He's in—he's out—he's back in—he's out for good! Off-and-on Presidential candidate H. Ross Perot has now announced he will convert his political organization into a public advocacy forum rather than continue as a permanent political third party.

Perot's lavishly financed campaign dramatized third party politics for the American public-at-large in a way not seen since 1912, when former President Theodore Roosevelt, running as an independent, outpolled incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft and gave the White House to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

Despite enormous spending unique for a third party candidate, however, Perot did not even come close to the inroad that Teddy Roosevelt made against the two-party system. Roosevelt got an historic 27.39% of the vote, while Perot scored only 18.78%, not much more than the 16.56% won by the very underfinanced Progressive Party candidate of 1924, Senator Robert "Fighting Bob" LaFollette of Wisconsin.

Early 1993 is an appropriate point in time to put third parties, national and state, in perspective. Before World War II, there were long established, truly national third parties that regularly ran candidates at every level in every election, nationally and locally. Foremost among these was the venerable Socialist Party, with perennial Presidential candidate Eugene Victor Debs and Norman Thomas—and which occasionally elected candidates such as Congressman Meyer London of New York City's Lower East Side.

Since World War II, however, third party Presidential campaigns have been ad hoc "one-shot" endeavors built around the personal appeal of individual candidates. In 1948, Henry Wallace and Strom Thurmond; in 1968, George Wallace; in 1980, John Anderson, our own Liberal Party Presidential candidate that year; and most recently, Ross Perot last year.

Given the odds, prospects for national third parties are not bright. But, in contrast, prospects for state parties are bright; I shall explain.

Once again, a quick look at history. Before World War II, several state third parties regularly won elections, defeating the two major parties outright. For example, in Wisconsin, LaFollette's Progressive Party regularly elected Federal, state and local officials on its line alone, as did the Farmer-Labor Party in neighboring Minnesota. Sadly, these admirable third parties could not endure against the two-party system.

But a quirk in New York law kept alive the third party role in America. New York State, unlike most states, has long permitted cross-endorsement, allowing a candidate to be the nominee of several parties simultaneously. And so, since 1944, our relatively small Liberal Party of New York State, now the oldest third party in America, has made history by often providing the margin of victory for many Democratic, and some Republican, candidates at all levels in New York State—and sometimes electing independent candidates on our line alone, most notably the spectacular re-election of New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay in 1969 with more than a million Liberal votes. Indeed, our success over the years inspired formation of the Conservative Party of New York State, and also the Right to Life Party, bringing to five the number of official political parties in New York State.

Now, earlier on, I claimed that the future of state third parties is bright. There is hard evidence for this because, even in California and other states that prohibit cross-endorsement, third parties have sprung up and have survived.

Since these are state parties, they have been ignored by the national media, so it will come as a surprise to most New Yorkers that California now has six official political parties—one more than New York State.

In third place on California's ballot is the American Independent Party, a surviving remnant of the George Wallace Presidential campaign of 1968, with a whopping enrollment of 247,415 members— surely the largest enrollment of any state third party in the nation!

In fourth place on the California ballot is the Green Party, with 98,724 enrollees.

In fifth place on the California ballot is the Libertarian Party, with 71,148 enrollees. (In California election returns, "Lib" means Libertarian rather than Liberal.)

And in sixth place on the California ballot is the Peace and Freedom Party, born in opposition to the Vietnam War, with 70,176 enrollees.

Even though these four official third parties in California are relegated to the status of protest parties because of the state ban on cross-endorsement, they regularly attract very considerable support.

For example, in the elections for California's two U.S. Senate seats last November, the independent candidates of three of the third parties won a total of almost a million votes in each race! Their collective totals in each race were larger than the total vote for U.S. Senator in New Hampshire and Vermont; or in North and South Dakota; or in Hawaii and Alaska; or in President Clinton's own Arkansas!

The Peace and Freedom Party came in first among the third parties in both contests; the American Independent Party came in next in both; and the Libertarian Party came in last in both. The Green Party did not run candidates for the U.S. Senate.

All four California third parties ran independent candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives last November; the Peace and Freedom Party and the Libertarian Party each got 15% of the vote in their best House races, and the Green Party got 10%.

If third parties in California were permitted to cross-endorse as we do here in New York State, these five parties would revolutionize politics in America's largest state. The very fact that they have been able to do so well for so long without cross-endorsement is dramatic proof of the vitality of the third party movement at the state level across the nation.

Meanwhile, here in the East, A Connecticut Party, the new third party founded two years ago by Governor Lowell Weicker, cross-endorsed for the first time last November, nominating Senator Christopher Dodd and other Democrats for re-election as well as running independent ACP candidates.

And in Vermont, New York-born Representative Bernard Sanders, repeatedly elected as Mayor of Burlington, Vermont's largest city, as a Socialist, won re-election to Congress as an independent, thereby retaining Vermont's single seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Electoral results by state third parties not only in New York, but also in California, Connecticut, Vermont, and elsewhere, together with the Perot showing nationwide, prove that more and more Americans are willing to think beyond traditional two-party politics.

Multi-party politics promotes and expands democracy by offering voters a broad field of candidates and programs. It has long done so in Western Europe, the British Commonwealth, and elsewhere—and it could and should do so throughout the United States.