Charlottesville, VA January 21, 2019 — In making the case for true Independents to continue pursuit of making the ballot – from down-ticket races all the way up to the Electoral College for the 2020 presidential election – I will be conducting interviews with brave individuals that took the risk of running for national office in the past 20-years.
To encourage more candidates to jump in and challenge the unfair electoral system, I intend to detail the personal decisions and factors that candidates experience. From experience, those of us that have run for office find that no matter how negative or mundane it may seem, there is a great satisfaction in knowing that you served the country and still maintained your sanity. We applaud candidates willing to absorb the enormous challenge of running for public office, no matter what level of notoriety, or their place on the spectrum of electoral politics.
While recruiting for candidates over the last 20 years, most individuals pitched respond as though we (our collection of coalition members that make up a third party) were crazy, and don’t believe it will make any difference. Most were not interested in anything having to do with politics. They are quick to drum up some legitimate reason that highlights their fear. Usually it stems from the negative scrutiny and guttural tone that modern political campaigns drag with them. Or they have a fear for their privacy, the negative impact on their career, or a true skeleton in their closet that they would not want exposed.
Most people generally assume that unless a candidate comes from the larger party, they can’t win and hence are not legitimate. And they believe this even though the credentials and qualifications of the individual nominated from outside the big party structure often favor the complimentary party nominee.
Getting in-depth into the minds and motivations of potential public figures, we will hear their take on current political strategies that can be exercised from outside the two-party duopoly. My underlying belief and reason for doing this is to convince people to put aside the myths, lies, and negative perception of non-Big Party challengers.
It is critical that we challenge the electoral system developed by the bigger parties to protect their hold on the government power structure, obviously failing to provide “for the people” when a small share of rich donors control the political process. The broader population actually cedes their right to have their voices heard by participating in a very clever and effectively acted two-party farce.
It remains vital that we exercise getting on the ballot and pushing for the participatory rights of complementary candidates. When we challenge from outside the people’s voice is largely blocked from being heard. The private companies that control the bulk of media are members of those two parties and have business interests to protect. To execute their power they will use any means to exclude legitimate “on-the-ballot” candidates from participating in the process. Most commonly, they will attempt to deny ballot access and prevent participation in the October debates – even to those that went through the grueling process of qualifying for enough state ballots to mathematically generate enough votes to get elected.
I would love to interview those that ran within the big party and still got denied privileges including debate exclusion. In a perfect world I would seek advice from former Senator Mike Gravel, former congressman Dennis Kucinich, and current senator Rand Paul. Instead I will sharpen my focus on candidates that entered from outside of the giant party apparatus.
Ideally that would mean Ross Perot or Ralph Nader, but there were many others that did not get as much notoriety. We will seek out Green Party nominees such as Dr. Jill Stein, former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Green Party VP nominee Pat LaMarche, Libertarian nominees Michael Badnarik, former governor Gary Johnson, and Constitution party nominees Chuck Baldwin and former congressman Virgil Goode.
I will try to get affirmation that these former candidates still agree with the notion of running outside the monolithic party structure. I will probe previous Independent presidential candidates to figure out why they ran, what they accomplished, whether they would recommend others to do it, what new items in their platform they would offer today.
The first source of our reporting will be Daniel Imperato, an individual who put in enormous effort into running back in the 2006-08. To this day, he makes the case for continuing to challenge the status quo. Though he did not make any state ballots for president in 2008, he did make the ballot for Florida governor in 2010.
During the 08 presidential election Imperato’s voice was accurately predicting outcomes of US government actions and prescribed solutions – many of which were implemented years later. This proves that the majority of our complementary candidates, especially those that made the ballot, have more qualifications that those that ended up getting elected. Thinking about it, what exactly did a former community activist elected to the state senate, then the US Senate, or a rich-guy TV reality star have over the rest of us in qualification for higher office?
In his book, Independents Day: Awakening the American Spirit, Lou Dobbs stated, “The greatest crisis in this country today is the fact that the American people are not being represented by their government.”
This message has been highlighted by Imperato for many years. Daniel declares, “I’ve been saying for the last 14 years that we need government by ‘we the people, for we the people’. The fact is that special interests and corporate lobbyists have taken over D.C. and every state capital. Any candidate that uses either of both parties (BP) to get elected is then beholden to ‘BP’ (both parties and their corporate donors).”
Imperato of West Palm Beach, Florida issued this call at the end of 2018, “Regarding the government shutdown, I call on the administration to have emergency meetings on these events and to disclose the facts to the public. I ask the American people to be reminded that the two party system created this disastrous scenario and that it’s time to put an Independent Third Party in the White House. America needs to be rid of the lobbyists and special interest groups that plague Washington and strip the pockets of hard-working American taxpayers.”
Imperato has formed an exploratory committee for the 2020 presidential election.