The two entrenched political parties have enough problems with internal populist insurrections this year. So, they didn't want another third party that would provide voters with the opportunity to both vent anger and disturb the traditional one-on-one November voting.
The North Carolina Democratic and Republican parties can congratulate themselves that they have succeeded in keeping the latest third-party off the ballot.
North Carolina First would have been the creation of mostly liberal Democrats and the Service Employees International Union. Group leaders wanted to challenge three North Carolina Democratic congressmen who failed to support health-care reform this spring.
North Carolina First needed 90,000 signatures of registered voters by June 1 to get on the ballot as a party. It failed to hit a preliminary deadline and has abandoned the effort.
Now it will be less ambitious and try to get an independent candidate to challenge U.S. Rep. Larry Kissell in the 8th Congressional District. That won't be easy, either.
By design, North Carolina law is among the most restrictive in the nation when it comes to third parties and independent candidates. Republicans and Democrats become best buddies when legislation is proposed to ease those restrictions. The sanctity of the two-party system cannot be destroyed, they say.
The Libertarian Party has worked through a cycle for years. First, it would expend untold effort collecting the required signatures to get on the ballot. Then, after failing to get enough votes in the governor's race, it would be kicked off the ballot. And the cycle would start over.
But the Libertarian gubernatorial candidate in 2008, Michael Munger, got enough votes to keep the Libertarians on the ballot. Now it will be interesting to see how the Libertarian Party will fare in 2010, given the strong libertarian bent to the tea-party movement.
With redistricting on the 2011 legislative agenda, the two parties dread voting blocs that aren't reliably Democratic or Republican. The cozy redistricting relationship the parties enjoy would be undermined. The parties draw most districts to be safe for one or the other, thus protecting incumbents and the status quo. Third parties would only confuse that situation. Third parties also raise issues that neither of the other two wants to touch.
Unfortunately, the status quo gives the most strident activists in both parties ultimate leverage and leaves the political middle unrepresented. It would be interesting to see what would happen to the two traditional parties if a third, centrist party were formed in North Carolina.
We're not likely to ever learn the answer to that proposition, however. The Republicans and Democrats like things just the way they are.
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