Good debate on Third-Party Watch about Jeffers' GOP primary campaign

There's a good debate going on Austin Cassidy's Third-Party watch about Sue Jeffers plans to run in the GOP primary agains Gov. Tim Pawlenty. I think it its the right thing to do in accordance with my book Beating the Powers that Be By running in the GOP primary, she make coaltions with like-minded Republicans upset with the direction their party is going in, get support from the Republican Liberty Caucus and the Club for Growth and have a bigger platform to speak on libertarian issues than she would just being the LP's endorsed candidate. And I think the LP can still put her on the ballot if they just write-in her name if they wish and provide support for her candidacy as well. It got to be better than just scratching and clawing for 1% of the vote. It may also lead to such future primary campaigns from other non-major parties into major party primaries (Constitutionalists in the GOP, Greens with the Dems) Good luck Sue!

Here's a story from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune on the Jeffers campaign.

---Sean Scallon


Libertarian-minded bar owner will enter GOP governor primary

Sue Jeffers had been endorsed by the tiny Libertarian Party, but says the two-party system rules.

By Conrad DeFiebre, Star Tribune

Last update: June 06, 2006 – 9:31 PM
Sue Jeffers, the libertarian-minded bar owner who was denied a chance to challenge Gov. Tim Pawlenty for Republican Party endorsement at last week's state convention, will take him on in the GOP primary election Sept. 12.
"We're going to take it to the people and let them decide," Jeffers said Tuesday. In opting to enter the Republican primary, she will forgo her endorsement by the state Libertarian Party, which has been a tiny force in Minnesota politics. "The system right now doesn't favor anything but the two-party candidates," Jeffers said.

Meanwhile, Ken Pentel, endorsed Saturday for a third run at the governor's office by the Green Party of Minnesota, said Tuesday that he is confident of gaining the 2,000 signatures he needs next month to get on the Nov. 7 general election ballot.

The Greens' weak showing in the 2004 election cost them major-party status in Minnesota, automatic ballot access and public campaign financing. But Pentel, 45, of St. Paul, said his petition drive July 4-18 "will be a good way to get people energized and out in the field."

He said his campaign will emphasize Minnesota's nearly $7 billion portion of the cost of the war in Iraq as well as environmental problems. In his first run for governor, in 1998, he won 0.3 percent of the vote. In 2002 he got 2.2 percent, but he acknowledged Tuesday that Green Party focus and energy were higher then than now.

At the party convention Saturday in Duluth, about 100 delegates also endorsed Michael Cavlan for the U.S. Senate and musician and health care activist "Papa" John Kolstad, who is not a lawyer, for state attorney general.

Jeffers, 49, of New Brighton, owns Stub & Herb's bar and restaurant in Stadium Village in Minneapolis. In the past she has crusaded against indoor smoking bans, but she took on Pawlenty chiefly over his support for a taxpayer subsidy for a new Twins ballpark.

She says that she has voted as a Republican since 1976 but that she also has been a leader of the fringe Libertarians, whose last gubernatorial candidate, Frank Germann in 1998, got 0.1 percent of the vote. Jeffers' GOP candidacy will be a "win-win" for both parties, she said.

"The Republicans get a candidate who's going to look out for the taxpayer," she said. "And the Libertarians get their message out there, too."