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Minneapolis
Star-Tribune
Galling Garst / Sham campaign is really
stinky
Editorial
July 19, 2002
[Key Excerpt] ...What the problem cries out for is
Minnesota's adoption of an instant-runoff-election procedure. That
way, voters from the Green Party or Independence Party or Socialist
Workers Party can vote their conscience without fear of tipping the
election to the candidate most opposite their views. Here's how it
works: A voter casts a ballot that ranks candidates by order of
preference. So a Green voter might signal that her first preference
is the Green candidate, second preference the DFL candidate, third
preference the Republican candidate. If no candidate has an absolute
majority, votes for the trailing candidates are reassigned to those
voters' second choices. The process continues until one candidate
has a majority of the votes cast. The third-party phenomenon --
energized especially by the election of Gov. Jesse Ventura -- has
moved Minnesota into uncharted political waters. It will take some
time to make necessary adjustments. Instant runoff voting is one of
the most important of those changes. Another is tightening the rules
to prevent stinky campaign schemes such as Garst's. Democracy needs
that sort of behavior about as much as it needs a king.
[Full Text]
If Sam Garst doesn't like GOP congressional candidate John Kline's
views, there are a lot of things that Garst can do. One that he is
allowed to do but shouldn't is run a sham campaign designed to pull
votes away from Kline. Garst believes in politics, passionately, so
he should understand more than most that all his candidacy under the
flim-flam "No New Taxes Party" will do is further stimulate the sort
of public cynicism toward politics and politicians of which there is
already an excess. Kline is the Republican candidate in the Second
Congressional District contest, where he is pitted against incumbent
Rep. Bill Luther, a DFLer. The two have met before, and the results
were very close. With a Green Party candidate also in the race this
time, there is a legitimate DFL fear that Luther might lose. So
Garst, a strong Luther supporter, filed as a candidate under the
banner of his very own antitax party -- though Garst is anything but
antitax. In fact, he's pretty darned mad about President Bush's tax
cuts enacted last year. He argues, legitimately, that they favor the
wealthy. But Garst knows that when some pay-no-attention voters see
"No New Taxes Party" beside his name, they'll vote for him, thus
increasing Luther's chances of winning. Garst isn't the first
person to try this scheme or variations on it. In two Minnesota
legislative districts this year, Republican activists have filed in
the primaries of opposing parties, hoping to knock off incumbents
before the general election. This sort of thing is becoming more
common because of the emergence of third parties. Just as Democrats
worried in 2000 that votes for Green Party presidential candidate
Ralph Nader would throw the election to George W. Bush, DFLers have
reason to worry about Luther's future. But scummy schemes like that
Garst has embarked on are not the answer -- as the Luther campaign
should have recognized, instead of encouraging Garst. What the
problem cries out for is Minnesota's adoption of an
instant-runoff-election procedure. That way, voters from the Green
Party or Independence Party or Socialist Workers Party can vote
their conscience without fear of tipping the election to the
candidate most opposite their views. Here's how it works: A voter
casts a ballot that ranks candidates by order of preference. So a
Green voter might signal that her first preference is the Green
candidate, second preference the DFL candidate, third preference the
Republican candidate. If no candidate has an absolute majority,
votes for the trailing candidates are reassigned to those voters'
second choices. The process continues until one candidate has a
majority of the votes cast. The third-party phenomenon -- energized
especially by the election of Gov. Jesse Ventura -- has moved
Minnesota into uncharted political waters. It will take some time to
make necessary adjustments. Instant runoff voting is one of the most
important of those changes. Another is tightening the rules to
prevent stinky campaign schemes such as Garst's. Democracy needs
that sort of behavior about as much as it needs a king.
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