As one considers the minor arcana of dogma that separates these groups from one another, it’s easy to recall this scene from Monty Python’s Christ parody, “Life of Brian.”

REG: Right. You’re in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the Judean People’s Front.
PEOPLE’S FRONT OF JUDEA (a grand total of five people, including the new member): Yeah… Splitters!
FRANCIS: And the Judean Popular People’s Front.
PFJ: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Splitters. Splitters…
LORETTA: And the People’s Front of Judea.
PFJ: Yeah. Splitters. Splitters…
REG: What?
LORETTA: The People’s Front of Judea. Splitters.
REG: WE’RE the People’s Front of Judea!
LORETTA: Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.
REG: PEOPLE’S Front!
FRANCIS: Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?
REG: He’s over there (indicates one man sitting alone).
PFJ: SPLITTER!

It’s a lot like academic politics or student government. The bitterness of the disputes are inversely proportional to the stakes.

The same dynamic occurs on both ends of the spectrum, as Erich Hoffer noted in his 1951 classic, The True Believer. Hoffer argues that movements are interchangeable, that fanatics will often flip from one movement to another, and movements resemble each other in style and method, even when their stated view are diametrically opposed.

This was evident last month as Congressman Ron Paul, erstwhile Republican presidential candidate and the internet phenom of November-December 2007, made his endorsement. Paul remains a sitting member of the House GOP caucus, but has explicitly NOT endorsed John McCain.

A few weeks ago, Paul hosted a press conference of several third party contenders and endorsed a generic, vote for any third party stance. But Paul’s presumed favorite, Libertarian nominee Bob Barr skipped the event and held his own event instead. Paul, who was himself the Libertarian candidate in 1988, retaliated by endorsing Chuck Baldwin of the relatively obscure Constitution Party instead.

By third party standards, Libertarian nominee Barr is a relative celebrity, a former member of Congress who had a high media profile back in the Clinton impeachment era. In contrast, Baldwin is a classic third party contender–an leading activist in a tiny movement with no profile among the broader voting public. Third parties are often torn between nominating a longtime loyalist like Baldwin or a celebrity newcomer like Barr.

Electorally, they’ve done better with the big names, like Jesse Ventura, who went through some party splintering himself. He was elected governor of Minnesota in 1998 on Ross Perot’s Reform Party ticket, then split after Pat Buchanan’s hard-right hostile takeover. Ventura started his own Minnesota Independence Party, which has lived on past his governorship. No, it’s not advocating that Minnesota become a country, like the Alaska Independence Party that First Dude Todd Palin affiliated with for a while.

Back over on the left, the strained relationship between Ralph Nader and the Green Party has led to electoral results less than the sum of the parts. Ralph Nader did much better running with the Greens in 2000 than he did running against the Greens, and their obscure party activist nominee, in 2004. Of course, there were other factors, like the Florida results of 2000. But the resources of the left, and the willingness of the media to cover lesser-known candidates, hurts both Nader and 2008 Green nominee Cynthia McKinney.

The candidates of the libertarian and right spectrum are likely to have a bigger impact than the left, as Barr may be a factor in several close states. Perhaps not so much Iowa, which is looking stronger for Barack Obama by the week. But Barr could be significant in some of the Rocky Mountain states, where Libertarians have run well, and in his native Georgia, which Obama is trying to put into play. (McKinney is also a Georgia native, but her African American base seems solid for Obama.)

But Paul’s decision to back the obscure Baldwin, rather than the better-known Barr, is a classic case of the third party movement crumbling late in the game. It probably gives McCain a small boost in a few close states, but one would need special scientific instruments to measure it.

The big news in the second week of filing with the Secretary of State was Ralph Nader’s qualifying for the Iowa ballot in the presidential race. Nader joined a half dozen state legislative candidates filing last week:

• Democrat Deb Ballalatak of rural Albia, a full-time mom, was nominated in Senate District 36 against Paul McKinley.
• Ken Vaske of Algona filed in Senate District 4 on the “Grassroots for Life” ticket against Senate president Jack Kibbie.
• In House District 49, based in Ft. Dodge, Republicans nominated Michael Littzen to take on incumbent Democrat Helen Miller. An independent has announced, but not yet filed, in this race as well. Miller has been unopposed the last couple cycles.
• In House District 63 in West Des Moines and Urbandale, Republican Rep. Scott Raecker has drawn a Democratic opponent, Nita Garvin. Raecker was unopposed in 2006 and a two to one winner in 200.
• Democrats switched candidates in House District 50 after Kristin Roberts dropped out following the primary. 2006 nominee Lynne Gentry will now make a second run against Republican incumbent David Tjepkes, who won with 56% last time.
• Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad, who represents Ed Fallon’s old House District 66 in central Des Moines, is being opposed by Green candidate Chris Moeller.

Last week’s filing leaves 31 legislative races still officially uncontested.Independent and third parties need 50 signatures to file for a House seat and 100 for a Senate seat. Democrats and Republicans need to hold conventions to nominate late candidates. Time is running out for such conventions, and with Democratic party rules requiring a week’s notice, it may already be too late.

Candidates nominated by convention are rarely successful, but there are exceptions. Democrats had to nominate by convention in the 2nd Congressional District in 2006 after their nominee fell short on signatures to get on the primary ballot. That failure was just one more reason a lot of observers wrote off that candidate — but that race turned out OK for Dave Loebsack.

Ralph Nader (Source: Nader campaign)

The Nader campaign submitted 3,000 signatures to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, twice the required 1,500. In 2004 Nader’s petitions were challenged in many states, including Iowa. “Any challenge would be doomed to failure,” said Scott Knight of the Iowa Nader campaign.

The campaign had planned to file on Thursday and hold a morning news conference, but a delay in a FedEx package carrying documents with Nader’s signature led to the rescheduling.

As the Green Party nominee, Nader drew 0.5 percent of the Iowa vote in 1996, when Bill Clinton easily beat Bob Dole. But despite the widespread spoiler argument (are you listening, Leonard Boswell?), Nader’s 29,374 Iowa votes as a Green in 2000 weren’t enough to keep Democrat Al Gore from winning Iowa by 4,000 votes.

Further undercutting the spoiler argument, Nader’s percentage in 2004 collapsed to 0.4 percent, yet Iowa flipped from blue to red. Nader’s 5,973 votes were less than George Bush’s 10,000 vote margin over John Kerry.

Nader ran in Iowa as an independent candidate in 2004, and some of his 2000 support shifted to Green nominee David Cobb. This year, the competition for the Nader niche may be fiercer, as the Greens have nominated a higher profile candidate, former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.

A four-way national Associated Press-Ipsos Poll released Tuesday showed Nader at 3 percent and Libertarian Bob Barr with 2 percent. McKinney was not included in the survey, which had Democrat Barack Obama ahead of Republican John McCain, 47 percent to 41 percent.

Nader filed in Iowa as the “Peace and Freedom Party” candidate. That ballot label has been used for 40 years as a catch-all left party in California, dating back to the 1968 Eldridge Cleaver campaign. In other states, Nader is running as an independent or as the candidate of the “Independent Party.”

“Our chances in the fall really depend on our ability to get into the debates,” Knight told Iowa Independent. “If Nader is allowed in the debates the sky is the limit on how well we could do in November.” Only two third party candidates have participated in fall debates. Ross Perot debated Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush in 1992. John Anderson debated Ronald Reagan in 1980, but Jimmy Carter boycotted the debate.

“If Nader is not in the debates, then we are hoping to get the Peace and Freedom Party permanent ballot status in Iowa,” said Knight. That would require Nader to reach 2 percent in Iowa, the level he reached in 2000.

Nader joins Gloria LaRiva of the Party for Socialism and Liberation on the Iowa ballot. The filing deadline is August 15.

But the picture of Gore was very different before the Nobel Peace Prize, before the Oscar, and before the 2000 election.Retrospective history has painted Fallon as a loner, and less than a year after his Nader endorsement, he had already repudiated it. But Fallon was far from the only Democrat unhappy with Gore. Polls in the summer of 2000 showed Nader winning as much as 6 percent of the national vote, well above his final 2.7 percent.

“If I had three hands maybe I could hold my nose, my gut and my mouth and vote for Al Gore,” Fallon told a Cedar Rapids crowd on Oct. 29, 2000.  “But in good conscience, I can’t, I won’t, and you shouldn’t either.”

Mike Palecek, who was the 2000 Democratic nominee for Congress against Tom Latham in the old 5th Congressional District in northwest Iowa, also endorsed Nader that year. “Nader was clearly the better candidate,” wrote Palecek in 2007. Palecek’s Nader endorsement earned a mention in the Capitol Hill newsletter Roll Call just before the election. Palecek lost in a landslide, winning only 29 percent in a heavily Republican district.

“Al Gore and Bill Clinton had bombed Iraq, continued the sanctions against Iraq for 10 years, “reformed” welfare, expanded the federal prison system. There is no way I was in support of that,” wrote Palecek. “I do not regret endorsing Nader.”

Palecek remains a registered Democrat even though he “detests” the party and feels both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are too militaristic. “We need strong leadership, someone who would be willing to investigate the Bush involvement in 9/11, for example. I think what we might expect from either Clinton or Obama is more of the same.”

Fallon was among many people on the left end of the Democratic Party frustrated by Gore’s choice of conservative Sen. Joe Lieberman, who supported Republican efforts to impeach Bill Clinton, as his running mate. History has proven those concerns to be prescient, as Lieberman bolted the Democratic party after losing his 2006 Senate primary, then defeated Democratic nominee Ned Lamont in the general election. That is the same kind of “nonsupport of the party” that got Fallon kicked off the Polk County Democratic central committee in 2001, yet Lieberman, calling himself an “independent Democrat,” sits in the U.S. Senate Democratic caucus today.

Other liberal activists were annoyed by Gore’s role in the Parent’s Music Resource Council (PMRC) hearings of 1985, where Tipper Gore crusaded against Prince lyrics and faced spirited, circus-like rebuttals from Dee Snider of Twisted Sister and from Frank Zappa. Al Gore never distanced himself from the music labeling issue, and even bragged about his wife’s efforts near the end of his final 2000 debate with Bush:

“When (our oldest daughter) was little, she brought a record home that had some awful lyrics in it. And Tipper hit the ceiling. And that launched a campaign to try to get the record companies to put ratings that — warning labels for parents. And I’m so proud of what she accomplished in getting them on there.”

“Tipper is hated by a lot of people for the warning stickers, especially by liberals who consider the labels censorship,” wrote Jocelyn Marcus of the Iowa State Daily after the election. “Young people, especially males (who voted Nader in higher numbers than females), also tend to be the same people who buy CDs with ‘Parental Warning: Explicit Lyrics’ stickers on them. Though other PMRC members were also responsible for the warning stickers, the labels are widely called ‘Tipper Stickers.’”

The Daily Iowan reported that more than 2,000 people attended a Sept. 25, 2000 Iowa City Nader rally, and many paid with a small donation to the campaign. That was a common Nader fundraising approach in 2000. Two days earlier, thousands had paid to attend a Seattle rally that also featured Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder.

At the Iowa City rally, some were persuaded:

He won UI senior Jane Anderson’s vote with this sentiment and others, she said.

“I was going to vote for Gore because he is not as supportive of big business as Bush,” she said. “After this (rally), my vote goes to Nader.”

“My Democratic Party affiliation is not a casual one,” said University of Iowa law professor Nicholas Johnson, who introduced Nader at the event. His remarks remain on his web site:

“I’ve worked for the election of every Democratic presidential candidate since Harry Truman in 1948. I’ve run for the U.S. Senate from Iowa as a Democrat. I’ve run for Congress as a Democrat. I’ve held three presidential appointments in the administrations of U.S. Presidents who were Democrats. I’ve worked on a Democratic National Committee project and held virtually every position within the Johnson County Democrats.

So I have no intention of putting George W. Bush in the White House.”

Johnson attacked Gore for accepting campaign money from 66 corporations that had also donated to Bush:

“AT&T, Phillip Morris, Microsoft, Federal Express, Anheuser-Busch, Pfizer, Time Warner. Ever heard of any of them? Well, there are 59 more I don’t have time to list. These corporations don’t care which of their nominees wins. They’re not in this for the ideology. They’re in it for the return on investment.”

Johnson praised the historic role of third parties in coming up with new ideas for reform, telling the Nader crowd:

“That’s how we got regulation of banks and railroads, a progressive income tax, the eight-hour workday, direct popular election of U.S. senators, workers’ compensation, limitations on child labor, the women’s right to vote, and the right to collective bargaining.”

In a conclusion that seems haunting today, Johnson advised the crowd on voting strategy:

“If seven electoral votes could make the difference in who becomes president check the latest Iowa polls. Is the popular vote in Iowa likely to be close?

Only if you answer all of those questions “yes” do you need to be concerned that your vote for Nader risks putting someone you fear in the White House.

If there’s a big spread on the national electoral votes, or the Iowa popular vote, it’s a free vote for you.

It is voting for Bush or Gore that becomes a wasted vote.

It’s the vote for Nader that’s not wasted. The vote that’s registered as a meaningful protest. A demand for campaign finance reform. For returning American democracy from the corporations to the people.”

Despite Boswell’s charge that Fallon “helped George Bush win,” Gore carried Iowa by 4,144 votes, with Nader taking 29,374 Iowa votes. Iowa’s seven electors did prove to be more than Bush’s five electoral vote margin. (It would have been a four vote margin, but one District of Columbia elector abstained to protest the city’s lack of voting Congressional representation. An effective protest, since I have to mention it in this disclaimer eight years later.)

After Democrat John Kerry lost the election, and Iowa, to Bush in 2004, Johnson wrote:

“Vice President Gore would have easily won had he held the support of Democrats. There were many multiples more Democrats who voted for Bush than there were Democrats who voted for Nader. And more than half of those who voted for Nader were either Republicans or indicated that, but for Nader, they would not have voted at all.

‘Never mind that,’ said the party’s apologists, ‘It’s all Nader’s fault.’

This year [2004] the Democrats don’t have Nader, or anyone else, to scapegoat.”

Johnson supported Fallon in his 2006 campaign for governor.

The Des Moines ad offers $1000 a week for full-time work between Dec. 15 and Jan. 15 and seeks “8 experienced (non-profit or political) organizers full time, and 12 field interns (6 part and 6 fulltime).”

The ads list a New York address for the committee but offer no web site other than Nader’s Wikipedia entry.Nader entered the New Hampshire Democratic primary in 1992 and won a handful of Iowa Democratic caucus delegates in Johnson County in 1996 (though those results were delayed till after newspaper deadlines and, in effect, scrubbed from the historic record).  He ran as a Green in the 1996 and 2000 general elections and as an independent in 2004.