Third-Party Capers
TYLER, GUS
Countdown '76 THIRD-PARTY CAPERS BY GUS TYLER REAGAN and WALLACE A third-party ticket of Ronald Reagan and George Wallace could make this year's Presidential election an unpredictable jumble....
...most of the participants, noting the GOP's weakness, also favored Reagan's making a clean break...
...A really fancy and thoroughly legal deal under this method would be an arrangement to choose a President from one ticket and a Vice President from another...
...Should Wallace or Reagan decide to run on a third-party ticket after loyally sticking it out at the Democratic and Republican conventions—thereby assuring the continued support of many of their partisans among the regulars?they would have little difficulty doing so...
...William J. Sherer, head of the Independents, states frankly: "We're going ahead with the process of getting Wallace petitions and we're right on schedule...
...Or, conservative Democrats could team up with conservative Republicans and win the third-party candidate a number of states...
...The second and more conventional method for confronting a deadlock, explicit in the Constitution, makes the House of Representatives the arbiter...
...Ronald Docksai, a legislative aide to Representative Robert Bauman (R-Md...
...But this view has been softened by the pragmatic realization that if conservatives are ever to win even a plurality, they will need someone who can speak democratic rhetoric...
...Remote as the prospect may be, the House of Representatives could then find itself unable to put together a majority of 26 votes for anyone...
...The only other time the decision was thrown into the House was in 1800, when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr got exactly the same number of electoral votes...
...With the candidates of three parties involved there would be nine possible combinations, and we might find ourselves with Gerald Ford and George Wallace in the White House...
...Had he not been on the ballot, it is likely that Hubert Humphrey would have received sufficient blue collar support to deny Nixon an Electoral College majority...
...Standing in the way of what looks like a foregone conclusion, however, is the fact that when the House picks the President, each state is given only one vote, be it Vermont with a single representative or California with 43...
...William Rusher, publisher of the National Review, has been especially insistent that Reagan quit the Republicans and form a grand new party...
...His presence in the race may well have assured Richard Nixon's victory: In three close states—California, New Jersey and Illinois—Wallace held the balance of victory...
...Alexander Hamilton used his influence in the Lower Chamber to elect his old opponent Jefferson, rather than see his New York rival in the White House...
...Together with Reagan, though, the Alabama Governor would undoubtedly be acceptable...
...He was elected President in 1828...
...For Wallace, a third-party run would not be a new experience...
...in exchange, say, for a Cabinet position, a court appointment or programmatic promises...
...At one time, Wallace was seen by elitist conservative intellectuals as a racist, Socialist demagogue...
...Unless there is a tie or no quorum (less than two-thirds of the members), the Senate will have chosen a Vice President from the If the election is not clearly decided this November, and the make-up of the next House resembles the present one, as is expected, the Democratic candidate might seem to have little to worry about...
...Proponents of a conservative third party reason that the Republicans and Democrats would split the "liberal" vote, allowing the new party to roll up a Right-wing plurality...
...And Congress can oust him whenever it wants to merely by finally qualifying a President...
...The Alabama Governor would probably be amenable...
...Our aim is to be ready if he wants to give it a try...
...The first method, never actually used but implicit in the Constitution, can become operative the morning after the election and is essentially a variation of the old smoke-filled back room approach...
...After the contest went to the House, Clay made a deal that gave Adams the Presidency...
...Andrew Jackson for the Southwest...
...Its leader fears Wallace has become too liberal...
...Thus Phillips has asserted: "Anything that doesn't have Wallace's support or interest can't pull it off...
...Jackson, the frontrunner in the popular vote, claimed he was the victim of an undemocratic piece of political skullduggery and, for the next four years, appealed to the American people to undo this nefarious injustice...
...B. Drummond Ayres of the New York Times reported in early March, "The groundwork for a third-party candidacy by Mr...
...On the other hand, since the electors are technically free to pick anyone they want to lead the nation and ignore all that went before, the possibilities are theoretically limitless...
...Reagan, for instance, might offer the electors committed to him to the highest bidder...
...we have a one-party system today...
...George Wallace's name is being increasingly mentioned along with Ronald Reagan's in discussions of which devoted two pages to "The Best of George Wallace," quoted him as saying: "The leadership of both national parties is the same ?? we need a two-party system in the United States...
...In that event, the Twelfth and Twentieth Amendments provide that the Vice President shall "act as President until a President is qualified...
...It would not be difficult, therefore, for the third party to swing the decision in the direction of the best offer it two top candidates and he will become Chief Executive...
...The YAF's treasurer, Dr...
...Moderator Wayne Thorburn, painting a picture of a dying elephant, pointed out that the Republicans could claim only one-fourth of the nation's governorships and fewer than a third of the seats in 24 state legislatures...
...Wallace, or some other conservative is being laid by several conservative groups...
...For their entry into the contest could very well prevent any one candidate from emerging on election night with the necessary majority of 270 electoral votes?and all the resultant scenarios have the third party wielding considerable power...
...While all this sounds zany, it is no more zany than the archaic system we now use to select our two top Federal officers...
...In a symposium sponsored by Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) on the topic "Which Way for Conservatives...
...In the traditionally Democratic Southern states, Wallace played the same spoiler role...
...Since writing his book on The Emerging Republican Majority, Phillips has revised his estimates, largely as a result of Nixon's discrediting the GOP and Ford's failure to reassemble his predecessor's original broad backing...
...The January 1976 issue of Conservative Digest, vote, but will nevertheless come out on top in a multiparty nation...
...A third-party candidacy would be a new experience for Reagan, but not a new thought...
...In the case of a deadlock, there are two ways to select a President...
...Perhaps a brief immersion in this Kafkaesque situation would finally goad us toward a more rational method of choosing our President—such as direct election by the people...
...By majority vote, it must choose from among the top three candidates in a race if no one gamers enough electoral votes to emerge as victor...
...By now, Reagan and Wallace may even be tacit partners in the plot, continuing their respective races for the Republican and Democratic nominations to build up momentum for the real thing—a joint slate in November...
...felt the Democrats were so totally in control of the nation that "if one-party government is to be avoided in America, we must wit7 ness the formation of a new conservative party...
...Wallace could retain his post, Reagan has no post, and the two could end up being able to make their impact felt not only during the campaign but especially afterward...
...Still another Right-wing group, the American party, already has a spot on the ballot in a dozen states...
...Henry Clay for the Northwest...
...Out of that rhubarb came Hamilton's death in a duel, as well as the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution—making it necessary for the Electoral College to vote separately on the President and Vice President, and moving the Vice Presidential choice in a deadlocked situation to the Senate...
...We could emerge with Robert Redford as President and Gloria Steinem in the second slot...
...Even if that is unduly optimistic, neither man has much to lose by running...
...The Vice President who assumes the role of acting President under these circumstances will not find life easy...
...Several of his fellow conservatives have been urging him for months to make an independent effort...
...A Reagan-Wallace ticket, ventures Phillips, "has a chance of getting 35 per cent in a three-way race, or 38 per cent...
...Because electors are not legally obliged to cast their votes for the man to whom 8 The New Leader they are pledged (the obligation is purely moral) they can be traded by the candidates...
...The state delegations are polled to determine their preferences, and ballots are cast accordingly...
...Aware of its potential for influencing the course of events, several conservative groups are quietly making plans to launch such an effort...
...receives...
...He reasons that we are moving inevitably into a period reminiscent of 1854-64, when fractional politics did in the two-party system...
...The nation will view him as an illegitimate usurper...
...Robert Emmet Moffit, said "the ultimate question that confronts Reagan at this juncture is not whether he can get the GOP nomination, but whether he could afford it...
...In 1968, as the American Independent party's Presidential candidate, he polled almost 10 million popular votes and 45 electoral votes, carrying Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi...
...Right-wing theoretician Kevin Phillips has meanwhile been providing learned historical underpinnings for a third-party movement based on a "populist conservative" coalition...
...The American Independent party, the American Independence party and the Committee for a New Majority are all circulating petitions to secure a place on the ballot, and Wallace aides are keeping in touch...
...Today he speaks of a New Plurality—a third party that may not capture 50 per cent of the possible candidates for the new coalition...
...and William H. Crawford for the Southeast...
...The last time that occurred was in 1824, when there were four Presidential candidates, each pretty much a sectional spokesman: John Quincy Adams for the Northeast...
...This setting, Phillips has written in the Conservative Digest, offers a unique opportunity: "As the two old structures weaken and fall apart, we can create a new one that can win with a plurality, or at least run a decent race in 1976, and then perhaps pick up the marbles as the other two parties disintegrate a little further...
Vol. 59 • April 1976 • No. 8
