Hernando Today
Moore struggles to get on ballot in Presidential Quest
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Published: March 28, 2008
SPRING HILL - SPRING HILL - Back in January, as the presidential frontrunners traded barbs, campaigned throughout the country and raised millions for their war chests, Spring Hill's presidential candidate battled a grocery store manager in Brattleboro, Vt.
A bundled-up Brian Moore stood in the parking lot of a strip mall soliciting signatures from shoppers. Moore needed 1,000 signatures from Vermont voters to get on the ballot as a Socialist Party presidential candidate in that state.
The store manager told Moore he couldn't be there. Moore told the man he was wrong. The police arrived and threatened to arrest him for trespassing. A call to the state attorney's office confirmed that Moore's civil rights allowed him to stay.
Eventually, with the help of volunteers, he got the signatures he needed.
So Moore is on a ballot. One ballot. Out of 50.
Still, it's a victory in his uphill climb to run for the nation's highest office.
"It's been rough. Rougher than I thought," Moore admitted Wednesday as he sat on his back patio overlooking Hunter's Lake.
Moore, 64, earned the Socialist Party USA's nomination at its national convention in St. Louis last October. He beat out four other hopefuls.
Since then he's endured a hospital stay that wrecked a campaign trip to California, some infighting among the Socialist Party over strategy, and the age-old problem of underdog candidates: a lack of campaign money.
He said he has no illusions of getting on the ballot in all 50 states. The number of signatures required by each state varies widely. In some, the number is simply too high, he said.
Take Texas. Or, as Moore puts it, "Forget it," because it takes 86,000 signatures to get on the ballot there.
What about Illinois, state of Sen. Barack Obama? No time to secure 26,000 signatures.
Arizona? Uh-uh. Sen. John McCain's state requires 22,000.
New York? No way. The home state of Sen. Hillary Clinton needs 15,000 signatures from candidates.
Moore calls the policies "undemocratic" barriers to taking part in the political system.
"Abe Lincoln could no longer be president because you have to be a millionaire or have to have access to big money, and that usually only comes from big corporations or other special interests," he said.
But Moore is forging ahead, focusing instead on states such as Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin, all of which require signature counts in the 1,000 to 2,000 range. New Jersey, at 800, is a sure thing.
Other states require only a nominal fee to get on the ballot. Louisiana, for example, only charges $500.
And Florida, which once required 100,000 signatures, now only asks that a candidate be the nominee of an organized party.
The qualification dates for most state are in August.
Moore decided to hire professional signature collectors after learning that, on average, only about half of the signatures collected by volunteers turn out to be valid, making the pros a worthy expense.
Securing a spot on 20 ballots would be "a real success," Moore said. The laborious work is crucial, he said, because a name on the ballot increases the party's exposure and lays the groundwork for traditional campaigning.
In 2004, the Socialist Party secured a spot on the ballot in about 10 states, he said. In 2000, it was about six.
Convincing voters that Socialism is right for America would be a daunting task even with a big budget, Moore acknowledges. But the national party has little money to offer. He has raised $10,000 so far and has $2,000 left. He's also acting as his own campaign manager.
Peter Diamondstone is a longtime socialist who lives in Brattleboro and helped Moore's signature drive there. Diamondstone admits that he thought Moore was "too moderate" and voted for another candidate during the convention.
But, he said, "I think because he's a likeable guy, I'm sure he'll do a great deal of good for the party and get a good number of people to join up."
Moore, a former health care executive recruiter, is relatively well-known in Hernando County as founder and chair of the Nature Coast Coalition for Peace and Justice. The group organizes the anti-war rallies at some of the county's busiest intersections.
And he is better known in Florida after the last election cycle, when he campaigned in 40 of the state's 67 counties and garnered nearly 20,000 votes running as an independent to unseat U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson. He has twice run for 5th Congressional District seat currently held by Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, and he also ran for mayor of Washington D.C.
He said his goal is to help voters realize that issues important to them - a single-payer health care system, opposition to tax cuts for the rich, immigrants' rights, opposition of the Iraq war - all closely align with the Socialist Party ideals.
Moore, who is married with an 11-year-old son, had the same realization, which prompted him to run on the Socialist ticket. He said he'll recount Socialism's "rich and wonderful heritage" as a forerunner on such issues as labor law, women's suffrage and worker compensation.
Now the party envisions an economy based on worker-owned companies that can ensure health care and pensions, that redistributes the nation's wealth in a structured way through profit-sharing.
A key strategy, he said, is to try to convince voters that socialism is not the evil system that scares so many people. Rather, he said, it's "a purer form of democracy."
"I feel the only way to get to them is to talk about how capitalism has failed them rather than talk about socialism first," he said.
Now is a good time to do that, he said, as foreclosures hit a record high, the government bails out Wall Street firms and workers see their benefits and pensions being whittled away.
"The system is faltering, big time."
Reporter Tony Marrero can be reached at 352-544-5286 or lmarrero@hernandotoday.com.
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Reader Comments
Posted by ( stopthespending ) on March 29, 2008 at 6:20 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Brian Moore is a less than intelligent loser who has lost more elections than even he can remember.
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Posted by ( hernando_wildcats ) on March 29, 2008 at 7:36 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Brian Moore- the County Media's pet politician. He would turn the USA into the USSR or Red China.
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Posted by ( SpringHillConcernedCitizen ) on March 29, 2008 at 8:22 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
He ONLY began in January? Geez, could it be that he should have started a bit earlier? Intelligence meter please.........
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