On the subject of running with a party affiliation yet, some are recognized as major and minor depending on their recent vote percentages. This controls access to ballot placement and other things.
In Ohio these are the parties:
Major
Democratic
Republican
Minor
Constitution
Green
Libertarian
Socialist
Also, on campaign news, I will be attending a regional Chamber of Commerce dinner Monday night with a man who is the presumptive D nominee for State Representative in 2012. It’s nice to be asked. I hope my suit is clean.
I don’t know about Ohio, but New York makes it really difficult for anyone outside of the major parties to compete. If you’re in a major party (and like Alan Smithee posted, major party status is based on the last election) getting on the ballot is a fairly routine procedure. But if you’re not there are hurdles - some of which are so ridiculous they can only be justified as being intended to keep people off the ballots. For examples, signatures can be invalidated if they’re in the wrong color ink or on the wrong sized page. They can be invalidated if you’re registered as John Q. Public and you sign the petition as J.Q. Public or John Public or John Quincy Public. They can be invalidated if you sign outside of the town you’re registered in, even if you’re signing a petition for somebody running for state-wide office. If any signature on a page is invalidated, the entire page of signatures is automatically invalidated.
With a system like this, getting fifty valid signatures is incredibly difficult and getting 250 is even more so.
I presume the incident with you, the dead girl hooker and the live boy hooker in the cheap motel room has been forgotten? Oh, and exactly when did you stop beating your wife?
Here it’s pretty friendly. I got dinged and one of my sheets DQed because one of my signers signed for his wife, too. That’s a no-no and the entire sheet of 22 names got invalidated.
But generally in this county if an independent wants to get on the ballot they can. They rarely WIN, mind you, but they get on the ballot.
It’s clear from what you’ve posted that you feel you have a reasonable chance of being elected.
But would you consider running for office if you knew you did not have any realistic chance of winning?
eta: And you skipped one of my previous questions: With three open slots being filled by a common election, do parties run multiple nominees? Do they limit it to three? (“Candidate Chance tries to dodge the tough questions. What’s he trying to hide?”)
I’m used to asking tough questions, not answering them!
In all honesty I wasn’t certain I’d want to run against after the work last year with no payoff. But the lack of quality candidates was definitely a motivator for me in this one.
With three positions available (At-Large, there are other for individual wards) yes parties run multiple candidates and hope to sweep. In this case both major parties have two candidates in the hunt so one of us will be left out in November.
In the event that one party has more than 3 candidates a primary would be held. So if four Democrats had filed for candidacy we’d have a vote in May and the top three would advance to the general election in November.
Edited for Elendil’s Heir: Doubtful, even if they found it this is the one I post on and they might have trouble connecting it with me. Still, it’s a chance you take with any public pronouncement. I know the opposition is already going through my public statements last year and the editorials I wrote while publishing the paper looking for wedges to use. Still, it’s not like I didn’t know going in.
So they can’t try to spread out across a political spectrum? The Republicans, for example, running three conservative and three moderate candidates hoping to ensure some Republicans get elected even if they misread the voters.
Something I’ve wondered that’s more about the job so you may not know - in situations like this election where “top three” choices are picked, is there any political clout in being the top vote-getter? Is it something the other council members would notice/care about, or is it of little meaning other than a gauge of support for higher office?
Not the case here. Each Councilman becomes chair of one of the committees with two others as the other members. It spreads it out. The committees, on the other hand, are selected by the President of Council who presides over meetings but does not get to vote.
In the event that the Council as a whole does not approve of the President’s selections they can overrule and force him to choose again but it’s a real process. Checks and balances, I suppose.
But no, other than bragging rights, the top vote getter gets no special priviliges.
First major event this evening. The local Chamber of Commerce dinner. About 900 potential voters there. Made the rounds and saw a lot of people. Got to sit with the former State Rep for the area (she’s in my party) and worked the crowd. I believe I got the word out about my running. It’s very early in the season but I’m a business-oriented candidate and this is an integral part of my election chances.
Food wasn’t that great, though. And I left after about three hours.
Oh, a few I suppose. There might be some of that there.
More important was for me to get out and be seen and discuss the campaign. Plant seeds, as you might say.
Sadly, I was the only D candidate who attended the event (that I saw). Several of the D Central Committee members and the county chair were there but no candidates. I find that dismaying as it’s both a source of voters and contributions. I think they’re letting the ‘Chambers of Commerce are conservative so why go’ attitude blind them to opportunities. There were certainly a number of well-heeled D business owners there who could have been talked to and a whole slew of people who aren’t committed one way or the other.