Politics & Government

Rocky for President: Alternative Candidate Speaks at Woodbridge Bar

Fresh off a convention win, Independent Party candidate Rocky Anderson speaks at the Winchester.

 

Ross "Rocky" Anderson may not have Obama or Romney name-recognition. But that's okay. Like that other famous Rocky (he's heard it before -- he once appeared Photoshopped on the cover of The Nation wearing boxing gloves), the former Salt Lake City mayor knows he's an underdog when it comes to the 2012 election season. It's a role he's happy to play -- it's worth it, he says, to challenge the notion of a two-party system.

"This campaign is a huge deal in my life," he told a crowd gathered at the Winchester Restaurant and Bar in Woodbridge Wednesday night. "I took everything off course. My campaign coordinator has yet to be paid. I will file a tax return that lists zero income this year. I saw an enormous need for there to be a broad-based opposition to what we're seeing."

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His work has paid off -- he's fresh on the Connecticut ballots as a presidential candidate for the Independent Party. It's no surprise Anderson chose the Winchester as his first stop after the convention after a convention in Waterbury Monday night. If any bar in Connecticut is a perfect fit for a meet-and-greet from a non-traditional presidential candidate, it might just be the Winchester.

The five-month-old Woodbridge bar is a friendly place for candidates who don't fit the two-party system. Owner Ralph Ferrucci opened the bar after years as an activist and alternate-party political candidate, a career that saw him serve as Ralph Nader's state coordinator and run for Senator, Representative and (three times) mayor of New Haven. The pub has hosted Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, and Ferrucci hopes to snag more alternative candidates in the future.

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"We want to open the door for people to come and do events," Ferrucci says, "That way people can hear their voice, hear what they have to say, find out if they're the candidate for you. The problem with politics is you get a pamphlet, and pamphlets can be very deceiving. Until you listen to the candidate and talk to them, you don't know where they stand on certain issues."

Anderson founded his own party, the Justice Party, but will also appear on ballots across at least 17 states under a handful of other tickets -- it's the sometimes fragmented reality of alternative parties. "I'd like to see a strong coalition built between alternative parties so that we're not drawing votes away from each other," he says.

The nomination was a coup for Anderson and a party that rode high off Nader's 2008 bid, which saw the candidate win enough of the vote to keep the party from having to petition to get on the ballot. As a result, Anderson will now automatically appear on ballots in November, listed as "Independent."

"Certainly for our campaign, this was a huge deal," he says. "We would not have been able to afford what it would have taken to get on the ballot as an independent candidate in Connecticut."

Anderson is serious about pushing for reform of America's two-party system. He prefers the term "alternative party" -- the more common "third-party" has limiting connotations. He has little appreciation for the "novelty" candidates who litter the political landscape, or parties who only exist as gimmicks to stay on the ballot. He's happy to talk about his record (a two-term mayor who championed LGBT rights and climate protection in one of America's most conservative cities), and happy to talk about the political awakening that led him to alternative-party politics -- and the Winchester.

"I could not have in good conscious continued membership in the Democratic party," he told Patch. "I think that party, and its president, and most Democratic members of congress, have -- in conjunction with the Republicans -- taken this country in a very dangerous direction."

He resists the term "spoiler," the accusation against Nader after the 2000 election. In April, Nader endorsed Anderson.

"I understand the concern a lot of people have -- including some very good friends of mine," Anderson says. "But in the end, if we allow the concern about being a spoiler to exclude alternative candidates and parties, we're simply locking in the status quo. And it'll probably just keep getting worse."


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