Libertarians

One of the unintended consequences of having the conventions so late, and with Texas’ ballot access law requiring candidates to file the necessary paperwork, is that (theoretically) neither McCain nor Obama will be on the Texas ballot this November.

But Bob Barr will.

Seen at Ballot Access News:

Section 192.031 of the Texas election code says that political parties must certify their presidential and vice-presidential candidates for the November ballot no later than 70 days before the general election. It says, “A political party is entitled to have the names of its nominees for president and vice-president placed on the ballot if before 5 p.m. of the 70th day before presidential election day, the party’s state chair signs and delivers to the secretary of state a written certification of the name’s of the party’s nominees for president and vice-president.”

This year, that deadline is August 26. […] At 2:30 pm Texas time, August 27, Kim Kizer of the Texas Secretary of State’s elections division says neither major party’s certification has been received in the Elections Division. The Executive Office of the Secretary of State refers all questions back to the Elections Division.

This year, neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party obeyed this law. See this link to the Secretary of State’s web page showing a blank for the Republicans and Democrats for president. It does show Bob Barr on the ballot; scroll down a little bit. If the Republicans have indeed filed, one wonders who they listed for vice-president, and why their filing is missing from the state web page.

I first heard about this from an interview XM130/POTUS08 had with Bob Barr this morning.   The host observed that if this sticks, Texas can’t be either red or blue….so, what color do Libertarians use?  Barr’s answer: “Gold.”

I’m sure that Ron Paul and his minions would be pleased with that color selection.

Seriously, I expect the Texas legislature to remedy the situation once the hangovers from the conventions have eased and they realize the goof that’s been made.

But it is understandable that folks like me, who are displeased with the games that have been played to solidify the D and R duopoly on power, including stringent ballot access requirements, derive some pleasure and find a little humor in the situation.

One bone of contention between “small ell” libertarians (including, somewhat, myself) and the Libertarian Party is that the LP seems rather nutty and unlikely to ever be a particularly effective organization.

I think Ron Paul might have similar thoughts.  Buried in the hoopla over his alternate convention event in Minneapolis/St. Paul during the GOP Convention is word that Dr. Paul is launching the “Campaign for Liberty“:

The work of the Campaign for Liberty will take many forms.  We will educate our fellow Americans in freedom, sound money, non-interventionism, and free markets.  We’ll have our own commentaries and videos on the news of the day.  I’ll work with friends I respect to design materials for homeschoolers.

Politically, we’ll expand the great work of our precinct leader program.  We’ll make our presence felt at every level of government, where just a few people with our level of enthusiasm can make a world of difference.  We’ll keep an eye on Congress and lobby against legislation that threatens us.  We’ll identify and support political candidates who champion our great ideas against the empty suits the party establishments offer the public.

I’ll say it again — I think Dr. Paul is rather nutty.  However, I’m not happy that the notion of fiscal conservatism and social liberalism (or at least tolerance) is so poorly represented on the American political stage.  So, if Dr. Paul’s Campaign can avoid descending into the land of unrealistic goals…more power to them.

Seen at CNN’s Political Ticker:

The former Georgia congressman — who left the Republican Party two years ago, citing differences over fiscal policy and concerns over civil liberties — was nominated on the sixth ballot at the party’s convention in Denver.

So, am I the only person to wonder, for all that Ron Paul’s supporters are accused of having tried to take over the GOP, conservatives seem to be gaining influence, if not taking over, the Libertarian Party?

A couple of days ago, there was confirmation that Democratic candidate for President, Mike Gravel, was joining the Libertarian Party. Quoting Third Party Watch:

“I’m joining the Libertarian Party because it is a party that combines a commitment to freedom and peace that can’t be found in the two major parties that control the government and politics of America,” said Gravel. “My libertarian views, as well as my strong stance against war, the military industrial complex and American imperialism, seem not to be tolerated by Democratic Party elites who are out of touch with the average American; elites that reject the empowerment of American citizens I offered to the Democratic Party at the beginning of this presidential campaign with the National Initiative for Democracy.”

My mind still boggles with the idea of Gravel as a Libertarian. I could see Gravel as fitting into the Green Party, but I have the distinct impression of Gravel as being far more authoritarian than would sit well with either “big-Ell” or “little-ell” libertarians.

Then, a little bit later, came word that Gravel wants to run for President as a Libertarian (quoting the New York Times:

Fed up with being excluded from the debates and otherwise marginalized, former Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska announced today that he will seek the Libertarian Party nomination for president.[...]

“By and large, I have been repeatedly marginalized in both national debates and in media exposure by the Democratic leadership, which works in tandem with the corporate interests that control what we read and hear in the media.

“I look forward to advancing my presidential candidacy within the Libertarian Party, which is considerably closer to my values, my foreign policy views and my domestic views. “

I can agree that Gravel doesn’t fit with the mainstream of the modern Democratic party, but Gravel on the LP ticket for President?! Just trying to imagine it gives me a severe headache. At first blush, the only things Gravel has in common with big-Ell Libertarians is an anti-war stance, and general wackiness.

So, I guess this means that Gravel will finally officially withdraw from the Democratic nomination race, in which he has still technically, if irrelevantly, been running?

So, in addition to the Democratic and Republican party presidential primaries, California also saw the Libertarian Party’s presidential primary on Super Duper Fat Tuesday. Third Party Watch shared some entertaining speculation about the results:

However, it appears that Smith was beaten by “write-in votes.” The 12 ballot candidates received a total of 13,750 votes statewide, out of about 80,000 who are registered statewide.[...]

A check of major counties shows that, in each case, the number of “write-in votes” exceeded Smith’s total. For example, in Los Angeles, the largest county in the state (making up a third of the state’s population) reported 2,157 write-in votes, compared to Smith’s total of 746.[...]

Unfortunately, the write-in votes will not be counted, since no one filed as an official write-in candidate, but one can make an educated guess as to what candidate LP registrants would write in.

So, maybe Dr. Paul was possibly a winner someplace, for someone? Sadly, it seems we’ll never know.

So, Ron Paul’s most loyal supporters have been promising that the Revolution would start any time now. First it was to be the Free State of New Hampshire. No, it was risk-taking Nevada that would throw its support to Ron Paul. No…contrarian Mainers would see the merits of Ron Paul.

Well, now it’s Alaskans. Even the Wall Street Journal (free link) is speculating on how Alaska and Ron Paul might be a match made in…well, the icebox, I suppose:

The libertarian-leaning candidate’s vows to slash federal spending and pull out of Iraq have attracted Mr. Paul a fervent following. While other long-shot candidates have dropped out of the race, Mr. Paul has been able to keep at it and hope for a surprise win because he has raised huge sums of money, largely from individual contributors over the Web.

Some of his more radical ideas, like abolishing taxes and letting people carry firearms in national parks, have kept him from rising above fringe status in most states. In Alaska, where residents don’t pay state income tax and often own guns for hunting and protection, his message has a more concentrated appeal.[...]

Mr. Paul needs all the help he can get. The Texas congressman—who placed third for president in 1988 when he ran as a libertarian—scored a third-place finish in Maine this weekend and a second-place finish in Nevada, with 19% and 14% of the vote, respectively, but has picked up few delegates. Alaska gives him a shot at getting a few more.

While there have been no official polls in Alaska, local pollsters and officials say Mr. Paul could garner at least 10%—and possibly upward of 20%—of the vote. That compares with 4% to 6% of the national vote, according to polls of Republicans.

Like most other libertarian-leaning moderate-minded folks registered as Republicans, I know that Ron Paul isn’t going to win the nomination. I’m voting for him on Super Tuesday only because I think parts of his message merit more attention…but the fact of the matter is that small-government, personal liberty-minded folks don’t really have a home in either of the major parties. We’ll be effectively un- or under-represented in political circles until an effective messenger comes forward.

And, while I welcome Ron Paul’s gospel-preaching…he’s not that messenger.

I realize that many folks would like to see Dr. Paul run as an independent, or for a third party (the Libertarians, the Constitutional Party, or a union ticket of the two). However, I’m not so sure that that’s the best idea (especially with anti-spending McCain currently in the most-likely-to-get-the-GOP-nomination position).

Instead, perhaps interested parties should work towards identifying a better messenger—someone who is respected enough in the country to have credibility, without some of the baggage that Paul carries (e.g., the content of his newsletters, allegations of his affinity towards and with the conspiracy theory crowd), or quite as much emphasis on 19th century failed economic theories?

Some of you may be aware of the Free State Project—a program by some “big-ell” and “small-ell” libertarians, frustrated with failing to achieve critical mass on the national scene, to get a bunch of similarly-minded folks to move to a smallish state, and use that as a base to influence local and state politics (and eventually to expand outward from there).

The state chosen to “take over” was New Hampshire. The thought is that if Free State Project members can make up 1% of the population of the state, that will be enough to to influence local and state politics in a more libertarian direction.

Some of the folks participating in the Free State Project have fulfilled their pledge to move to New Hampshire. So, Jason Sorens has taken a look at how they might have influenced the primary.

The punchline of the long article:

The main result from the regression analysis is that every additional Free Stater per 100 Republican primary voters resulted in approximately 2.5 percentage points improvement in Ron Paul’s share of the vote in that town. Thus, in Grafton, Free Staters represented 4% of Republican primary voters (we don’t know that they all voted, or voted Republican, or even supported Ron Paul, of course), and the model predicts that if no Free Staters lived in Grafton, Ron Paul would have gotten 13% of the vote, instead of 23% (23-0.4*2.5). [...] What that means that we definitely know that Free Staters influenced the election beyond their own votes.

Seen at Libertarian Underground –

An AP article appearing on the International Herald Tribune:

It’s been overlooked in the hoopla surrounding Thursday’s Iowa caucuses and next week’s New Hampshire primary, but Wyoming Republicans will caucus Saturday and choose delegates to the national convention in September.

Candidates have paid little attention to the state, though.

Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter and Ron Paul have passed through since September. Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain have not.

“Yes, there have been some appearances by the candidates in this state that otherwise wouldn’t have occurred this early in the process,” said Jim King, who teaches political science at the University of Wyoming. “But candidates are where the media are — in Iowa and New Hampshire.”

The same article at Fox News:

It’s been overlooked in the hoopla surrounding Thursday’s Iowa caucuses and next week’s New Hampshire primary, but Wyoming Republicans will caucus Saturday and choose delegates to the national convention in September.

Candidates have paid little attention to the state, though.

Only Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter have passed through since September.

“Yes, there have been some appearances by the candidates in this state that otherwise wouldn’t have occurred this early in the process,” said Jim King, who teaches political science at the University of Wyoming. “But candidates are where the media are — in Iowa and New Hampshire.”

While it’s not uncommon for umpteen revisions of a story to be released on a newswire, and it’s probably not unexpected to occasionally see news sites carrying one version of a story while others carry a different edition… when you consider the inconsistency of excluding Ron Paul from Fox News’ forum Sunday (but still inviting low-polling Thompson), the omission in the story above makes it tempting to speculate on excisions of Ron Paul from wire stories as being a reflection on Fox’s fairness and balance.

Seen at Good Will Hinton:

[M]any Americans believe Libertarians/libertarians (I’m making a distinction between those who belong to the Libertarian party and those who hold to libertarian ideologies) are outside of the mainstream in American politics. Some might even go so far as to call them nutjobs. I recognize that these are unfair and usually inaccurate stereotypes. Nevertheless they exist.

So you would think that an astute politician like Ron Paul would be aware of these negative stereotypes and do everything he could to avoid getting tagged by any of them. You would be wrong.

This was written, of course, in reference to Ron Paul’s response to the North American Union question in the recent YouTube debate, where he failed miserably to differentiate his assertion that he’s a nationalist from the accusation that he’s a New World Order conspiracy theorist.

While I did re-register as a Republican in order to try to keep the mainstream media acquainted with small-ell libertarianism a bit longer by boosting Ron Paul’s numbers…it’s getting harder and harder to maintain the willingness to hold my nose and vote for the guy in spite of the annoyingness of some of his base, and in spite of his faux pas’.

Donklephant observes in a roundup of coverage of Ron Paul’s Guy Fawkes feat:

In my experience, Ron Paul’s base is mostly made up of Libertarians who’ve been voting for Republicans who claim to be fiscally responsible, but now they’re hearing somebody who actually sounds like he’ll be responsible, both with their wallets and their lives, and they’re responding to that in historic numbers.

In short, not all Republicans are social conservatives or war hawks, and you’d do well to take note.

Hear, hear!

It’d be nice for there to be a few mainstream candidates who represent those folks who desire some fiscal responsibility, yet aren’t entirely repressive on social issues.