"When Richard Mack revealed his show-biz aspirations to the world, supporters weren’t quite sure whether to jump for joy or cringe in fear. But then, bouts of paranoid schizophrenia are all part of the third-party package.

Mack, a lifelong Republican, bolted the party to run as the Libertarian candidate for governor this year. And then he managed to parlay that yearlong affiliation into an opportunity for fame. Mack was chosen as one of 12 candidates to appear this summer with Montel Williams in Showtime’s American Candidate. If he is “elected” to run for president or “the leader of the free world,” he wins $200,000.

So, you can only imagine that this new political enterprise caused some discussion. Chris Nizzardini turns out to be just the guy to facilitate that discussion. Nizzardini is a full-time college student, a customer response agent for a truck rental company, a computer geek and a tentative politician. For a government class, he had to work for a political campaign, so he chose Libertarian Charlie Bonsall, who in 2002 ran against real estate potentate Al Mansell for a state Senate seat.

Bonsall is now the Libertarian’s executive director, but he made a big mark against Mansell by garnering 20 percent of the vote and securing ballot access for his party.

But Nizzardini isn’t what you’d call a committed Libertarian. He’s been working lately for the smiley-face-logo’ed Personal Choice Party and had filed to run as a write-in candidate for Salt Lake County Council District 6, now held by the GOP’s Marv Hendricksen. Oh, and now he’s considering running for the post of Salt Lake County Auditor, embarrassingly vacated after a double-dip-sticking controversy over fueling government vehicles.

“I definitely support the idea of individual liberties and believe that government shouldn’t be so involved in what the individual does, but in issues beyond that, I’m more of a Democrat,” says Nizzardini. “It’s been kind of hard to find a party.”

It wasn’t half as hard to find a cause. Two years ago, Nizzardini started a Website called Alternative Politics Utah at http://3pcutah.s5.com. The 3PC is just filled with double-entendre— Personal Choice and politically correct, for instance. For those of you who confused 3PCU with C3PO, you’ll never get it. Nizzardini’s e-mail group is called Third Party Central Utah and is meant to “create third-party awareness and diversity in our state.”

It’s the awareness part that brings us back to Mr. Mack, the politician and showman. First question was whether anyone thought Mack’s directional change made him look, well, opportunistic, and shed a bad, albeit laughable, light on the Libertarian Party. Being at least Libertarian in spirit, most people felt it was Mack’s personal choice, to coin a phrase. Bonsall thinks the TV stint has the potential to attract more interest in the Libertarian Party. This will only happen if Mack doesn’t get kicked off the island, or whatever, in the first round.

Next came the issue of bribery, a word many Utahns recall as related to the 2002 Winter Olympics. Sports, however, has nothing to do with this bribery debate. It was brought up by Ken Larsen, a perpetual candidate now running for governor under the Personal Choice label, who just asked a hypothetical question when he was up at the state Elections Office recently. He used Jon Huntsman and Nolan Karras as examples. So what if Huntsman and Karras were neck and neck in the race, and what if Larsen offered to just step down for, say, $10,000? Would that be OK?

In case you are unsure of the answer, Utah Code says it’s unlawful “to pay or reward, or promise to pay or reward, another in any manner or form for the purpose of inducing that other person to be, or to refrain from or cease being, a candidate.”

So, the question in reality TV becomes did Showtime induce Mack to quit the race, and was it illegal? “I think technically, it is,” says Larsen. “But it’s a silly law. If I were he and I were charged with violating that law, I would charge that it violates the First Amendment and the fact that he makes money from his appearance doesn’t matter.”

This is vintage Larsen, who in the same breath says that what Mack did was nonetheless “immoral and betrayed his supporters and sponsors.” The betrayal charge comes from the fact that other parties actually left their territorial berths to support Mack. The Constitutional Party disavowed a candidate so they could support Mack, and the Independent Americans formally endorsed him.

Jim Dexter, the Libertarian candidate for Chris Cannon’s congressional seat, believes the real issue is that Mack’s supporters have not been happy with his fund raising. Mack was mixing messages in some of his campaign materials and solicited both for his personal business and the campaign. In a letter on his campaign letterhead, he solicited for Prepaid Legal Services Inc., which he’s selling. “He figured it would be a good way for him to make money, and he’s probably right,” says Dexter. “There’s nothing unprincipled about paying yourself a salary out of your own campaign.”

Whatever the case, it’s unlikely that Huntsman, Karras or even Scott Matheson Jr. were worried enough about the Mack candidacy to entice Showtime to sign him up. “If it were illegal, then anyone who dropped out of a race for a job would be liable,” says Rob Latham, Mack’s campaign coordinator and coincidentally, a lawyer.

Mack is making the most of his TV stint, though. As of this writing, he had made a couple of cuts and was alive with seven other candidates. Viewers vote for their candidates in an online poll, ostensibly to choose someone to run as a write-in for president of the United States.

If Mack decides against that write-in option, then he can always choose a write-in candidacy for Utah governor, Latham notes. And despite conventional polls that put Huntsman ahead of the pack, some online polls have actually had Mack in the lead all along.

So, in someone’s mind, maybe this is a reason to bribe Mack out. “That’s the question: Is it a bribe?” asks Dexter. “Under a certain element of the political spectrum, there are those who would rather argue and kill their own young than go out and win.”

If you’re wondering what he means by that, he means Larsen. Dexter and Larsen have bad blood going back to 1996 when Larsen sued the Libertarians. But you don’t want to get into that. “Dexter, I think, has a thing about trying to destroy my credibility,” says Larsen.

But what Nizzardini worries about is the credibility of his Website and its goals of election reform. “I thought perhaps a coalition could be built around issues of common interest to increase our voice and make it easier to further these goals,” he says.

So, this is all about how third parties can cooperate. So far, it’s managed to bring them to a place where they can bitch and moan about the governor’s race. And increase Showtime’s ratings. " (Katharine Biele, Salt Lake City Weekly, June 24, 2004)