Posted on 06/20/2004 6:55:30 AM PDT by Undertow
Vin Suprynowicz: Libertarians aim to 'cost Bush the election'
On June 14, the Seattle Times editorialized that the entrance requirements for the tedious, moribund, rigorously stage-managed turn-offs that today pass for our presidential "debates" should be loosened -- but not too much.
The paper's intent was to get Ralph Nader included. The solution? "It's time to reconsider the current format and the lock on presidential debates by the two major parties," the Times recommends.
Right on.
But wait. There still has to be "some cutoff point in voter popularity," the Seattlites immediately added. "Otherwise, George Bush and John Kerry would have to give equal network TV time to Michael Badnarik of the Libertarian Party and Walt Brown of the Socialist Party," warned the Seattlites, evidently palpitating from the effect of too much Starbuck's. "If the debates were opened up to such candidates, there might be dozens of them."
The correct level of perceived public support for admission into the debates? Fifteen percent is too high, but 5 percent would be too low, the Times figures. Ten percent would be just right.
"What a bunch of idiots," comments Richard Winger of the San Francisco-based Ballot Access News. "Walt Brown is not gonna be in the ballot in more than three or four states ... the most he can get is six."
Winger is the national expert on this stuff.
"It would be a mistake in my opinion to ever invite Walt Brown," Winger agrees, since "There are four socialist candidates" from the warring branches of the dying movement "and they'll each be on the ballot in a handful of states."
Which means none has even a theoretical mathematical chance of winning the presidency.
If that were the only standard -- ballot status in enough states to theoretically win the White House -- how many candidates would debate?
Five this year, Mr. Winger replies. The Democrat and Republican, Ralph Nader, Libertarian Michael Badnarik, and the nominee of the Constitution Party. "It's conceivable if the Greens are stupid enough to nominate somebody other than Nader, there could conceivably be six, at the outside."
Mind you, if the presence of Walt Brown and David Cobb of the Greens was the price I had to pay for some lively, interesting debates where George Bush and John Kerry had to confront new and common-sense ideas from someone as principled, personable and articulate as Michael Badnarik, an Austin-based computer programmer and freelance lecturer on the Constitution, it's a price I'd gladly pay.
But this "dozens of candidates" stuff is getting to be an awfully geriatric bogeyman.
The Libertarian Party will be on the ballot in at least 46 states, and possibly all 50. Every presidential cycle, the Libertarian Party spends a cool million dollars petitioning for ballot position in enough states to be in position to conceivably win the presidency.
Why don't the handlers of George Bush and John Kerry want to confront someone like Badnarik in a debate? Because he's a personable, intelligent, coherent, philosophically consistent freedom lover.
I don't think George Bush could bat .500 on that list -- though I'll give him "personable." I suspect Sen. Kerry might have a little trouble in the "philosophically consistent" section.
I had dinner with Badnarik and his campaign manager -- City Councilman Fred Collins of the Detroit suburb of Berkley -- last Friday at the historic La Posta restaurant in Mesilla, N.M., just south of Las Cruces.
Fred Collins sets impressively achievable goals for the campaign. He figures if he can raise a few million dollars for TV ads, and place them only in the swing states, he can poll a couple of percentage points for Badnarik and the Libertarians in those states -- and cost George Bush the election.
What's that? Badnarik is just some wing nut who hasn't been proven in the heat of any real political contest?
Actually, Badnarik is a political Cinderella story. A man of modest means, he spent the past year travelling the country, campaigning for the Libertarian nomination, in a '99 Kia Sephia. He and sidekick Jon Airheart, a former University of Texas student impressed with Badnarik's ability to sell the libertarian message, covered 24,000 miles, hitting 36 states. Although Badnarik says there were days when they counted their dollars to see if they could afford a room and a meal and still have enough to gas up and reach the next town, in the process he has gained enormously in poise and confidence as a public speaker.
Badnarik had raised and spent $33,000 as of convention time in Atlanta three weeks ago -- he couldn't afford to stay at the party's upscale convention hotel and instead had to drive in for the candidate debate from a Days Inn across town.
Entering the Libertarian Party convention, Badnarik was running behind late entry Aaron Russo, the former Nevada gubernatorial candidate and producer of the film "Trading Places," who promised to bring a lot more money and drama -- and thus, presumably, press coverage -- to the party's presidential campaign.
Russo was leading after a close first ballot. But if Badnarik campaign manager Collins could persuade radio host Gary Nolan -- running third -- to drop out and throw his support to Badnarik, a coalition of the "Anybody But Russo" forces might just pull off a third-ballot miracle.
Next week: Russo blows the nomination.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal and author of the books "Send in the Waco Killers" and "The Ballad of Carl Drega." His Web site is www.privacyalert.us.
Hang, or put, your head anywhere you choose.
I think Kerry belongs in front of a firing squad, but that doesn't mean that I should gleefully vote for a man who doesn't think that "Congress shall make no law. . . " is violated by signing CFR into law. Or pushes socialized medicine for greedy geezers in exchange for their votes. Or 'amnesty by any other name' for the Hispanic vote. On the Kennedy/Bush education bill to get the NEA vote. Or who promises to sign a renewal of AWB.
Sorry, you can vote for a man like that, but I won't.
That said, I believe in redemption and he has another 4 months to earn my vote by taking positive ACTION. In the meantime, unlike in 2000 he will NOT have my money, my vocal support, or anything else.
—Patrick Henry
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have removed their only firm basis: a conviction in the minds of men that these liberties are the gift of God?”
—Thomas Jefferson
“We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us ... to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”
—James Madison
And you can't vote for a person who signed a partial birth abortion ban, cut federal taxes, signed an education bill now hated by Ted Kennedy and the NEA becuase it includes standards, backed legislation to ban frivlous law suits against gun manufactures, killed the Kyoto treaty, etc.etc.
Nope you are voting for someone who is as socially liberal as Specter and is all for open borders.
All a terrorist can do is kill me. My own government can kill me, enslave me, or imprison me. The one area that I support Bush on is the overseas WoT. But he better realize NOW more than even before that we can't fight a war with PC rules. He needs to unleash the full might of the military because that is the only language that these things understand. His apologies for Abu Graihb (sp) did more to hurt us than the 'abuse' ever did.
"Would you prefer Universal Health Care? 40-50% tax rates on the people who've earned it? The return of Pre-1994 Welfare?"
You better watch when you throw out 'warnings' like that one. Universal Health Care? What do you call the Rx plan for geezers? Bush's tax cuts are a minor small step in the right direction but I see them more as a pacifier to the right than the real thing. The were small, delayed, and temporary. Better than nothing, but not much.
Why would I be excited about a man that is doing some of the very things that you are warning that I'll get? Saying that Bush is better than Kerry is like saying that getting slapped in the face is better than getting hit in the head with a baseball bat. It is, but that doesn't mean that I want it.
Unlike your candidate Badnarik, who wouldn't fight at all and beleives that 9/11 was America's fault.
There are at least two Republican Senators that would have been elected if losertarians hadn't siphoned off the margin of victory...<P. I know, I know. The losertarian votes wouldn't have automatically gone to the Pubs, but at the end of the day failing to elect Republicans gave the seat to a Democrat. And that advances the conservative agenda how?
Note: I voted Losertarian in the last congressional race when there was no Republican opposing the 'Rat. I can support some of the libertarian agenda, but political suicide to prove a point is beyond my grasp.
I'm a registered Libertarian, and I will crawl over broken glass to vote for Bush.
Don't tarnish us with a broad brush.
I left the Republican party to become a Libertarian, after Lott caved on the CWB treaty.
Yep and adults have the right to defend their life and property from any of the adults that get out of hand while under the influence. I have seen too many drunken brawls result from the adults right to ingest.
Nah! I'm an equal opportuinty attacker..
VOTE Kerry- Free arabic lessons for everyone..
VOTE Bush - Spanish lessons for eveybody, but NOT FREE..
Lott caved and then you caved.. OK. Why not the Constitution Party.?. the Libertarians are not for liberty they are for license, as I read them.. should call them Licenserians, like democrats are really socialists,,
Totally agree. I once was a card-carrying Libertarian. It was a few years back, I was in my mid-twenties, and I found the purity and consistency of libertarianism very appealing (the "non-initiation of force" principle is pure elegance). Unfortunately, libertarianism in its pure form isn't going to win any elections, which is why I've abandoned the Libbers and am now a gung-ho, straight-ticket Republican. If you want to accomplish anything, you have to line up where the ball is, and that's what the Republican party does (as the libertarians bicker on the sidelines about some bit of ideological esoterica).
I came face to face with the political hopelessness of the Libertarian party when I attended a dinner put on by the libertarian chairman of the state I was living in then. They were good guys, but a little eccentric and utterly guileless -- they certainly weren't ready for prime time. We'd be in big trouble if we had to rely on them to keep the Democrats in check. It was at that dinner that I saw the light and realized that the Republicans, as imperfect and impure as they are, are in the trenches doing the grunt work necessary to put together a political product that's broadly salable yet still contains a lot of solid ideological content. That's a commendable thing, and that's why I'm a Republican.
Libertarians have the luxury of being ineffective eccentric purists precisely because the Republicans are out there working hard, strategizing, getting their hands dirty, and when they have to, compromising. If in some sort of political rapture the Republicans were all whisked away to heaven and the Libertarians had to fill the void, you had better believe that they'd drop their purity pronto. They'd ditch a lot of their positions and start acting like Republicans.
Having said all of the above, I myself could be described as libertarian-minded to a degree. I hate giving the government money used to interfere with my life and spit on my values just as much as the next guy. I think the war on drugs is a bad joke, both because it is a collossal waste of resources and because I do not see the logic or morality of locking a guy away for five or ten years from his familiy and friends at tremendous taxpayer expense because he possessed drugs. But where the libertarians lose me, and lose me badly is on foreign policy; isolationism is a recipe for disaster.
Look at England. The UK has a two-and-a-half party system. That's basically all that can survive. But the EU elections were to be made by proportional representation. Hence the single-issue UKIP.
So, what happens is that third parties either become ideologically pure, where they exist only to advance a single issue in the media or they become full of weirdos who want to satisfy their egos or corrupt individuals who are looking for a way to draw a salary without doing real work.
If Libertarians were to come out with their main issue being the reduction of government and major tax reform, it might pressure pubbie candidates to move in that direction, but it won't get any Libertarians elected. And it won't bring donations into the party coffers. The LP has figured out that it can get a good deal of money coming in from pot users who want low taxes.
Libertarians for Bush have to be the truest patriots of all this election (equal with Black Republicans) . Good on you.
I quit the LP months ago because of their thick-headedness on the Drug War.
Did you watch any of their convention? So odd.
Actually something like this happens under NY state law. Parties can cross-nominate people and vote for a person under a different "line" than the way the candidate is preferrentially nominated. Reagan I think was nominated under both the Republican and Conservative Party lines in NY.
No it won't. Third parties in our electoral system don't do well simply because the two major parties cover most the important issues - there really isn't much room for them in the ideological sense. Third parties do well only when the two majors agree on major issues and the public disagrees with those positions. This is why the LP is becoming the Pothead Party - the two majors agree on drug policy and the only supporters of the LP become then people for whom drug policy is the most important thing in life. However, most people don't care that much about drug policy one way or the other so the majors don't spend a lot time campaigning on it.
My question though is constitutional, since in NY, your essentially voting directly for the canidate, just under different parties, but what if, under the constitution, you just voted for the slate committed to voting for the canidate, say a 3rd party slate that will vote for Bush, even if its got a canidate of its own.
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