Thornton for U.S. Senate

August 4, 1996

It's a three-way race!

Mark Thornton, an economist from Auburn, announced his candidacy for the United States Senate seat vacated by the retiring Howell Heflin. Thornton declared, "It's a three-way race."

Thornton will be on the ballot statewide on the Libertarian Party ticket. Syndicated columnist, David Broder, recently dubbed America's Third Party "a significant movement." With more than 1000 candidates, "the party to watch in the 21st century" will be the only third party to be on fifty ballots in two consecutive elections. "The Libertarian Party has been growing at more than 10% per year, Republican membership has been stagnant during their so-called revolution and the Democrats have been shrinking," Thornton said.

The candidate's message is clear---government doesn't work. The only way to fix the federal government is to drastically reduce its size and power. "Send me to Washington and I'll get things undone," Thornton declared.

"Both of my opponents support big government. They support the status quo. There really is very little difference between them," noted Thornton. Libertarians bring a genuine choice to this election. "The success of America is based on a free people living in a free society and working in a free market economy" Thornton declared. "The American people are with us, not the old parties."

Republicans and Democrats continue to be big on promises and short on results. Thornton's campaign promise is straightforward, "I'll vote to cut or eliminate all federal programs and taxes." Thornton said, "my only federal spending priority is domestic national defense and given the state of the world today, I think we can even cut that."

Thornton considers the 34% it will take to win a long shot at this time. However, he noted that most voters are dissatisfied with the current choices and that he has already has volunteers and monetary support from among Perot supporters, independent voters, Republicans and Democrats. "As of today, my campaign is a statistically significant factor and we will work from there toward victory," Thornton said.

Thornton was one of the youngest persons to run for the House of Representatives in 1984 when he garnered one of the highest percentage votes among all third party and independent candidates in the nation. He was also the first elected Libertarian in the South (excluding Virginia and Texas) when he was elected as Constable of Lee County, District 79, in 1988.

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