Phillips should know harm third-party politics can do

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So Dean Phillips lost to a write-in campaign for President Joe Biden in New Hampshire, but plans to carry on. That is OK.

What’s concerning is the attempt by the No Labels group to persuade the Minnesota congressman to run as a third-party candidate. Minnesota not so long ago had a party similar to No Labels, made up of former Democrats and Republicans, and it eventually fell apart. It was, of course, the Independence Party (IP), which ran candidates in numerous statewide races for 25 years.

The IP’s only winner was Jesse Ventura, elected governor in 1998, when the party was part of the national Reform Party movement.

In most of the IP’s races over the years, the party’s candidates more or less tilted elections to Republican candidates, which became a particular concern as Republican activists began to choose more hard right candidates as their nominees. The main reason for this was that the Independence Party was a socially liberal political party, just like the Democrats on most social issues, so it diluted what would be considered the social liberal vote.

The 2010 governor’s race became the main turning point. The Republicans, buoyed by the right-wing Tea Party movement, gained full control of the state Legislature, while Democrat Mark Dayton barely defeated Republican Tom Emmer by less than 9,000 votes as Independence Party candidate Tom Horner took nearly 12% of the vote running on a platform similar to that of No Labels.

Had Emmer won that race, this state would look completely different than it does today.

The IP lost its major party status four years later and its minor party status in 2022.

The fall of the Independence Party essentially proved that there are too many wedge issues in Minnesota and America to make a third-party movement workable and constructive. A candidate has to fall on one side or the other on these wedge issues.

The IP experience also revealed the problem of voters casting ballots for fringe candidates who were not endorsed by the Independence Party but used its major party status to get on the ballot to put a monkey wrench in the election results.

At this point, it is unlikely Phillips will actually run as a third-party candidate. (Opinion editor’s note: He is quoted in a Jan. 25 Star Tribune editorial saying he won’t.) He should know all about the Independence Party and its history as mainly advancing spoilers for Democratic candidates.

Unfortunately, the far-left and groups like the Democratic Socialists of America are a different story. They could endorse the likes of independent candidate Cornel West because of issues like the conflict in the Middle East.

In doing so ... well, we should all know what happened in the 2000 and 2016 presidential races.

William Cory Labovitch is a political activist who lives in West St. Paul.