ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

10/19/2006

FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS

It was a bit anticlimactic, the gubernatorial debate Thursday night in a hotel conference center here. As expected, the two main party candidates didn't show. Neither did TV cameras.

Nor was there fighting or political sniping from the three so-called third-party candidates who did attend. In fact, they found themselves in agreement about half the time as they enumerated ideas about what they would do if elected to the state's top post.

Of course, none of them has much chance of winning, according to polls and political scientists. In fact, you might not have even heard their names.

Receiving top billing was Green Party candidate Rich Whitney, the only name in the governor's slot on the official state ballot other than incumbent Democrat Rod Blagojevich and challenger and Republican state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka. Whitney is part of the Illinois Green Party's first balloted slate of candidates for statewide executive office.

Debating with Whitney were Collinsville information technology guy Mark McCoy, a Libertarian; and retired Belleville Marine Randy Stufflebeam, of the Constitution Party. Both are running as write-in candidates, along with four others from throughout the state who didn't attend.

None of the men holding microphones made any pretense about their chances at winning, given Illinois' two-party system. In fact, it was in part distaste with Democrats and Republicans in office that pushed the men into the hunt, they said.

They did touch on issues at the heart of most political discussions in Illinois - education, environment, the state budget, health care, ethics and the north-south divide. Corporations were frequently targeted, as was government waste. Only about 30 people showed up to listen, as the debate wasn't heavily publicized and had been put together only days earlier.

"Excellent ideas abound up here," said McCoy at one point.

McCoy, for his part, campaigned much of the time on the subject of personal liberty. He advocated cutting government in most cases, railing, for example, on what he sees as an overly large education system that creates "specified workers for corporate purposes."

McCoy also advocated using the civil tort system to allow individuals to resolve differences in place of government regulation, and allowing the commercial sector to innovate in the energy arena.

Stufflebeam, who advocated a strict interpretation of the U.S. and state constitutions, said government was spending on programs that diverged far beyond the bounds of those founding documents. He also pushed for reducing or even ending an income tax.

"Illinois does not have a revenue problem," he said. "Illinois has a spending problem."

Whitney's positions for the most part are progressive stances that have been heard in circles in Springfield but haven't had enough political support. Among them, he proposed a "tax swap," one that would shift education funding from property tax to income tax. He also voiced ardent support for a universal health care plan in which the government pays the bills to private doctors and hospitals.

Whitney, with a place on the official ballot, had the most to gain politically from the debate. If he can earn 5 percent or more of the vote, the Greens would earn status as a mainstream political party under Illinois election law.

In an independent poll released Thursday by Rasmussen Reports, 9 percent of voters surveyed said they support the Green candidate. Political scientist Chris Mooney, of the University of Illinois at Springfield, said that neither Blagojevich nor Topinka is generating enough interest to preclude votes from going to Whitney.

"This is the election where 'none of the above' is potentially going to get quite a few votes," Mooney said. "That's his role at this point."