A Look at Some Third Party Candidates
There are 19 candidates on the Colorado ballot.
The 2020 presidential election has turned, for some, into a consideration of “who do I hate the least?” as they consider President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. Others have gone the route of a third party or independent candidate. Here’s a look at some of the stranger “other” choices on the ballot—who in Colorado are either the nominee of a political party (decided by the caucus primary system) or an independent with enough signatures.
Don Blankenship/William Mohr (American Constitution)
The Blankenship/Mohr ticket emphasizes the partisanship in Congress and how the United States’ federal government is now a “socialist machine.” Other notable issues are their claim that sexual orientation doesn’t exist and Social Security shouldn’t either—although it is difficult to understand their platform as the website is almost entirely focused on how to donate to their campaign.
Bill Hammons/Eric Bodenstab (Unity)
In a similar vein to Blankenship, Hammons/Bodenstab is running a particularly federalist campaign. Stand-out issues include “Eliminate Bad Taxes” and how Hammons “support[s] a wall along the U.S.–Mexican border, not because [he’s] racist,” as anti-racists usually start their claims. He also supports moving the United States capitol to Colorado. Will we get the Washington Monument too?
Blake Huber/Frank Atwood (Approval Voting)
While the Huber/Atwood ticket has no website, Huber did get a promising 0.5 percent of the vote for Colorado Secretary of State in 2018. The Approval Voting party has a two-issue platform—replacing the plurality voting system with approval voting (similar to ranked voting) and putting an end to gerrymandering. Some third-party candidates run to draw attention to an issue, but going off how I’d never heard of them before I saw the ballot, I don’t think they were particularly successful.
Brain Carroll/Amar Patel (American Solidarity)
The Carroll/Patel ticket ruins whatever graphic design quality their website had by featuring a font used in memes on all their photos. Carroll runs on a fairly liberal campaign except for the pro-life belief, using the hashtag “#wholelife” to the dismay of white women who shop at Whole Foods everywhere.
Phil Collins/Billy Joe Parker (Prohibition Party)
Eighty-seven years after Prohibition ended, Collins (unfortunately not the drummer) is determined to Make All Alcohol Illegal Again while pursuing his Master’s degree in public administration. Other issues include endorsing the NRA and abolishing the Federal Reserve System, as discussed by telephone conference and uploaded to their Wix site.
Princess Khadijah Maryam Jacob-Fambro/Khadijah Maryam Jacob Sr. (Unaffiliated)
Jacob-Fambro has a solid platform (although devoid of plans,) which makes it a shame that she has a terrible campaign manager. This is most notable in how her website, once a great spectacle of capitalization, religion, and key issues, has now expired. Unfortunately, it seems that Princess is her name and not her title, so all the monarchists will have to wait until the next election.
Kyle Kenley Kopitke/Nathan Re Vo Sorenson (Independent American)
The Independent American’s candidate (whose initials, perhaps unsurprisingly, are KKK) has dedicated his WordPress campaign site as “For The Children.” His policies include stopping forced vaccinations that cause Americans to be “held down and forcefully vaccinated against your will” and Saving the Internet from the One World Government (boring—if you’re using an antisemitic trope, at least use a creative one.)
Jordan “Cancer” Scott/Jennifer Tepool (Unaffiliated)
McHugh has no website and no party. He is, however, going to end daylight savings time.
Kanye West/Michelle Tidball (Unaffiliated)
The most talked-about third-party candidate this year does not have a campaign; he has a store and a donate button (despite his net worth being over a billion dollars.) His running mate apparently has not confirmed that she’s running or that she knows what an election is.
Hannah (rhymes with fauna!) Cohen is ecstatic to be working on the Owl for her third and final year. She loves stories in all their forms, but she mostly has opinions on obscure podcasts and which New York Times opinion columnists are defacing the good name of journalistic analysis. When not busy with stumbling through sheet music, editing nonfiction for jGirls+ Magazine, or seeking out the cheapest bluegrass venue, Hannah enjoys wandering around the mountains with her friends and lovely labradoodle. Although she's slightly preferential to the sweeter, more robust taste of red grapes, she knows that the bliss of biting into a crunchy grape transcends color.
Gary Swing • Aug 20, 2021 at 2:24 pm
Thank you for what you wrote about Bill Hammons. His position advocating a border wall is his personal position. It is not in the Unity Party’s platform. The statement about moving the US capitol to Colorado was removed from the party’s platform at the 2020 party convention.
I helped Progressive Party presidential candidate Dario Hunter get on Colorado’s ballot in 2020 and I voted for him.
Bill Hammons has declared his intention to run for the Unity Party’s nomination for President again in 2024. I wrote to him in January to ask him to withdraw his candidacy. He did not reply.
Here’s what I wrote to Bill about his border wall statement:
Nothing says “Unity” like wasting countless billions of dollars on a dividing wall to separate a relatively affluent, predominantly white nation from a relatively poor nation of brown skinned people. I see this proposed border wall as the biggest monument to white supremacist racism in human history.
It didn’t help for you to state in your campaign platform that you support the border wall “not because [you’re] racist…”
That is exactly what people will think.
Advocating the construction of a border wall demonstrates a fundamental lack of compassion for people who are less fortunate. It demonstrates monumental fiscal and environmental irresponsibility, a morally appalling choice of priorities, ignorance towards immigration policy, failure to consider the role of U.S. military and economic imperialism in migration, and disregard for the history of colonialism and conquest in the historic expansion of United States territory.
The United States was built on a foundation of white supremacist racism, genocide, slavery, colonialism, and imperialism. A party that advocates “Unity” should address this reality with a concern for social justice and human welfare.
I recently posted my point by point critique of Bill Hammons’ 33 point presidential campaign platform on my website:
https://theswingvote.wixsite.com/unity/post/critique-of-bill-hammons-platform
By the way, Colorado had 21 presidential candidates on its ballot in 2020, not 19.
Independent presidential candidates can qualify for Colorado’s ballot by paying a $1,000 filing fee. In 2019, Democratic state legislators passed a bill that made it much harder for independent candidates and candidates of new parties to qualify for Colorado’s ballot for county, state, or Congressional offices. This new candidate suppression law will make it much harder for new alternative parties to qualify for Colorado’s ballot for future election cycles.