Chad Koppie Was Tea Before Tea Was Cool

A lot is said these days about TEA Party candidates surging this election cycle and that is a good thing.

But there was one person who was TEA before TEA was cool: Chad Koppie, U.S. Senate candidate in Illinois under the Conservative Party banner.

It was the historic 1992 election wherein the dominant news media was covering the candidacy of Democrat Carol Moseley Brown like cheerleaders, much the way they stumped for Obama. Each was to be the first black Senator and President, respectively.

But many forgot that it was a three way race and not just a go-through-the-motions of rubber stamping Carol as Queen, or Senator.

Chad Koppie garnered more than 100,000 votes in that race, eroding votes from Republican Rich Williamson who cowardly defected from pro-life to pro-abortion within 24 hours of winning the GOP Primary elections unopposed, infuriating his Republican base and sending many votes Chad’s way.

So when we think of TEA, let’s remember the unsung heroes and pioneers of the modern day TEA Party movement, like Chad Koppie, airline pilot, farmer and grassroots American.

THE FOLLOWING IS AN ARTICLE FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES THAT BEGINS TO SCRATCH THE TIP OF THE HISTORY OF 3RD PARTY VOTING IN ILLINOIS AND ELSEWHERE:

THE NEW YORK TIMES/ October 7, 2010

Illinois Voters, Unhappy With Candidates, Show Few Signs of Committing
By NATE SILVER

We haven’t written as much about Illinois as some other Senate contests but it may be taking on an increasingly important role as some other races that had once looked to be competitive, like Connecticut and Missouri, now show a clearer advantage for one or another party.

The race in Illinois has long been within the margin of error in most polls; our forecasting model last week characterized it as a near-tie, with the Republican Mark Kirk projected to win by 0.4 points over Democrat Alexi Giannoulias.

What’s unusual about Illinois is the number of voters committed to minor-party candidates like the Green Party’s nominee, LeAlan Jones, and the Libertarian, Mike Labno or who haven’t committed to a candidate at all yet. Collectively, the third-party candidates have held between 5 and 11 percent of the vote in recent polls, while about 10 to 15 percent of voters remain undecided.

Such a circumstance is quite unusual. I searched our database of Senate race polls and came up with only four examples since 1998 in which neither major-party candidate had more than 42 percent of the vote in the polling average with a month to go in the campaign:
In Michigan in 2000, Democrat Debbie Stabenow led Republican incumbent Spencer Abraham 41-37 in the polls with a month to go; Ms. Stabenow wound up winning the race by 2 points.
In Colorado in 2002, Democratic challenger Tom Strickland led Republican incumbent Wayne Allard 40-37 in the polls. But Mr. Allard came back to win by 5 points.

In an open-seat race in Oklahoma in 2004, Republican Tom Coburn led Democrat Brad Carson 42-41 with a month left. Mr. Coburn eventually won by a considerably larger 13-point margin.
In Minnesota in 2008, Democrat Al Franken and incumbent Republican Norm Coleman were in a 40-40 tie in the polls with 30 days to go, with the Independence Party candidate, Dean Barkley, also drawing a significant percentage of the vote. That race, of course, remained just as close through election day, with Mr. Franken eventually declared the winner by 312 votes after a recount that lasted for months.
I can’t say I see much in the way of a pattern there other than that the error in both the Colorado and Oklahoma races was fairly high, suggesting that such races may behave unpredictably. Indeed, our model accounts for this property, assuming there is a larger margin of error in the forecasts when the number of undecided voters (and voters claiming to support third-party candidates) is higher.

Illinois residents have some recent history of casting protest votes for third-party candidates when they are dissatisfied with the major-party nominees, as they appear to be this year. In the gubernatorial race there in 2006, for instance, the Green Party’s nominee Rich Whitney won around 10 percent of the vote, although the incumbent Rod Blagojevich was nevertheless re-elected with 49.8 percent of the vote to Republican Judy Barr Topinka’s 39.3 percent.

The race between Mr. Blagojevich and Ms. Topinka, however, was only marginally competitive and so voters might have been more comfortable casting a “protest vote” there. This year, by contrast, every vote figures to count in both the Senate race and the race for governor, which had appeared to favor Republican Bill Brady but now has tightened in some polls. Third-party candidates sometimes under perform their margins in the polls, especially in races where the polling between the major party nominees is tight.

It might be reasonable to surmise that Mr. Giannoulias, the Democrat, is the favorite to pick up some votes from the Green Party’s Mr. Jones. Still, the same logic could hold for Mr. Kirk and the Libertarian candidate’s votes and in general, the polling has shown no clear relationship between the number of third-party votes and the margin between between Mr. Giannoulias and Mr. Kirk.

Another question is whether, in a state where voters seem to have little inspiration to cast their ballots, campaigning by President Obama might make some difference. But some polls show Mr. Obama, who won his home state with 62 percent of the vote in 2008, as now only having an approval rating of about 50 percent there among likely voters.

In the absence of a clear trend in the race, both Mr. Kirk’s and Mr. Giannoulias’s campaigns, perhaps growing impatient, have released their own polling in the state.

Mr. Kirk’s poll, from the firm Fulcrum Strategies, gave him a 42-33 advantage. But a poll by the Democratic Governors Association, obtained by FiveThirtyEight, gives Mr. Giannoulias a 40-37 edge. The Democratic poll conducted Sept. 23rd through 26th among 604 likely voters by the firm Global Strategy Group, also showed a tight governor’s race, with Mr. Brady leading the Democratic incumbent, Pat Quinn, with 36 percent of the vote to 35. (end of article)

READER’S COMMENTS:

October 7th, 2010, 4:41 pm
Colorado, Nevada, Illinois, & West Virginia look to me to be the states that will decide whether this is merely a good election for the Republicans, or a really good one… I’m hopeful the Democrats can hold on and win all four of ‘em.

Wisconsin & Pennsylvania would be nice too… but we’ll need to see some serious D momentum between now and November 2nd.
bob bob
USA

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October 7th, 2010, 4:41 pm
Not giving up on Kentucky either… I still think there’s a good shot Conway will pull that out. Paul is just a clown and Conway is a really good candidate.

In Florida there has to be an effort to consolidate Crist & Meek’s support at some point. It does neither one of them any good to have Rubio win. They have to make a deal.
bob bob

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October 7th, 2010, 4:56 pm
Why do candidate-commissioned polls always seem to show a strong bias in favor of the candidate who ordered them? Do the pollsters simply (and unethically) cook the numbers to make things look better for their boss? Should these be regarded as actual polls or as propaganda dross?

Why would a candidate want to pay for a poll that gives him an inaccurate idea of where he stands in the race? I’d think that would do him far more harm than good.
Adc1966

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October 7th, 2010, 4:56 pm
Hey Nate, I’ve always been curious, what’s the advantage of partisan pollsters having results that favorite their candidate? Does it cause people to give more money? If that’s the case I’d think they’d get more money if they were only slightly ahead.
Ben A

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October 7th, 2010
5:01 pm Mr. Giannoulias looks like he is a flawed candidate with his various controversies; my question is why didn’t another Democratic candidate emerge in a state like Illinois, which should have a deep Democratic bench? With a better candidate, this would have been a sleepwalk hold for the Dems.
Frank, NY

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If you dig deeper in past Illinois poltical contests you will find one from 1992 wherein Chad Koppie garnered more than 100,000 votes as a third party candidate under the Conservative Party label. He ran for U.S. Senate against Democrat Carol Moseley Braun and Republican Rich Williamson who defected from pro-life to pro-abortion which send many more votes Chad’s way.
Jerry McGlothlin, Chicago

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