Las Vegas City Life
THE story of John Wagner’s rise to the top of the Independent American Party mirrors the growth of the party itself — surprising, sudden and fueled by anger at the major political parties.
On Oct. 14, the party’s board appointed Wagner chairman. A former Republican Party activist, Wagner took the helm from former chairman Mark Andrews (who resigned) at a decisive moment. In the first nine months of 2009, the far-right Independent American Party added 1,304 new members for a total of 56,521. During the same period, the Democrats added just 137 new members and the Republicans lost 3,111.
To capitalize on the growth, the party is unveiling a new website, a new leader, and a new push to become the third major party in Nevada. The state recognizes parties with 100,000 members or more as major parties. The Independent American Party is more than halfway there.
The party’s growth has been so dramatic, it surprises even party leaders.
“We’ve been doing fairly well on our own registration efforts, but they’re nowhere near the numbers we’re hearing from the state,” Wagner says.
We have the people …
Wagner defected to the Independent American Party after the state Republican Party refused to recognize delegates supporting Libertarian-leaning Ron Paul. That was in 2008. Now, a year and a half later, he leads a party that has the potential to cause trouble for Republican campaigns in 2010.
That’s because the Independent American Party, which is affiliated with the national Constitution Party, thrives on the anger of disaffected conservatives and right-wingers previously uninvolved in politics. Many of them have been mobilized by town hall protests and Tea Parties staged during the summer.
“[The Tea Parties] certainly didn’t hurt them. They activated a group of individuals who might not otherwise be that active in politics,” says Eric Herzik, a political science professor at University of Nevada Reno.
Wagner says two Independent Americans have already expressed interest in running against U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, who has already attracted several Republican opponents. Another party member plans to run for governor. But Wagner wants to attract more candidates for local offices, where they’re less likely to face huge disadvantages in fundraising and name recognition. Wagner won’t reveal the names of any of the candidates until after the state convention.
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25 responses so far ↓
1 Don Lake, late at night // Oct 28, 2009 at 8:54 pm
There is so much hype in politics; I hope this is really real!
2 spinnikerca // Oct 28, 2009 at 8:56 pm
All of which is grand, but they want Sue Lowden out and if they aren’t registered as Republicans, can they even vote in the primary? I mean, SURELY they don’t want Reid and plan a better alternative….
Nevada of all places showed, by Romney voters voting for Ron Paul over McCain in convention despite his already annointed ‘presumptive nominee’ status, that the party there is worth fighting for. At least, I would think so were I from Nevada.
Best of luck, but if they aren’t planning on voting against Lowden in the primary, I hope they are good enough to win with their own party in the general.
3 Cody Quirk // Oct 28, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Best of luck, but if they aren’t planning on voting against Lowden in the primary, I hope they are good enough to win with their own party in the general.
= Which they did with 3 office holders.
There is so much hype in politics; I hope this is really real!
= More real then the voices inside your head!
4 Ross Levin // Oct 28, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Have you guys elected anyone to office?
5 Cody Quirk // Oct 28, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Yes…
Jackie Berg to Eureka County Clerk -2006
Cel Ocha to Constable of Searchlight -2006
Bruce Wilkerson to the Elko School Board -2004
In the past the IAP has elected somebody to the Nye County Commission and once had a Mayor of Mesquite
6 Richard Winger // Oct 28, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Cody, can you find out what year the party elected someone to the Nye County Commission? Thank you.
7 Cody Quirk // Oct 28, 2009 at 9:27 pm
It was back in the mid 1990’s. Don’t know the year.
8 Andy // Oct 28, 2009 at 10:26 pm
“Major party crashers: What’s behind the rise of the Independent American Party of Nevada?”
Lots of confused voters who check the Independent American Party box by mistake thinking that they are registering as independents when they are supposed to check Decline To State A Political Party. The same thing happens in California with the American Independent Party. Most of the people who are registered under the American Independent Party banner in California have no clue what it is.
9 Thomas M. Sipos // Oct 29, 2009 at 12:37 am
That’s no longer so true in California. The Secretary of State has changed the registration forms to clarify that the AIP is a party.
It used to say “American Independent.” It now says “American Independent Party.”
Also, instead of “Decline to State” it now says “No, I do not want to register with a political party.” Or something like that.
10 Gary // Oct 29, 2009 at 11:38 am
There may be confusion among independents checking the wring box. But don’t miss the big message here. Only 13% of new voter registrations went to the Republicans. 13%!!!! Some 46% were registering independent or 3rd party. That 13% is the major story.
11 Trent Hill // Oct 29, 2009 at 2:24 pm
It also should be recognized that whether they are registering into the party on accident or not–many are still voting for the IAP candidates and it will still help the IAP to become a major party.
12 Cody Quirk // Oct 29, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Lots of confused voters who check the Independent American Party box by mistake thinking that they are registering as independents when they are supposed to check Decline To State A Political Party.
= Yet why then is the highest percentages of IAP voters happen to be in the rural counties of Nevada, where voters there are quite educated and competent on registering to vote?
The same thing happens in California with the American Independent Party.
=Yes and No.
Most of the people who are registered under the American Independent Party banner in California have no clue what it is.
= Not exactly true, I used to be a county chair for the AIP down there, and did work on the voter reg. lists I had.
13 Cody Quirk // Oct 29, 2009 at 6:39 pm
It also should be recognized that whether they are registering into the party on accident or not–many are still voting for the IAP candidates and it will still help the IAP to become a major party.
= Look at the vote totals for Joel Hansen in 2004 and several of our local candidates in Clark County got 80,000+ votes in that area alone in the 2006 elections. We’re getting there.
14 Green Party fan // Oct 29, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Impressive work.
15 Cody Quirk // Oct 29, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Thank the Hansens!
16 NewFederalist // Oct 29, 2009 at 7:10 pm
They only had one hit song…
17 Cody Quirk // Oct 29, 2009 at 7:14 pm
LOL
18 C James Madison // Oct 30, 2009 at 11:11 am
Chuck Baldwin received 3,194 votes in the 2008 election, according to the Nevada Sec. of State’s website. With the increased activity, 2012 should result in getting the votes to be much closer to the number of voters registered with the IAP.
19 Darcy G Richardson // Oct 30, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Cody is correct (#7) in responding to Richard’s inquiry. Robert N. Revert, an incumbent Nye County Commissioner, was re-elected on the IAP’s ticket in 1996 when his own party unexpectedly chose a challenger for his seat.
Revert, whom I believe is still active in county government, is a member of one of Nevada’s oldest and best known families. In fact, his family still owns the famous Beatty Ranch. Moreover, Revert’s late uncle and namesake was a longtime Nye County sheriff’s deputy and state assemblyman who once served as Speaker pro tem of the Nevada assembly.
Facing opposition from both major parties in the general election, Revert, a Democrat who switched to the Independent American Party when his own party cast him aside, defeated Democrat Michael DeLee, a realtor and water resources lobbyist, by an unofficial count of 399 to 379 to retain his seat on the county commission. Republican Alpheus Bruton finished a distant third in that race with 114 votes.
20 Gene Berkman // Oct 30, 2009 at 5:48 pm
It is true that a lot of people mistakenly register into the AIP (California) or IAP (Nevada) thinking they are registering Independent.
It is also true that alot of people -especially in California – mistakenly register into the Democrat Party, thinking they will end the war.
And of course, alot of people (fewer in California) mistakenly register into the Republican Party thinking it is for less government.
21 Cody Quirk // Oct 30, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Chuck Baldwin received 3,194 votes in the 2008 election, according to the Nevada Sec. of State’s website. With the increased activity, 2012 should result in getting the votes to be much closer to the number of voters registered with the IAP.
= Chuck also didn’t campaign much in Nevada, which is why his vote in Nevada wasn’t so great.
22 Joey G. Dauben // Oct 31, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Thank you, Andy.
Once again, people who are independent enough to decipher from the facts rather than rely on a clever marketing trick (i.e., naming the CP affiliate the “Independent American Party”) will always question stories such as this.
To quote Andy:
Lots of confused voters who check the Independent American Party box by mistake thinking that they are registering as independents when they are supposed to check Decline To State A Political Party.
Absolutely.
If the Nevada IAP switched names, I bet there would be a phased-in decrease in those numbers that you guys continue to tout.
23 Darcy G Richardson // Nov 1, 2009 at 3:25 am
While it’s true that many unsuspecting independents have, over the years, mistakenly registered in California’s American Independent Party (AIP) and Nevada’s Independent American Party (IAP), it’s simply unfair to suggest that the IAP was deliberately chosen as the party’s name in Nevada as some sort of clever ploy to confuse those desiring to register as independents.
Nevada’s Independent American Party was founded by the late Daniel M. Hansen in 1967 and first appeared on the ballot in that state during George Wallace’s presidential campaign the following year — some 24 years before Howard Phillips founded the U.S. Taxpayers Party, the original name of the Constitution Party.
Hansen, who was vice chair of the state party at the time, wanted Wallace’s supporters across the country to adopt the IAP as the party’s official name while William K. Shearer of California and others preferred the AIP as an appropriate name for the new nationally-organized party.
Despite a somewhat rocky start — the original leader of the Wallace campaign in Nevada burned the party’s petitions after she was removed by Bill Shearer and replaced by Dr. John de Tar, a Reno urologist — more than 20,000 Nevadans voted for the party’s presidential ticket that year.
Dan Hansen, the IAP’s candidate for governor in 1970, and numerous other members of the large Hansen family — a conservative version of “the Kennedys but without the money,” as a younger Hansen delightfully put it a few years ago — have been running for office on the party’s ticket ever since.
The IAP even made national headlines in the Watergate year of 1974 when Jack Doyle of Las Vegas nearly cost conservative Republican Paul Laxalt a seat in the U.S. Senate. Doyle garnered 10,887 votes in that race, or 6% of the vote, while Laxalt defeated Democrat Harry Reid by a mere 624 votes. Doyle, a staunch Reagan supporter who later joined the Republican Party, was widely credited with pushing Laxalt further to the right.
Doyle wasn’t the GOP’s only worry in Nevada that year. James R. Houston, a wealthy 38-year-old silver speculator, spent lavishly in his campaign for governor on the Independent American ticket, virtually crippling the Republican nominee’s prospects from the outset.
While the party’s registration figures are undoubtedly misleading, the IAP — contrary to Joey’s assertion — had established a foothold in Nevada politics long before the Constitution Party was ever conceived.
24 Darcy G Richardson // Nov 1, 2009 at 3:55 am
By the way, let me also mention that both Dan Hansen and Bill Shearer always insisted that the word “American” be part of the party’s name. The word “Independent” was only incidental.
25 K. L. Gibbs // Nov 1, 2009 at 6:22 pm
What is the single most important thing for a newly politically active person to consider about the IAP?
Please be specific and expressive, I am seriously considering a major political move and I am tired of the dog and pony. Honesty and details will help my heart convince my mind to act.
Thank You
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