Libertarians are big time spoilers in Gov races

Not to mention that Thune will probably lose South Dakota Senate seat by a smaller margin that the Libertarian in that race got...

So basically Libertarians brought 2 anti-gun governors, and possibly kept Daschle's clone in power. My question is why Libertarians run against good pro-gun candidates? I realize that there are other issues besides guns. Meanwhile people of Wisconsin have to wait another 4 years for gun licenses...

If every vote for a Libertarian came from the republican voters as you claim, explain were the other 220,000 prior republican voters went?

1998 WI Gubernatorial		2002 WI Gubernatorial
Tommy Thompson (R)	1,055,434	732,796	Scott McCallum (R)
Edward Garvey (D)	681,734	800,971	Jim Doyle (D)
Jim Mueller (L)	11,010	185,085	Ed Thompson (L)
All Other Third Party	17,190	52,161	All Other Third Party
Total Votes	1,765,368	1,771,013	Total Votes

This table tells a story, given that the total number of votes cast for Governor remained almost the same - in other words, the same people that voted in 1998 also voted in 2002.

This table also shows how the votes shifted.

The number of Republican votes dropped by 322,638.

The number of Democrat votes increased by 119,237, but the number of Libertarian votes increased by 174,075, for a total of 293,312 - not too far off the number of Republican votes dropped.

There's the shift. That's where Doyle's and Ed Thompson's votes came from - they came from McCallum, just like I said. And had those Ed Thompson voters voted for McCallum, instead of on an equally uncharismatic candidate who was destined to loose, we wouldn't be facing four years of Doyle.

The number of Republican votes dropped by 322,638.

And I still contend, no matter how you want to analyze it, the people you should be angry with is the state GOP. The votes were there 4 years ago. McCallum has been in office for 2 years.What happened? You can not possibly think the LP gained that much strength in 2 years.

The GOP of WI blew it big time.

On another note; you asked before about what big mistake McCallum made. Most of the LP votes came from northern WI counties, IIRC. The indian gaming problem IS a big issue in the smaller communities. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are lost by people travelling hours from their homes to go gamble. Yet a small business that wants to have elctronic games of chance is told they can not have the machines on their property. Not told that gambling is illegal, and if you're caught you will be arrested or fined. You can not own the machines in your business. It does not matter if you pay out cash to winners at all, you are not allowed to display a game that the state deems is against its better interest. Most of these small business men know they cannot fight the state and the large money the indians can toss at the problem, so they are left to watch potential customers drive down the road to spend they're cash.The state of WI waited until Tommy Thompson was gone (Ed Thompson fought this very issue as you know), to stomp on the small business groups.(almost all of which are family owned taverns and resturants.)McCallums made no friends with that move.

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