THIRD PARTIES

Mainstream co-opts vestiges of third parties


Newcomers to Minnesota might face a political identity crisis.

"Where are the Democrats? Where are the Republicans?" the
newcomers might ask. They may be confused by billboards pushing
"DFL" and "IR" candidates.

"What are these radical, third-party groups?" they might wonder.
"Where are the two mainstream parties?"

Of course, as seasoned Minnesotans know, the
Democratic-Farmer-Labor and the Independent-Republican parties
are the two mainstream parties. But their names point to the
strong third-party heritage in Minnesota.

"Through most of its history, Minnesota has shown symptoms of
political schizophrenia," wrote scholar Donald F. Warner in a
1951 edition of Minnesota History. "On the one hand, it was the
staid dowager, as reliably Republican as its down-East Yankee
sisters; on the other, it had skittish moments during which it
produced a brood of third parties or helped raise the radical
offspring of its neighbors."

The political spectrum in Minnesota has included shades from the
far right to the far left.

But many third parties these days don't have much political
strength and usually draw just a handful of votes. The most
recent third party candidate to run for the House, Henry Zamarron
of the Socialist Workers Party, got only 42 votes in February in
his bid for the District 32B seat vacated by Elton Redalen, the
new commissioner of agriculture. Preston Mayor and IR candidate
Gregory Davids won the election with 3,370 votes.

"A great deal of printers' ink has been spilled to tell the world
that a third party movement is impossible of success in America
-- is something foreign to our soil," wrote former Gov. Floyd B.
Olson in 1935. "It is certain that much of this is sheer
propaganda designed to discourage formation of a political party
which will be representative of the aspirations of the masses."

In many foreign countries, third party movements are vibrant.
Even Canada, with its Liberal, Conservative, and New Democratic
parties, is able to boast of a strong third party presence.

Except for the rise of the Socialist Party before World War I,
America has generally seemed disinterested in third parties.

But unlike most other states, Minnesota's third-party movement
has seen major success. Olson knew that firsthand. In 1930, he
won election as the state's first Farmer-Labor Party governor.
The Legislature also featured many Farmer-Labor lawmakers, but
because representatives and senators by law had to run on
nonpartisan tickets, they weren't officially identified as such.

After Olson's untimely death in 1936 and the eventual
deterioration of the Farmer-Labor movement, the party after World
War II merged with the Democrats to form what is today the DFL.

Scholars have pointed to Minnesota's strong ethnic heritage as
one reason that radical and liberal third parties, many rooted on
the farms or dug into the iron ore mines, have had some success.
Finnish miners from northern Minnesota, for example, helped shore
up the Socialist and Communist movements.

While third parties might seem like a vestige of World War I and
the Depression, every era seems to bring out a call for a new
movement.

In 1924, the first time Olson ran for governor (and lost) as a
member of the Farmer-Labor Party, he was up against candidates
from the Republican, Democratic, Socialist Industrial, and
Independent Progressive parties. (Reflecting the Prohibition Era,
voters also had a chance to vote for a U.S. Senate candidate from
the Beer-Wine-Independent Party.)

In 1977, St. Paul labor leaders, feeling that "labor" had
disappeared from the DFL, proposed creation of a new Labor Party.
The effort, however, never caught on.

But plenty of third parties are still active today.

The last general election in November featured candidates not
only from the mainstream DFL and IR parties, but also the
Socialist Workers, Grassroots, EarthRIGHT, Independent,
Pro-Choice Independent, and the Independent Moderate parties.

-- Andris Straumanis



Originally published in 1991 in the Session Weekly, a weekly
newsmagazine published by the Minnesota House Public Information
Office.

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