Green Party wields influence in mid-term elections

By Alex Welshko, '08| Staff Reporter

Alex Welshko, '08

  As the mid-term elections nears, speculation is flying as to whether the Democratic Party can wrest control of one or both houses of Congress from the Republicans. In order to gain a majority, the Democrats need to pick up 15 seats in the House of Representatives and six seats in the Senate.

Many races this year for both House and Senate seats are extremely close. Several third-party candidates may play a large part in deciding which party will take each seat, and potentially, control of Congress.

The Green Party seems, this election cycle, to be the proverbial thorn in the side of the Democratic Party.  The Green Party’s positions on national issues such as the war in Iraq and the environment are decidedly more liberal than the typical Democratic position.

Green Party influence is making more of an impact in the Connecticut Senate race than anywhere else.  The Senate seat up for re-election is currently held by Joseph Lieberman. Due to his position on Iraq and perceived friendliness with the Bush administration Lieberman, a long-time Democrat, was unable to secure his party’s nomination, which went to Ned Lamont. 

Lieberman is running as an independent, and voters were set to back Lamont against against Lieberman when trouble reared its head in the form of Green Party candidate Ralph Ferrucci.

Democrats fear that Ferrucci’s candidacy will cost them a Senate seat they can ill-afford to lose.  As of Oct. 20, Lieberman led Lamont in the polls by more than 12 percent.

Ferrucci defended his place on the ballot saying that if both candidates had been addressing the issues that voters cared about, they wouldn’t have a problem securing the votes they need.

“Lieberman is not talking for Connecticut,” Ferrucci said.  And Lamont supports social programs, but not the taxes on the wealthy and corporations necessary to support them, he added.   The 34-year-old Ferrucci sees his campaign as building the Green Party’s constituency regardless of his success at the ballot box.  At the same time Ferrucci is “pushing to win.”  “Every vote I get, I earn,” he said. 

Ferrucci is aware of the so-called spoiler effect of third party candidates, the idea that a third party candidate cannot realistically win but only damage another viable candidate’s chances for winning. 

“If the Democratic Party is so scared of my candidacy, they should go to instant runoff voting,” Ferrucci said recently.  The system he advocates adopting, instant runoff voting, has voters rank candidates in terms of preference and removes the possibility of a spoiler effect. Instant runoff voting has been adopted for state elections in North Carolina beginning next year, and many states are looking at it for their statewide votes. It has many advocates on the national scene, but so far, there has been no vote in Congress on the system.

Read more about instant runoff voting at http://www.instantrunoff.com/ .