LP Texas chairman Pat Dixon speaks about “spoiling” in the Texas Tribune, January 25, 2010:
Dixon doesn’t care if his candidates take votes away from the major parties. You can’t spoil an election if the mainstream parties are already rotten, he says. “[Spoiling] would be a concern if there were candidates on the ballot on either the Democratic or Republican parties who were really close enough that we would rather have them in office,” he said. Dixon pointed to the fact that Libertarians often do not run against U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, who represents the more libertarian element of the Republican Party, and who was the Libertarian Party candidate for president in 1988. Ironically, this year a Libertarian will be challenging Paul for his seat.
See also:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10665
Actually, if it’s Eugene Flynn again, my understanding is that he is an immigration rights attorney, and open borders are certainly not a trivial issue in South Texas. See http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/44651.html by William Grigg.
However, if I recall correctly, Texas Libertarians have declined to nominate Mr. Flynn in the past, preferring NOTA.
OOOOh no! Ted Brown is sounding like a pragmatist. How long until the ‘extremists’ purge him?
Libertarian Purity has been besmirched!!!
Besides, Ron Paul is not in favor of open borders, so he’s impure too.
What is this world coming to?
A smart move would probably be to run a Libertarian candidate in case Ron Paul gets defeated in the Republican primary. If not, withdraw the candidate.
I’m not sure what sort of election laws Texas has, especially regarding to “sore loser” laws, but otherwise Ron Paul might run as an independent or Libertarian in the general election if he loses the Republican nomination.
Not that it’s likely he’ll lose, but covering all your bases is a good idea.
I am really surprised that a Texas Libertarian would challenge Ron Paul. After all, Ron is certainly a libertarian on just about every issue I can think of, and probably the most prominent spokesman for our point of view in the entire nation.
“Ironically, this year a Libertarian will be challenging (Ron) Paul for his seat.”
As far as I know, the candidate is still running for the LP nomination, and could lose to NOTA if the state LP convention chooses not to run a candidate against Ron Paul.
Fine comments by Dixon.
I think, though, USLP should stop talking as if we’re the issue in “wasted votes” and start talking about the fact that we do win, we generally do a great job when in, and therefore that a vote for the other guy is the real wasted vote.
Dixon is a good example of how to do it: relevant platform to the issues of his area, lots of legwork, and community visibility.