Political Pluralism

THE OTHER CANDIDATES: THIRD PARTIES IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS by Frank Smallwood '51 University Press of New England, 1983. 330 pp. $20.00 cloth, $9.95 paper.

Frank Smallwood's reputation for scholarship is well-established. His latest book, The Other Candidates, displays a new dimension of his talent by raising the art of the political interview to a new level.

At the heart of the book are interviews with the one independent and ten thirdparty candidates for President in 1980. These are by no means snapshots with a high-speed shutter but carefully-drawn portraits of nine men and two women who fought their way onto the ballot in two or more states, raised and spent $18,781,710, received 7,127,185 votes 8.2% of the total cast and, though for the most part ignored by the media, considered it a worthwhile effort and would do it again if given the opportunity.

From Small-wood's open, conversational, non-confrontational interview techniques emerge pictures of whole people, not the two-dimensional figures we so often get from the limited media coverage of third-party campaigns. These people are intelligent, articulate, and self-confident, and they care intensely about their political points of view. Although the odds are high against their being able to communicate their ideas broadly, and are absolutely stacked against any chance of election, they view running for President as the best way to gain adherents and educate the electorate. They know they are playing against marked cards, and that the young Walter Lippmann was probably right when he equated minor party activity with "trying to tie a string around a sunbeam" but they do it anyway.

Those who disparage the lack of creativity in the Republican and Democratic parties will conclude that we ought to consider sider a measure of anti-trust against the two-party monopoly that dominates our electoral system. Even those who believe that a strong two-party system is necessary for orderly elections and accountable government will agree that to stifle minority opinion denies the essence of democracy.

The maze of conflicting laws and regulations designed to restrict access to the ballots, the exclusion of third parties from the federal funding available to Republicans and Democrats, and the erosion of equal-time access to the airwaves were designed by the monopoly parties to hinder competition and bury the ideas being generated on their right and left flanks. In the process, they have diminished the vitality, diversity, and pluralism that minority groups bring to the 200-year experiment with democracy. When our system screens out minority opinion, allowing the majority to dominate the center (where elections are won or lost), it is less likely to generate the imagination, innovation, and controversy which could determine its very survival.

This is an exciting, fast-moving book. It could only have been written by someone who has spent time on the hustings, circulated petitions, and understood the difference between a conference and a caucus. Dartmouth has always encouraged faculty involvement in politics. Frank Smallwood joins a long list of professors at the College who have combined teaching and political activism and who, as a result, are better at both.

The generation of Dartmouth students exposed to its "Great Issues" program, those engaged in the effort to improve and stengthen the political system, and all of us who were deprived of the knowledge of what really was happening below the surface in 1980 will want to read this book.

Russell Hemenway has been national director ofthe National Committee for an Effective Congress since 1966.