Kenneth Block '87, who founded the Moderate Party of Rhode Island last year because he was unsatisfied with the polarized policies of the major parties, will run in Rhode Island's November gubernatorial election on the Moderate Party ticket, he said in an interview with The Dartmouth. He officially declared his candidacy last Sunday, according to The Providence Journal.
Major party candidates have failed to appeal to the moderate voter in recent years because they have shifted to partisan extremes, Block said.
"I never feel like I'm voting for somebody who's making me jump up and down for joy just picking between the lesser of two evils," he said.
Block added that his party's centrist platform is garnering attention on a wide scale.
"There's plenty of interest in other states in what we're doing, and national interest in what we're doing," he said.
Block said that he will, if elected, try to change the culture based on the "four Es," which are ideas included in the party's platform.
"We're focused on the economy, ethics, education and the environment," Block said.
Rhode Island currently suffers from poor leadership, a problem that stems from an "imbalance" in state governance, Block said.
"We have extreme political dysfunction in our state," he said.
Block already had to collect thousands of signatures and win cases against state campaign laws to establish the party, according to The Providence Journal.
When he attempted to found the Moderate Party two years ago, Block was forced to bring a case in federal court against state regulations that limited the period in which new political parties could attempt to gather signatures in their support. A U.S. district court ruled the provision unconstitutional, The Journal reported.
Block was also forced to pay $2,000 in December to settle a campaign finance dispute, admitting under the terms of the settlement that he had exceeded the legal maximum donation to his start-up party, according to The Journal.
A candidate unaffiliated with a major party could succeed in Rhode Island and on a national scale in the current political climate, according to Lincoln Chafee, another independent candidate in the race for governor who served as a Republican U.S. senator from Rhode Island between 1999 and 2007.
"I know [less partisanship] is what Americans want," Chaffe said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
In an opinion column in The New York Times Feb. 20, Chafee wrote that an announcement by Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., in which Bayh stated he would not seek another term in the Senate, may be an indication that Bayh intends to run for national office unaffiliated with a major party.
"With our hopes for a post-partisan era still unmet, I say to Senator Bayh: welcome to the club of independents who are looking for a better way to serve," he wrote.
Chafee told The Dartmouth that Rhode Island has a particularly nonconformist political history dating back to colonial times. Rhode Island was the first colony to disavow allegiance to the British crown and the last to ratify the U.S. Constitution, he said.
The Moderate Party may focus more on establishing itself as a "legitimate party" in the election than on winning, Chafee said. Block must poll 5 percent of the vote in the election in order to remain an official party in the state, according to Chafee.
Although Block conceded that Chafee and Rhode Island General Treasurer Frank Caprio, a former Democratic state senator and representative, are both strong challengers, he said that he is not only running to generate public attention.
"I'm doing this to win and I think I can," he said.
Block's lack of name recognition and the newness of the party as a whole may hurt Block's chances, Chafee said.
"I think [Block] would agree that he was hoping to get a more high-profile candidate for governor, and perhaps reluctantly took [the candidacy] himself," he said.
Block, however, said that an established candidate is not what is needed in the current race.
"We're about citizen candidates, not professional candidates," he said. "If you're unhappy about how things are going, you can't simply yell out the open windows that you're unhappy about it."
Ethical impropriety is a problem in Rhode Island, Chaffe told The Dartmouth.
"You talk to people outside of Rhode Island, and they have this impression that it's a shady place to do business," he said.
The misdeeds of prominent Rhode Island politicians, including former Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci, who was forced to resign from office in 2002 after being convicted on racketeering charges, reinforce the state's negative image and must be changed, Chafee said.
Block received a degree in computer science from Dartmouth, although he said he took several government classes and had an interest in politics as an undergraduate. At Dartmouth, he was frustrated with the "collision of ideas" between various students groups on campus, including the appearance of the Dartmouth Review as a force on campus during his years at the College, he said.
