Third party and independent legislative candidates face uphill battle

Lee Scott Laugenour is the only candidate running for state representative locally who is not a major party nominee, but he’s not totally alone in his quest.

Laugenour, the Lenox Berkshire Regional Transit Authority delegate and Green-Rainbow Party candidate challenging state Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli (D-Lenox) for the 4th Berkshire District seat, is one of two GRP candidates who are vying to represent their districts in Boston. But the other GRP nominee isn’t quite what he seems.

The other nominee, one Jerome T. Hobert of Holyoke, is a self-described conservative Democrat who ran unopposed and captured the GRP nomination in the 5th Hampden District in a write-in campaign. He received 157 votes in the September primary, a mere seven votes more than the 150 votes required for nomination.

But Hobert is no Lee Scott Laugenour. In fact he’s not the GRP’s idea of a candidate at all. As the Springfield Republican wrote, “They don’t want him, but he’s theirs.”

The GRP has filed an objection to Hobert’s nomination, saying Hobert is not a GRP member and doesn’t represent the party’s ideals. But the Secretary of State said the objection was not filed on time and one doesn’t need to be a party member to win the nomination. So the GRP is stuck with Hobert and his name appears on the November ballot.

Including Laugenour and Hobert, there are a total of 16 candidates running for the state Legislature without major party endorsements – 14 for state representative and two for state senator. They’re a pretty diverse bunch.

The independent House candidates include Richard F. Schober of Templeton, recently laid off from his job at Zen Entertainment, a video poker outfit.

Mike Connolly of Cambridge, a six-foot-eight former college football player, calls himself “No Money” Mike and has refused all campaign donations in his race against an entrenched Democrat in the 26th Middlesex District.

Althea Garrison of Boston, a former one-term Republican state representative now running in the 5th Suffolk District as an independent, has changed parties multiple times and run for several different offices in the state’s largest city. She’s best known as the first transgendered person to be elected to a state legislature in the United States.

Some of the other House independent candidates are Winthrop E. Handy, an artist from West Boylston who said he “will not vote in lockstep with either party,” and Kevin M. Cuff, a former Democrat who now says he doesn’t affiliate with either major party and just “wants to appeal directly to the hearts and minds of the people in the district.”

Then there’s Robert J. Underwood of Springfield, a computer programmer and former Democrat. Among other strange quotes on his website and in an apparent reference to former President George W. Bush, he says, “I’m a member of a methodist church, but God has not told me to bomb Iraq.” Huh?

In the state Senate, both independent candidates are running in the newly formed 1st Essex District, Amesbury City Councilor James M. Kelcourse and Haverhill School Committee Member Paul A. Magliocchetti, both lawyers.

Some appear capable, others not so much

This is a diverse group, indeed, and some appear capable, others not so much. They are almost all former Democrats or Republicans, and in many cases, as with Laugenour, they have run for state office previously under a major party banner but have failed to win nomination or election.

The Massachusetts Legislature is a tough club to join for third party and independent candidates and it’s getting tougher for Republicans, too. The Democrats have been increasing their numbers in the state Legislature since they wrested control from the GOP many years ago. Today, there are 127 House Democrats and 33 Republicans. In the state Senate it’s 35 Democrats, four Republicans and one vacancy. Not a third party or independent legislator in sight.

What’s more, according to Ballotpedia, an online resource on state legislatures, out of a total of 5,348 state representatives nationwide, only 25 are third party or independent, less than one-half percent. It’s worse in the upper chambers. There are 1,899 state senators, but only six who don’t belong to a major party.

Considering the odd mix of individuals running as third party or independent candidates for the Massachusetts Legislature and the recent lack of electoral success by such candidates, both here and across the country, there’s probably a stronger argument to be made for them to try to stay within the major parties in an attempt to move those parties incrementally in their direction.

Because, for bad or worse, the most common trait among these outsider candidates is they usually win the hearts and minds of some of the voters, but almost never win the vote in November.

Posted by Bruce Garlow on October 25, 2012. Filed under Berkshire Beacon Hill Spotlight,Columns,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry