder’s plans or principles. Some take a bit of deciphering. David Blomstrom, the gubernatorial candidate from the Fifth Republic Party – slogan: “viva la revolucion” – has a fairly detailed explanation of how the United States has moved through four republics, and he wants to help usher in the fifth. For those who want more elucidation, that’s why God and Al Gore invented the Internet.
These candidates might get scant public attention. They might have as much chance of being sworn into their desired office as winning last week’s lottery with this week’s ticket. No minor party candidate has made it onto the general election ballot for a statewide race, let alone been elected to that office, through the current primary system.
But the great thing about America is that anyone can dream big, and if their dream is to run for office, ain’t much stopping them, even when candidates in Washington must plunk down a filing fee of 1 percent of the office’s annual salary.
In the case of U.S senator and governor wannabes, that’s more than $1,700. So good for them for putting their money where their political mouth is, wherever that may be.
Remember me?
Voters who take the time to study their primary ballot may notice some recurring names. These are the perennial candidates who run for something every year.
Goodspaceguy, who advocates colonizing space, is in the governor’s race this year. He’s run for that office before, as well as U.S. Senate and the U.S. House.
Perennial candidate Mike the Mover is not on this year’s ballot. The former Michael Shanks legally changed his name years ago to reflect his Seattle moving business, and his campaigns were a way of advertising that operation. But he hasn’t retired from politics.
Instead, he has legally changed his name again, to Uncle Mover, and is running for the U.S. Senate. He prefers being a Republican this year, although he’s had other party preferences in other years.
Meanwhile, among the D’s and R’s
With so much variety among the minor parties, one might assume running as a major party candidate is cut and dried. Not so.
One side’s candidates vacillate between listing their preference as Republican Party or GOP Party, the latter apparently forgetting that capital P stands for Party, or are fine with the redundancy.
Some members of the other side have a tendency to list their preference as the “Democrat” Party. This suggests they weren’t paying attention to grammar in grade school on the difference between a noun, which Democrat is, and an adjective like Democratic, which is the proper word to modify Party. Or perhaps they’ve heard the opposition use this as a secret slur – in some gatherings Republicans can be punished for using “Democratic” in front of “Party” – that it has embedded in their subconscious.
State and county elections officials are not arbiters of grammar. What a candidate writes on his or her paperwork is what goes on the ballot.
Spin Control, a weekly column by political reporter Jim Camden, also appears online with daily items and reader comments at www.spokesman.com/ blogs/spincontrol.