Third-Party Candidates Try To Sway Undecideds In Governor's Race

Production of ethanol hasn't been a big talking point for Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove or Republican challenger Haley Barbour this election season. Nor has the phrase "ecological wisdom'' wound its way into their speeches.

While Barbour has embraced the Mississippi flag, he didn't attend every public meeting three years ago when there was talk of removing its Confederate battle emblem.

Three longshot candidates for governor are using shoestring budgets to offer themselves as options for voters seeking ideas not embraced by the Republican and Democratic nominees.

If history is any indication, the Reform Party's Shawn O'Hara, the Green Party's Sherman Lee Dillon and the Constitution Party's John Thomas Cripps have a hard row to hoe. No third-party candidate has ever won a statewide office in Mississippi. But they could act as spoilers.

In 1999, neither Musgrove nor Republican Mike Parker could muster the majority needed to win the governor's race outright because two lesser-known candidates split the vote. The race ultimately was decided by the House of Representatives.

Cripps said he's running this year because "the common people of Mississippi needed a voice.'' Cripps, 46, is an accountant and Presbyterian minister from Wiggins. His campaign Web site features him in front of a Confederate battle flag and the slogan: "Are you mad enough yet?''

He attended five public hearings across the state in the fall of 2000 to protest the possibility of the Confederate battle emblem being removed from the Mississippi flag. In April 2001, voters decided by a nearly 2-to-1 margin to keep the Confederate X on the flag.

"To this day, I still feel like the Confederate flag has an important symbolism outside the War Between the States,'' Cripps said recently. "For many, many years, it has been a symbol of the South as a region.''

Cripps' Web site includes statements against immigration, abortion, bureaucracy and sodomy and for guns, states' rights and Southern symbols.

On the other end of the political spectrum is Dillon, 52, of Jackson, a musician and stay-at-home father and grandfather who leads a folksy-bluesy Family von Trapp style band. Dillon uses his Web site to advocate the four pillars of the Green Party: ecological wisdom, social justice, grass-roots democracy and nonviolence.

In an interview Wednesday, he said wants to promote election reform, including public financing of campaigns. He also said the media should do more to inform voters about candidates and the state should do more to protect victims of domestic violence.

"We've got to send a message to kids, you don't beat women,'' Dillon said. "There are some cases where boyfriends beat girlfriends. What kind of junk is that?''

The most attention Dillon has received this campaign was when he walked onstage unannounced at a Musgrove-Barbour debate last week at Delta State University. He was escorted out by security officers, but said he did not have to pay a fine. Dillon's campaign manager and one of Dillon's daughters also interrupted the debate by yelling from the audience.

O'Hara, 45, of Hattiesburg, has run unsuccessfully for several statewide offices under several different party labels. He recently was chosen national chairman of the Reform Party.

At a meeting of the Gulfport Business Club on Tuesday, O'Hara handed out leaflets with his 65-word platform. Among his ideas: Lowering gas prices, making alternative fuel by turning corn into ethanol, providing free college Internet courses and free adoptions and putting prisoners to work.

"I have the education, I have the experience and I have met thousands of people throughout the state,'' O'Hara said.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)