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Motorcycles » rec.motorcycles.harley » Wisconsin-based American Biker Party hopes to make political impact
| Wisconsin-based American Biker Party hopes to make political impact [message #785907] |
Mon, 17 July 2006 14:58 |
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July 15, 2006
This biker party hopes to make political impact
By Karen Lincoln Michel
Press-Gazette Madison bureau
Green Bay Press-Gazette
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AI D=/20060715/GPG0101/607150481/1207/GPGnews
MADISON — Steven Erato earned the nickname "Mad" in the 1970s after
writing about the mistreatment of American veterans returning from
Vietnam.
Thirty years later, he says he's still mad.
It's that indignation toward the system that led Erato of Appleton to
help found the Wisconsin-based American Biker Party — a year-old
political party whose first convention is drawing national interest
and meets today in Stevens Point.
"We have made it very clear that even though it's called the American
Biker Party and it was started by a group of bikers, this is not a
biker organization," said Erato, party co-chairman and co-owner of
Eagle Nation Cycle in Neenah. "Everybody's welcome."
Inquiries about the one-day convention from as far as Washington
State, Texas, Rhode Island and points in between have rolled into the
cycle shop, which doubles as party central, said Erato. He said the
average American's disgust with special-interest politics has voters
searching for an alternative to the status quo, and he believes the
American Biker Party has potential to fill that void.
The party, hoping to mobilize in all 50 states, plans to someday run
its own candidates for elected office. In Wisconsin, that move would
put it in the company of three other third parties — the Greens,
Libertarians and the Constitution Party — qualified to run their
candidates in statewide races, according to State Elections Board
spokesman Kyle Richmond.
For now, the American Biker Party plans to encourage its members to
vote for candidates it supports, which Richmond said would require the
group to register with the state Elections Board and file periodic
campaign finance reports for "expressed advocacy" of candidates.
Nationwide, about 50 third parties exist in name, but fewer than a
dozen are active and viable in more than one or two states, said
Austin Cassidy, who runs a Florida-based Web site that tracks
third-party politics in America.
"Whether or not a party's successful usually depends on whether it's
formed around a personality or not," said Cassidy, citing as examples
former Alabama governor George Wallace, who was a 1968 presidential
nominee of the American Independent Party, and Texas billionaire Ross
Perot, the 1994 presidential nominee of the Reform Party. "Once the
personality leaves, the party deflates."
Some obscure and lesser-known national third parties are likely
defunct or "probably exist in the mind of one or two people," said
Cassidy.
"If the American Biker Party is truly organizing at the grass roots
and it's not a single issue or a single person that it's organizing
around, then it might have a longer shelf life," said Cassidy, adding
that some third-parties remain active for multiple decades.
The Bikers formed neither around one issue nor one central figure,
said Erato, who co-chairs the party with Frank "Claim Jumper" Rios of
Milwaukee. The party is run by a 10-member board, of which some do not
own a motorcycle or belong to a biker club.
"We're telling people that this is a call to action to all
freedom-loving citizens," Erato said.
Erato said the group considered calling itself something with broader
appeal, but decided that word would eventually leak out that the party
was formed in his basement by five bikers. The group chose to avoid
criticism for appearing to conceal their roots in chrome, rubber and
black leather.
Skeptics might envision the party's convention as a gathering of "Easy
Rider" characters made famous by actors Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper
in the 1969 film.
Not so, Erato says. "We consider ourselves common-sense conservatives."
Bob "Bandit" Barbiaux Sr., 75, of Green Bay says weather permitting he
will ride his Harley-Davidson custom Sportster to the party convention.
Barbiaux said he's fed up with the nation's two-party system and
agrees with the American Biker Party's position that Democrats and
Republicans fail to adequately represent the interests of average
Americans.
"I've been around a long time and I think we need a change of some
kind," Barbiaux said. "We need to break up the system and let the more
common person get involved."
Barbiaux said while there may be other bikers in attendance at the
convention, the gathering will resemble a political event rather than
biker-club party.
"I think you'll see a certain amount of people there who want to stand
up for what is right," Barbiaux said. "If people realized there's
enough of us to form a block on a vote, things could change."
Still, he said, that change may be slow to happen.
"I probably won't see it advance too much in my time," said Barbiaux.
"But you have to start with a strong foundation before you can put a
house on it. I think this is the right direction, and it's a start."
--
There are more love songs than anything else.
If songs could make you do something we'd all
love one another. - Frank Zappa
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