Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

Our View: It should be hard
to run for governor

One candidate's failure to get her name on the ballot is not a sign that the law is too tough.

This editorial was updated at 10:57 a.m. March 17, 2010, to state that the number of signatures needed for non-party candidates running for governor is 4,000.

If you think that a gubernatorial election is an opportunity to present a wide variety of views across the ideological spectrum -- kind of like a political Maine Garden Show -- Lynne Williams' announcement that the Green Independent Party won't have a candidate on the ballot this year is bad news.

But if you think that the purpose of the gubernatorial election is electing a governor, this was a different kind of story entirely.

Put us in the second camp. It should be hard to get on the ballot, hard to qualify for public financing and hard to claim a share of the news coverage or "free media" that qualified candidates receive.

The Green Independent Party is well established enough that the unopposed Williams could have earned a spot on the ballot. With something less than 30,000 party members in Maine, she needed to collect only 2,000 signatures. It would have required a well-organized team of volunteers and a lot of hard work.

She complained Monday that Democrats and Republicans have an easier road because they can get their signatures from a deeper pool, with 10 times as many registered members.

Which is the point. They have the volunteers, they have the resources and on Election Day, they have the people who will vote them into office. Since Maine became a state, we have had 73 governors, and all but two were nominees of major parties.

If there is a problem with the system, it's not that it makes things too hard for small parties, it's that it makes life too easy for non-party candidates. They have until June to collect 4,000 signatures, but they can get them from anyone, regardless of party affiliation.

As a result, the real contenders will be fighting for attention with candidates who have no chance or intention of becoming governor but just want their message to be heard.

Williams proposes a sliding-scale system that would have lower thresholds for small parties, making it easier for them to get on the ballot than for Democrats or Republicans.

"I don't think that we need three parties," she said. "We need four, five or six in this state. And no new party is going to be able to get any traction as long as the law remains as it is."

We disagree. The state does not need eight- or 10-way races where the winner needs only a tiny fraction of the total vote. A better race involves a small number of candidates who have proven their appeal in contested party primaries and who would come to office able to govern.

Small parties like the Greens would do better to build from the bottom and develop a pool of candidates who would be plausible choices for governor, rather than run a symbolic candidate for the top job every four years.

A party big enough to win would give its candidate a real voice in the debate -- not one that adds to the noise.