By Masudur Rahman

Senior Reporter

Of the American citizens who voted for the 2008 presidential election, 98.7 percent voted for either Barack Obama or John McCain according to ap.org. Some of the 1.3 percent of voters who voted for one of the other four candidates, or wrote in a candidate, are Oakland University students.

While some of these OU students were unsatisfied with this year’s election process, some were hopeful for the future of third-party candidates.

No face time

A shared belief held among the third-party supporters is that their candidates were not given enough media coverage.

Mike Parsons, a senior communications major who voted for Libertarian candidate Bob Barr, said that the fact that the three debates between Obama and McCain were on a lot of channels while the single debate between the four third-party candidates was only shown on CNN speaks for itself.

“Mix that with the fact that the only third-party candidate the average semi-informed voter ever heard of was Ralph Nader really shows that the other candidates were ignored,” Parsons said.

Andrew Bashi, a senior international relations major who voted for independent candidate Ralph Nader, said that the corporations and the media control of the debates and that the third-party candidates were “terribly treated” this year, just as in the past.

“Ralph Nader did more for this country than anybody else who ran, but they still wouldn’t give him access to the debates,” Bashi said.

He said that not letting all of the candidates participate in the debates is undemocratic and not only unfair to the candidates but also to the public that didn’t know about the choices they had.

Dana Haddrill, a senior majoring in international relations with a minor in journalism, also blamed the media for covering the candidates unequally. Haddrill did a write-in vote for Ron Paul, who ran as a Republican in the primaries but lost to John McCain. Haddrill said she believed the media dictated the front-runners early.

Two-party system

It’s no secret that much of American politics is run by the two major parties: Democrat and Republican. Bashi said that the two-party system is a joke and needs rethinking.

“I think that when you have a third-party underdog-type candidate, they have a built-in appeal of being less corrupted than the major candidates,” Parsons said. “Call me cynical, but as soon as somebody becomes a player in either the Democratic or Republican party, it’s safe to assume they’ve been bought off.”

Haddrill said that she didn’t feel there was a big difference in the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates this year. She said the issue closest to her is the war in Iraq, and felt that both McCain and Obama would continue President Bush’s policies.

Why support them?

Bashi said he’s a fan of Nader since he was 10 years old, and that he supports almost all of Nader’s policies. He said he especially likes Nader’s policy for peaceful relations with other countries, civil liberties, cutting down military costs and instead use that money for infrastructure and universal health care.

Bashi describes his policies as social-democratic and said that he’s been on the left side of the political spectrum most of his life.

“I was leaning over to the Libertarian side for a while, but I recently came back to my roots,” he said.

Parsons said that although he wasn’t very excited about Barr, he felt Barr’s principles matched with his after researching them. Parsons especially agreed with Barr’s stance on small government and his strict adherence to the Constitution.

Parsons said that although people in support of small government and economic conservatism usually vote Republican, “these last eight years has shown us that the Republicans seem to be the party of big government and frivolous spending.”

Although Paul ran as a Republican, he seemed to many like a third-party candidate because he wasn’t invited to some Republican primary debates. He also ran for president in 1988 as a Libertarian.

Haddrill said she supported Paul throughout the primaries and, although he wasn’t on the ballot, decided to write in a vote for him because she didn’t support any of the listed candidates. She said she voted with her conscience and didn’t feel she threw away her vote.

No sore losers

Bashi, Haddrill and Parsons said they hoped Obama will make a good president.

“If he’s not worse than Bush, I’ll be happy,” Haddrill said.

Parsons said that despite his favored candidate not winning, he was happy with this year’s election.

“It was refreshing to see the person with the popular vote win the presidency, along with the optimism that seems to come with a brand new president.

Bashi said he hoped that the things Obama promised would come true, but that it won’t happen unless people demand accountability from the government. “It’s up to us,” he said.

Third can be a charm

Bashi, Haddrill and Parsons said in the future they would like to see more media coverage given to the third-party candidates.

Bashi said the debates should be held by the government in a fair manner.

Haddrill said people should stop whining about unfair media coverage and do things like grassroots campaigns.

Parsons refuted the claim that voting third party is purely symbolic and impractical.

“The popular opinion about voting third party is that you’re throwing your vote away or inadvertently voting for one of the major candidates,” Parsons said. “But what most people don’t realize is that a third-party candidate only needs 10 percent of the popular vote to receive federal funding for the next campaign.”