Diamond abandons bid for governor
Russ Diamond's quixotic bid to run as an independent candidate for governor will officially end today -- about 30,000 signatures short of what's needed to get his name on the statewide ballot.
Diamond, a former Libertarian who helped lead an anti-incumbency revolt in Pennsylvania, said he collected about 37,000 signatures from registered voters.
Because that's far short of the 67,070 needed by today's deadline, Diamond said he will not submit the signatures to the Department of State.
"We're not going to make it," he said. "We threw together a haphazard organization the best we could. I thought we did pretty good."
As of the end of Monday, 22 independent candidates had filed to run in state and federal races, said Leslie Amoros, State Department spokeswoman. Six were rejected, including the only two people who filed for statewide races.
Neither Thomas A. Martin, a Libertarian who wanted to run for U.S. Senate, nor Karen L. Simons, a Libertarian seeking to run for lieutenant governor, had enough signatures to qualify, Amoros said.
After all petitions are submitted today, the agency will determine which are valid before adding names to ballots.
The threshold for signatures to run for statewide office was especially high this year because of the strong showing by state Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr. in 2004. Under state law, independent candidates qualify for the ballot by collecting a number of signatures equal to 2 percent of the votes collected by the top vote-getter in the previous election.
"The system is patently rigged against third parties and independents," said G. Terry Madonna, political science professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster County. "And the threshold for ballot access is unreasonable."
The number of required signatures undermines the elections process, said Tim Potts, cofounder of PA Democracy Rising.
"Apart from being unfair to the individual, it also makes elections much less competitive," he said. "Competition ... brings out more ideas."
The last year has been peppered with unusual ups and downs for Diamond.
The Lebanon County businessman, who previously had been a footnote in Pennsylvania politics, found himself in the national limelight after he launched an Internet-based statewide legislative reform movement in the aftermath of the General Assembly's dark-of-night 2005 pay raise.
The movement's role in the unprecedented November voter ouster of a state Supreme Court justice landed Diamond in the New York Times. Many also considered the group a prime player in the May primary ouster of 17 incumbent lawmakers.
PACleanSweep, the Internet-based group Diamond launched, also is foundering. A Lebanon County judge has scheduled an Aug. 8 hearing on a petition from members seeking to dissolve the organization.
When Diamond launched his gubernatorial bid in April, he laid out a platform that included opening government records to public inspection, reducing the Legislature's 2,900-member staff and cutting legislative perks.
"I'll take the fight back where it started: Standing by the side of the road, throwing rocks," Diamond said. "Whatever role I can fill."
