It is a political party even your grandmother would love.
Eat your fruits and vegetables, stop bickering, be creative, take responsibility for your own actions - all are basic tenets of the Natural Law Party, a new-to-Utah group that will field six candidates in November's election.Fundamentally, the party's approach is akin to the adage "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure," says Catherine Carter, chairwoman of the Utah Natural Law Party and candidate in Utah's 2nd Congressional District.
"The strongest distinguishing characteristic is we really feel strongly that all political parties have useful, creative solutions, but when they become embroiled in conflict it drains off creative energy into non-production directions," Carter said.
So what the Natural Law Party does is incorporate the best ideas from Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians - a political hybrid of ideas that cannot be pigeonholed.
Explained Carter, 45, "We have an approach that in some ways is more conservative than Republicans, and our approach to social problems is in some ways more liberal than the Democrats. And, like Libertarians, we are very committed to making people and states more autonomous, to honor the individual as well as the whole."
That makes it impossible, she adds, to label the Natural Law Party as conservative or liberal. For example, take abortion. The party is firmly opposed to government funding of abortions, putting the party on the Republican side of that debate.
"But we also believe that legislating what a person can and cannot do with their bodies is beyond the scope of what government can and should do," she said. And that position falls within the scope of the Democratic Party platform.
The Natural Law solution to abortion? "We are strongly committed to reducing the number of abortions through education, not legislation," Carter said. "We see a lot of the teen pregnancies occurring with girls who are dropping out of the system, who have no self-esteem and who are looking for something to feel meaningful in life. The way to stop the terrible number of abortions is by addressing teen pregnancy, and the way to do that is educationally."
The hallmark of the Natural Law Party, Carter says, is to prevent problems through pragmatic, proven solutions before problems become social crises. Instead of building more prisons for a burgeoning population of criminals, government efforts should be focused on helping teenagers and young adults stay out of a life of crime, through education and job opportunities.
Instead of health-care reform that puts more people on government programs like Medicaid, government efforts should be focused on preventing people from becoming sick - things like proper nutrition, physical fitness and strengthening immune systems
through natural foods and herbs.
Instead of building more lanes to I-15 to handle traffic, government leaders should be focusing efforts on alternate ways of getting people around. "Building more and more lanes of freeway is a short-term solution," Carter said. "And we have to look at what that does to our air quality."
On some key issues, the party is clearly on the liberal side of the spectrum. The party is in favor of education reforms, particularly in those areas seen as helping to prevent social problems down the road. It is in favor of developing renewable energy sources, it supports "sustainable" agriculture without a lot of pesticides, and it is adamantly against discrimination of any kind, consequently opposing what the Utah Legislature did to ban gay and lesbian support groups at schools.
On other issues, the party would seem conservative. It supports lower taxes, and it is firmly in favor of returning more decisionmaking to the state, local and individual level - a crusade of Republican Gov. Mike Leavitt.
As to gun control, "We are not opposed to private ownership of guns. But if people feel a need to arm themselves for protection, then something is very wrong," Carter said.
There are those who might see the Natural Law Party as the party of grown-up hippies still holding to the idealistic "we can save the world" platitudes of the 1960s.
"I can see how that might be a perception," Carter admits. "Obviously, the people in their late teens and early 20s during that time are in their 40s and 50s now. They are the main adult population now, and their experiences have had a shade of effect on their politics."
But, she said, the Natural Law Party has found appeal among far more than just aging baby boomers disillusioned with traditional party politics. It is a grass-roots movement of people of all ages who believe in conflict-free politics where everybody's idea is welcome and respected.
The party was started in the Midwest in spring 1992, and in its first election campaign fielded candidates in more than 30 states and qualified for federal matching funds. This election, it will field about 1,000 candidates in all 50 states, the largest number of candidates of any third party in the nation, Carter said.
In Utah, Carter is campaigning for the 2nd Congressional District in Salt Lake County. Randall Tolpinrud is running in the 1st Congressional District, in northern Utah; and Robert C. Lesh and William Scott Shields are candidates for governor and lieutenant governor, respectively. There are also two Natural Law legislative candidates.
Carter has no idea how many members of the Natural Law Party there are in Utah, but almost 1,000 people signed petitions to put the party on the November ballot.
"We have found that even though we are a small, fledgling party, wherever we speak people are very interested and thrilled at the positive aspect of our approach," she said. "People are very weary of gridlock, and they like our approach that takes the best of both parties."
Carter and the other Natural Law candidates have no illusions about winning in November. But they say the real victory will be through expression of creative ideas and solutions that might take root in the Democratic and Republican parties.
It was third parties, after all, that first planted the seeds that led to the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage and the minimum wage, she said.
"Hopefully we can infuse a vision that the more-entrenched political parties are afraid to stretch toward. If we get elected or not, it is the ideas that need to be brought forward."