Is this some kind of joke?

I really don't want a pony, but I'll take some voters for a more serious party.

While there is plenty of good to be said about Delaware’s system for ballot access by a minor party, this is a case where something is left to be desired.

As of last month, the final ballot eligibility hurdle was crossed, leaving seven parties eligible for ballot access in Delaware. Besides the usual duopoly, the other five are (in order) Conservative, Independent Party of Delaware (for which I often use the shorthand of IPoD), Libertarian, No Labels, and Nonpartisan, which usually refers to itself as Non-Partisan Delaware. For want of 19 registered voters, the Green Party and its candidate Jill Stein will not be on the Delaware ballot. But five others have made it: Republican Donald Trump, Democrat Kamala Harris, Libertarian Chase Oliver, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (nominated by IPoD), and that guy with the boot on his head above representing the Conservative Party, Vermin Supreme.

Apparently No Labels has opted not to nominate a Presidential candidate, and Non-Partisan Delaware only operates in Delaware. NPD is the result of a Libertarian Party schism in the state, with certain more left-leaning members leaving the LP and taking over the Non-Partisan ballot access. But they did not field any candidates this year.

In fact, unlike the last election cycle, the minor parties have few candidates to challenge the duopoly in local and state elections, with Jon Roe of the Conservative Party the one listed challenger for a state position (Senate District 2 in New Castle County) and Dr. Mike Katz (a former Democrat state senator) running for U.S. Senate as the IPoD candidate.

I’m no expert on the process by any means, but apparently these minor parties are supposed to have a convention to choose their endorsed candidates. Even the Republicans and Democrats in Delaware have conventions in the spring to endorse their choices, although other members of the party are free to enter their primaries. So it makes me wonder: when did the Conservative Party of Delaware have its convention to nominate Vermin Supreme, who at some point has sought the nomination of every major party? Presumably it also nominated Roe to the State Senate seat.

While the conservative movement is nationwide, there is no national Conservative Party. The most famous statewide one is in New York state, but as has been tradition their Presidential nominee this year was the Republican one, in this case Trump. He just gets two ballot lines, with the total number of votes between the two added up to get his total. (Democrats often get the same advantage from the state’s Working Families Party and other minor leftist parties.) New York Conservatives do use their downballot access to field local candidates, which was national news back in the fall of 2009.

So why, then, is there a Conservative Party in Delaware if it won’t use its ballot access to promote more conservative candidates? (This is excepting Mr. Roe, who I know nothing about and is the only candidate opposing longtime State Senator Darius Brown in a heavily Democrat district.)

I speak as one of the couple hundred members of the Constitution Party in Delaware, who could at least give those people a choice for President: Randall Terry, who was nominated in a national convention back in the spring. While we so far have an overall total of eleven write-in candidates for President here in Delaware, the CP’s focus on securing ballot access means they don’t always follow through with write-in status in other states.

Granted, not all members of a party vote in lockstep for all of its candidates. But if you are a member of the Delaware version of the Conservative Party, wouldn’t you feel better about your Presidential candidate representing you on the ballot if he didn’t appear in public with a boot on his head and promising everyone a free pony?

There are about 900 members of the Conservative Party in Delaware who are probably conservative and would agree with most of the Constitution Party platform. People often talk about wasting votes on third-party candidates, but the same goes for ballot access. If half of them come over and become Constitution Party members then we get ballot access for future elections and can run candidates whose first fealty is to the principles of the Constitution. The Republicans probably wouldn’t like it - and maybe that’s why the Green Party is so tantalizingly close to ballot access, because the Democrats have had a chat with their state leadership - but the law is the law and you are entitled to ballot access if you have 1/10 of 1% of the state’s voters.

Most conservatives and constitutionalists are happy to have the Republican Party to serve their needs, despite the fact they are often neither conservative nor constitutionalist. I was a Republican for a long time until I decided my vote is too important to use on someone who I only agree with maybe half the time and the other half works against my interests. I’m not the “one-size-fits-all” type.

So here’s my pitch: why waste something as valuable as ballot access when you don’t use it? Speak out and speak up. Join the Constitution Party.

Until next time, remember you can Buy Me a Coffee since I have a page there.