Clymer.
LOL! Which would be why he and his people are running their ads only on conserative stations in Washington state...where the LP played spoiler before.
Badnarik will garner the fewest votes ever for a Libertarian Presidential candidate. I doubt he will recieve more than .05% of the vote, or 600,000 votes
I'd be more libertarian if they weren't as robotic as socialists, i.e. let the starving die, who cares, and when they go there'll be no more starving. Yes I know I'm oversimplifying but I had a fight with the woman and am cranky. Where's that cough syrup?
what a joke. If they want to have an impact they should run a candidate in the GOP primaries.
"The federal government's job is limited to three things, he said — national defense,"
Yet their position is basically open borders and amnesty. Yeah, that's a brilliant way to keep america safe!
While I hold a lot of walter E williams / goldwater type libertarian positions, I find it impossible to align myself with them at this time. They're acting like children who want a toy and have been told 'no' buy their parents.
Hmmm. I've never seen a whole rollercoaster track that was level and ground level.
And Nader has a much larger constituency. The Greens have sure been lackadaisical about making their applications to appear on the ballot, stick.
"I'm good enough, and I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me."
I'm a libertarian with a SMALL l, thank you. The national Libertarian Party is run by idiots who every four years waste millions of hard-won dollars for no purpose whatsoever.
And if I had to cast the deciding ballot between Bush and Badnarik, I'd vote for Bush without hesitation. Libertarians like Badnarik don't seem to understand that national defense is one of the few legitimate uses of government power, and that the War on Terror, including the war in Iraq, is an integral part of national defense.
Not if you're drawing only 25 people.
"We will continue to exist..."
Yes, but will anyone still care?
Voting Libertarian means never admitting that you're really a Demo-rat in disguise.
The problems with the Libertarian Party are almost to innumerable to do justice with a brief post. But let me try:
1) They make the perfect the enemy of the good;
2) They are unduly obsessed with drug legalization - to the extent that for a good portion of LP members, it appears to be the only bit of liberty they really care much about;
3) A good chunk of them (maybe a third or so) are anarchocapitalists in the Murray Rothbard mold who hold a philosophy that can ONLY work in a world where it is shared by 100% of the population;
4) They refuse to deal with the fact that until Libertarian Nirvana has descended upon us, nation-states DO exist, and therefore, such functions of the state as managing borders and providing a national defense are liberty-advancing, not liberty-diminishing activities;
5) They embroil themselves in interminable rambling debates on such wonderfully useful subjects as privatizing the military and the private ownership of nuclear weapons;
6) Too many of them fail to understand that there are some areas of public policy (e.g., abortion and the death penalty) with respect to which a libertarian framework of analysis simply isn't dispositive. That is, libertarians can properly take either view depending upon their personal and religious views.
7) Lots of them smell bad.
LNGOP'r
I predict Badnarik will be third. Nader and David Cobb will split each other votes. Bush hasn't angered the social conservatives, he stood strong on embronic stem cells and support the Federal Marriage Amendment, so not many will vote for Peroutka. Bush has however angered some fiscal/economic conservatives and some might vote for Bednarik.
I feel like the Libertarians have played their hand very badly in this election. In such an apparently tight race (whether it actually is or not is another matter), they could have gotten concessions from the Republicans in return for an endorsement - for example, such as say, stronger commitments to repeal income tax.
Running their own candidate was foolhardy and did not play to the strengths of the situation, and does nothing to advance libertarianism. Strategists, they're not.
Regards, Ivan
-"I'm a legitimate candidate from a legitimate party," he said."-
When you have to TELL people that, you're already in trouble.
Fellow Libertarians should not vote with the party this year. "Libertarian" Michael Badnarik is a dangerous fraud. Badnarik--who has taken tons of cash from the American Muslim Alliance (the group from which even Hillary returned the contributions) has disturbing ties to supporters of Islamic terrorism. The Muslims are using the "Libertarian" label to hurt Bush. Badnarik is a total phony. Libertarians should not be fooled by this Wahhabist stooge!
That libertarian person is a fool.