Thursday, October 08, 2009
Founder hopes Center Party upsets status quo
Jeffrey Vanke said a big goal is to influence policy discussions about health care and immigration.
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From The Roanoke Times
Stay-at-home dad Jeffrey Vanke set an ambitious goal for next year: find 100 candidates nationally to run under the banner of a new third party based out of Roanoke -- the Center Party.
He held a sparsely attended news conference at Elmwood Park to announce the party's formation Wednesday.
Whether Vanke can actually establish the new party's presence and find any political traction in America's dominant two-party system stands as a sizable task.
He's starting here at home, promising a challenger for U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke County, next year in the 6th Congressional District, along with a likely candidate to run against U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Albemarle County, in the 5th District. Vanke said it's less likely the party will find a candidate to run against U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, in the 9th District.
Vanke said he hopes to find these candidates through the Internet, using the newly formed Center Party as bait.
To that end he's filed paperwork to formalize the party's creation and started up 20 different Center Party blogs, most of which are targeted at other states.
Vanke said he has some unnamed supporters but so far no recruits for 2010. He arrived at the goal of finding 100 recruits by looking at state ballot access rules and results from recent elections.
"I do not have candidates in place," Vanke said. "In launching the party, part of my effort here is to recruit candidates. All those blogs you found, they're going to function more like message boards to get conversations going on statewide and even district levels across the country."
He said he's going to recruit largely by targeting writers of op-ed pieces and letters to the editor in newspapers that serve his targeted districts.
"It's not that hard to find people interested in running for office," Vanke said. "It's harder to get on the ballot."
Vanke, 39, comes to this endeavor without a deep background in politics. He taught history and international studies at Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C., for five years before leaving to become a stay-at-home dad with his two children. In 2003 he ran an ultimately unsuccessful write-in campaign for mayor of Carrboro, N.C. He volunteered to drive voters to the polls for Barack Obama last year, and in 2004 he served on a precinct committee for Democrats.
Vanke has written that he's concerned about the "Republican-Democrat duopoly [in] Congress that is working less and less well for America. It's time for a change."
He's particularly concerned about health care and immigration reform. Vanke's written an eight-page health care proposal that he said would offer "universal, mandatory, continuous, permanent insurance coverage" without a public option or additional government spending.
His immigration proposals include completion of a fence along the border with Mexico and making English the official language -- "and I can say that to you in Spanish. ... I'm not a xenophobe."
Vanke said his goal "is certainly to win some races next year, or at least to be very competitive in them," but that he's more concerned about influencing policy discussions. He's particularly targeted the fiscally conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats and writes in a statement that should the Center Party be successful enough to attract the support of Blue Dog U.S. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota, he'd back her for speaker of the House.
To be influential, though, "you have to have a plausible election challenger," Vanke said.
By this time next year, it should be apparent whether Vanke has met success on those lines.
Online: www.centerparty.us
