Third Parties Score Gains

Third Parties Score Gains

Michigan isn't the only state with a growing third party movement. California's Peace and Freedom Party, formed in 1967 to oppose the Democratic Party's war policies in Vietnam, ran a slate of candidates for statewide office this year.

The strongest showing was by Marilyn Seals, a feminist-socialist who ran for Lieutenant Governor and got 152,000 votes, over 2.5% of the total votes cast.

Labor organizer Gayle Justice, PFP's U.S. Senate candidate, got 95,000 votes.

In Vermont, the Liberty Union Party got five to seven percent of the vote for its eight state-wide candidates, a strong showing which forced several races into the state legislature (where less than majority outcomes are decided).

In Hawaii, a People's Party candidate for U.S. Senate received 17 percent of the votes as the sole opposition to incumbent Democrat Inouye.

And Julius Hobson, a D.C. Statehood Party candidate for City Council at-large, was elected to office. Hobson was the People's Party vice-presidential candidate in 1972.

The People's Party, with which all of these state parties are affiliated (as is Michigan's Human Rights Party) is a national organization with chapters in over half the states. Should the Democrats nominate someone like George Wallace for President in 1976, the People's Party may be the only viable alternative for large numbers of progressive voters around the country.

The Michigan Human Rights Party candidate for governor, Zolton Ferency ended up with slightly more than 26,000 votes in Michigan, about 1.1 percent of the total votes cast. As yet, the totals for other HRP statewide candidates are unknown, as Secretary of State Richard Austin has not quite gotten around to counting them.