Kotlikoff plans to stand out as third-party presidential candidate

As a third-party candidate, Boston University Professor Laurence Kotlikoff  said he intends to stand out as a practical leader addressing the needs of the American public.

“[Other third-party candidates] haven’t been people who are actually representing the middle of the country,” he said. “We’ve never had a test of someone like me with someone whose policies might work, someone who’s sensible.”

The economics professor entered his name to Americans Elect on Thursday, along with hundreds of other candidates and politicians. The website’s users vote for a viable third-party candidate on the presidential ballot. Anyone can sign onto Americans Elect to join the ballot, he said.

The Americans Elect website, states the organization aims to nominate a candidate who responds to voters, rather than political standards.

The candidate must have overwhelming support throughout the country to become an Americans Elect candidate so the organization does not elect a fringe candidate, Kotlikoff said.

Each candidate needs a minimum of 50,000 support clicks before April to get on the primary ballot, meaning at least 5,000 from at least 10 different states. After two runoff elections in April and one in May, Americans Elect will choose one of six candidates to end up on the national ballot in November.

While Kotlikoff confirmed his run for the presidency, he said he will not stray far from BU’s campus throughout the race.

“I wish I had a billion dollars and take leave from BU and spend money to advertise and get people interested that way,” he said, “but I have to rely on small contributions from people.”
Kotlikoff, however, said he will be able to gain momentum by appealing to young voters.

“This is a campaign very much about young people,” Kotlikoff said. “I’m an old candidate, but a young person’s old candidate.”

In spite of Kotlikoff’s expectations, students said they would likely not vote for the third-party candidate.

Greg DeSocio, president of the College Republicans on campus, called a vote for a third-party candidate “wasted” and “symbolic.” The School of Management senior said he leans toward Republican candidates not because of a strict affiliation, but because he holds similar values as the party.

“A third-party candidate will never win an election in this country, no matter how much people support the candidate,” DeSocio said.

DeSocio said third-party candidates weaken the support behind candidates that stand a chance of getting elected, citing the 1912 and 2000 presidential elections, among others.

Teddy Roosevelt ran as a third-party candidate in 1912, arguably taking votes from incumbent William Taft and resulting in a victory for Woodrow Wilson. In the 2000 election, Ralph Nader ran as a third-party candidate, which some say led to less votes for Democratic candidate Al Gore.

“In 1992, Clinton won because Ross Perot, the most successful third-party candidate as of late, who garnered 18.9% of the popular vote but still did not win a single electoral vote, took votes away from George Bush,” DeSocio said.

Kotlikoff said Perot couldn’t win in 1992 because he was “a fringe candidate” in several respects.

“He was not a candidate that people thought of as presidential,” Kotlikoff said. “I think the same is true with Ron Paul.  As much as I love his candor and respect a lot of things he says, he’s on some level an extremist.”

Rose O’Connel-Marion, a College of Arts and Sciences sophomore, said she wouldn’t want to vote for a candidate that weakened the party she supports.

“I would if I felt like they had a chance at winning, but not if I felt like they would just take away from the Democrat’s votes, or make the party I didn’t want to win, win,” she said.

However, CAS sophomore Olivia Paris said she would focus more on the candidate’s policies and vote for someone whose ideas she supports.

“If I agree on what [the candidate] says then yes, but only then,” she said.

“If Mr. Kotlikoff was able to run on the Republican ticket, I think he would be an extremely strong candidate, and could be able to unite the electorate,” DeSocio said. “As a third-party candidate, he stands only to take support from the Republican candidate who actually has a chance of winning.”