This is very intriguing and a premise many of us have discussed privately. Especially in light of the attempts to get Alan Keyes to become the CP nominee & the fact that Vigure spoke at the CP Convention. The story of the “big names” storming out when they were not nominated and referring to the targeted party as a “perpetual fringe group” is very reminiscent of the actions of the Keyes people after the CP rejected him.

It is interesting even in light of the fact that my long-term adversary, now deceased, William Shearer is a hero of the story. Could it be that Howard Phillips’ allegded “attack” on Keys at the CP Convention served the same purpose as the Shearer manuvering in 1976 ?

* This was posted on Third Party Watch prior to the LP convention *

(WARNING: I am posting the entire article here & do not recommend following the link to the orignal article because there are some vulgar & vile statements in the Comments section following this post)

http://thirdpartywatch.com/2008/05/09/past-as-prologue-hostile-takeovers-and-third-parties/

Quote:

Past as prologue? Hostile takeovers and third parties One of the recurring themes of third party politics in America seems to be the phenomenon of the “hostile takeover.” A disgruntled major party politician, an eccentric multi-millionaire, or perhaps a group of major party factional schemers decides that rather than working within the party of their putative loyalty, or perhaps forming a new party, they’ll just move in on a third party, take it over, remake it in their own image, and then … … well, what usually happens then is that the victimized third party either beats the takeover attempt, or else it gets wrung out and hung out, left an empty shell of its former self to be blown away by the winds of history, while the schemers move on to their next scheme. The next time that a third party wins the presidency by letting itself be mounted and stuffed on the trophy wall of a “big name” will be the first time. Is the cycle coming around again? You tell me. As loath as I am to get conspiracy-minded, I’ve been hearing certain names bandied around Libertarian Party circles, and those names have histories. The first name: Russ Verney. As in “my friend, Russ Verney, who will be managing my campaign if I choose to run.” The second name: Richard Viguerie. As in “myself, [American Conservative Union chairman] Dave Keene, [conservative direct-mail pioneer] Richard Viguerie and hopefully a number of others feel [these issues] are extremely important and go to the core of constitutional liberties in this country. So we’re going to focus on those efforts …” “My” and “myself,” of course, being former Republican congressman Bob Barr, who will reportedly announce his candidacy for the Libertarian Party’s 2008 presidential nomination next Monday. Seeing these two names associated with Barr and Barr’s embryonic campaign (I have good reason to believe that Viguerie is advising Barr’s exploratory committee, although I’ve seen no formal announcement to that effect; and Viguerie recently replaced Barr as keynote speaker for the LP’s upcoming national convention) bothered me, but it took me awhile to figure out why. The first piece of the puzzle fell into place for me just the other day when TPW ran an article on Jesse Ventura’s possible LP presidential aspirations. That article sparked my recollection that it was Verney, in the midst of a feud with Ventura, who delivered the Reform Party to the “Buchanan Brigades” in 2000, setting the stage for the RRP’s de facto demise as a functioning national political organization. The second piece of the puzzle clicked in this afternoon in correspondence with Darcy G. Richardson, who has given me permission to quote his account of the 1976 American Independent Party convention: [I]t is interesting to note that Viguerie himself has a bit of a largely untold personal history when it comes to attempting to hijack a nationally-organized third-party. Shortly after Ronald Reagan was narrowly defeated by President Ford at the Republican national convention in Kansas City during the summer of 1976, a sulking Viguerie—a leading Reagan supporter who had failed to persuade several others, including North Carolina’s Jesse Helms and New Hampshire’s Meldrim Thomson, to mount a third-party candidacy that autumn—announced that he intended to personally seek the American Independent Party’s vice-presidential nomination on a ticket headed by relatively obscure newspaper columnist Robert Morris, a 61-year-old Dallas lawyer who once served as counsel for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The AIP’s national convention was held at the Conrad Hilton in Chicago only ten days after the GOP convention in Kansas City. Viewing the AIP as a potential cash cow and a vehicle for disappointed Reaganites, Viguerie was strongly supported in his 1976 scheme by the National Review’s William Rusher and even had the tacit backing of William F. Buckley, Jr. They also had the support of Lester Logue, a wealthy Texas oilman who was then chairing the Committee for the New Majority. Logue promised to raise $500,000—a decent sum in 1976—for the ticket if the AIP nominated Morris and Viguerie. Fortunately, Viguerie’s plans to steamroll the AIP’s national convention in Chicago were derailed by the ever prescient William K. Shearer of California, the witty and colorful founder of the American Independent Party …. Wise to their game, Shearer, who had been actively supporting former Louisiana congressman John Rarick for the party’s top spot, immediately threw his support to Lester Maddox, enabling the controversial former governor of Georgia to narrowly prevail on the convention’s first and only ballot. Shearer, who co-chaired the national convention, even invoked the unit rule in California, which had been nearly evenly divided between Maddox, Rarick and Morris, so that he could deliver his state’s 45 votes to Maddox. Though he was later harshly criticized for invoking the unit rule in his home state, Shearer essentially saved his party from a hostile takeover. “The Rusher-Viguerie element had tried to drive their Cadillac through the convention with a New York license plate on it,” recalled Shearer, “and we [the American Independent Party] had just plain Yankee trapped them.” He also poignantly added that the AIP had been “targeted for a rape that didn’t come off.” When their takeover attempt failed, Viguerie and Rusher stomped out of the convention, denouncing the AIP as a “perpetual fringe group” that “had turned inward, backward and downward.” Viguerie also told the New York Times that the AIP had essentially “written themselves off” as a serious political entity by rejecting his proposed ticket. Bill Buckley even chimed in, suggesting that in nominating Maddox, the American Independent Party had emerged from “the fever swamp of the berserk right.” Is a hostile takeover of the LP —by “the usual suspects,” no less—under way? And if so, will the LP reject it as the AIP did, go into the dustbin of history next to the Reform Party, or just possibly become the exception to the rule which has thus far had no exceptions—the third party which becomes successful, even if on terms other than its own, under its new and foreign management? Side note: Darcy G. Richardson is the author of the most extensive and comprehensive available history of third party politics in the United States, titled Others. That history is currently four volumes in length, with a fifth volume forthcoming, and I heartily recommend it (I’m in the middle of the second volume myself, and it is a wild and wonderful read).