From Sam Rolley at Personal Liberty Digest:
Popular former New Mexico Governor and 2012 Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson has announced that he plans to launch another bid for the Oval Office in 2016, which could be a year for unprecedented libertarian success in the presidential contest.
Johnson, who made the announcement in a recent interview with Newsmax, says he plans to take on the challenge to offer voters a libertarian option more pure than Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), a libertarian-leaning Republican who has recently made strides toward more establishment GOP positions.
“On half the issues he’s right, but on the whole social issue thing…” Johnson said. “Look, libertarians are flaming liberals when it comes to social issues, when it comes to civil liberties. A woman’s right to choose, drug reform, immigration, marriage equality. He’s not there.”
Johnson told the conservative news site that this year’s midterm elections have has a lot to do with his decision to run again.
“The whole election is a big yawn. Who cares who wins, because nothing’s really going to change? It’s like a debate between Coke and Pepsi. They’re debating over which one tastes better,” he said.
Robert,
Neither. It was the willingness to bust his ass 24/7 to run a good campaign.
Was it the substance or the stunts that made Badnarik 04 better than expected for y’all, PF and TK? By stunts I mean the arrests and illegal driving, mostly.
I am confident that Nolan was told by Don Gorman what he needed to do to get the nomination. Certainly, with that change I would happily worked for Nolan, who was actively advocating for my local organization strategy. It was quite transparent. I am fairly sure it would have worked, because matters came very close as it was.
In retrospect, I think Badnarik turned out to be a better candidate than either Russo or Nolan would have been. And he’s the most recent LP presidential nominee that I could bring myself to vote for in the general election.
TLK,
Fair enough. My advice is in retrospect, ie if we knew then what we know now.
And so what if you cost Nolan the nomination? Badnarik turned out better than I expected.
Wish I could say that for Barr.
“There responses”
Should read, “Their responses…”
“Use whatever you can to maximum advantage, and spin it as negatively as possible, because the other guys sure will.”
I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of doing otherwise. At least part of my decision not to push the “Bob Barr says the state should distribute child porn” line of attack was that I didn’t think it would be advantageous to do so.
As you may recall, Steve Dasbach publicly blamed me for costing Gary Nolan the 2004 LP presidential nomination by getting down in the dirt. And others, not unreasonably, thought that this in turn cost my own candidate, Aaron Russo the nomination as well.
Is there a difference between “I agree with more of X’s positions more” and “I think Y is the superior choice AS A CANDIDATE to X”?
I’d say yes.
There’s a reason(s) why there’s no DRAFT RODERICK LONG movement (that I know of), for ex. He’s a philosopher, which is a role he plays pretty well. Hearing him present, however, I think few would say, “presidential timber.” If one is honest, I dare say.
“Thomas L. Knapp
November 6, 2014 at 3:04 pm
It would have been interesting to poll the subject of which delegates thought who was more libertarian in 2008.
Anecdotally, I didn’t meet a single person either before or after the convention who said ‘I like Bob Barr’s policy proposals better’ or anything of the sort. Every person who gave me a reason for supporting Barr cited his high name recognition and the fact that he was a former congressperson.”
This was my experience in talking to delegates who voted for Barr as well, and the same goes with Gary Johnson (although with Johnson, the general consensus was that he was more libertarian than Bob Barr).
I cited my objection to the Fair Tax plan as promoted by Bob Barr in 2008 and by Gary Johnson in 2012 at both conventions, and I did not encounter one delegate who voted for either of them who thought that the Fair Tax was a good idea. There responses to my objection of their candidate’s support of the Fair Tax was more along the lines of, “I agree with you about the Fair Tax, but we need to support _______________ (insert Bob Barr for 2008 and insert Gary Johnson for 2012) for the nomination because they will get more media attention and they will raise more money than the other candidates for the nomination.”
“And for the record, some of those sentiments were expressed by people who didn’t just support him in Denver but had actively encouraged him to seek the nomination and worked on his campaign. They were looking for a high-name-recognition candidate whom they thought could raise lots of disaffected Republican money.”
BINGO!
I spoke to convention delegates who wildly overestimated the name recognition and fund raising ability of Bob Barr and Gary Johnson. The same goes for Wayne Root. There were people at the convention who thought that Wayne Root was a bigger celebrity than he really is (which is not even close to being a big celebrity), and that he was richer than he actually is. I do not know what Wayne Root’s net worth is, but I’ve heard that it is in the $1 million – $3 million range (and this would include his house, his automobiles, etc…), probably not much more than that if my estimate is too low. This is technically enough to be considered to be rich, and it is nowhere near enough to have any effect on Presidential race, and this would be true even if he liquidated his entire net worth and put it into the campaign, and I’m not sure if he even spent any of his own money on the race. There were Wayne Root supporters who thought that he was this really rich guy that was going to put a lot of money into the race.
I knew many people here in Arizona that were opposed to Bob Barr’s nomination for the 2008 LP nomination. When I became aware of this opposition I decided that I should research the person so see what all the hubub was about. I read the only book I could find and was very impressed. I am still 99% happy with his time as a Libertarian Party candidate.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/342713.The_Meaning_of_Is
Barr and Root were both involved (pretty sure I got a handout about it from Steve G), but the first I heard of it was actually from Phillies, who referred to in oblique terms way before the whole thing was blown up into a public debate. As for slime I can understand your point, but we can see what unilateral disarmament gets us.
Doesn’t matter. It’s a political campaign. Use whatever you can to maximum advantage, and spin it as negatively as possible, because the other guys sure will. We got what we got for being nice guys, and you know what happens to nice guys.
We could have done it on Steve’s behalf then, or freelance. Where there’s a will there’s a way.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a big fan of dirty underhanded campaigning, although it can be fun. Just don’t be surprised what happens when you bring a foam bat to a gunfight. I may or may not like shooting people either, but you best believe I’ll do it if they are shooting at me and not think twice.
I thought about making a convention hall handout about “Bob Barr’s position on child pornography,” but I didn’t for two, possibly three reasons:
1) I didn’t want to descend to the level of slime involved (if I am not mistaken, it was Root’s campaign that trotted the whole thing out about Mary, with some really stupid attempts at plausible deniability);
2) I personally don’t disagree with Barr’s position there. Apparently Georgia state law is (or at least was at the time) written very inflexibly such that the state did in fact have a legal obligation to provide, on request by any citizen, copies of evidence in trials. Barr’s objection was that the judge in the case just decided the law didn’t apply to stuff he didn’t want it to apply to (pictures of minors engaged in sex). Barr wanted the law changed, I think. But he didn’t think it should just be violated.
3) This is the possible one — I think I mentioned the idea to Mary and she said no, for the reasons expressed in (1). But that memory could be incorrect.
I personally don’t like dirty personal campaigning much. I learned that in 1996 from the late Mike Harman when he was running against Roy Blunt for Congress in Missouri. Someone provided us with rock solid evidence that Blunt (who had just left the position of president of Southwest Baptist State University) was fucking around on his wife. I didn’t think OUR campaign should publish it, but I did suggest forwarding it to the Democrat candidate. Mike said no, campaigns should be about the candidate’s positions and ideas, not about their personal pecadilloes. I came to agree. (Blunt won the election and a year or two later divorced his wife of several decades to marry a lobbyist).
There may have been a few that came into the LP specifically for Bob Barr and left with him as well. But there were a lot more that I talked to that thought he had more star power than he actually does. I think a lot of people were also being unrealistic about how much he had changed ideologically.
There’s at least one other one, which was the stupid thing about women voting for her in large numbers just because she is a woman….which is rather insulting to women if you think about it, and even if it was true why wouldn’t they vote for Cynthia McKinney? I haven’t actually checked but as far as I know she has ovaries just as much as Mary does.
True, but how many delegates knew about that? Too bad we didn’t have a handout about that, in retrospect.
I haven’t decided who I would support for the 2016 nomination.
I want more people in the debate this time, if possible, and will do whatever I can to help all the campaigns for the nomination that I even halfway like be the best they can be.
It would have been interesting to poll the subject of which delegates thought who was more libertarian in 2008.
Anecdotally, I didn’t meet a single person either before or after the convention who said “I like Bob Barr’s policy proposals better” or anything of the sort. Every person who gave me a reason for supporting Barr cited his high name recognition and the fact that he was a former congressperson.
If anything, the remarks always or almost always came down to the exact OPPOSITE of thinking he was the better candidate in terms of principle or position. “Yeah, he was a warmonger and yeah, he authored the ‘Defense’ of Marriage Act … but he’s apologizing for that now and he’s the better candidate because people know his name.”
And for the record, some of those sentiments were expressed by people who didn’t just support him in Denver but had actively encouraged him to seek the nomination and worked on his campaign. They were looking for a high-name-recognition candidate whom they thought could raise lots of disaffected Republican money.
Interestingly, the one big ideological hit at Ruwart was that she “supported child pornography” because in one of her books she discussed the subject at a length that went beyond just screeching “evil.”
But in fact, Bob Barr himself had, in Georgia’s largest newspaper, publicly claimed that the state government of Georgia had a legal duty to provide child porn to any citizen on request. Not because he liked child porn but because it was evidence in a court case and therefore legally a public record (according to his interpretation of state law).
No, but a lot of us agree with them a lot more consistently than with Gary, and certainly way, way more than with Bob Barr.
Sure, some of them did, but a lot of other people voted for them just on the hopes that they would take us to the next level.
If I was voting purely on ideology, with no consideration for resume, personality, etc, I would have picked Wrights over Johnson. As it was, I “split the difference” and voted for Johnson for the presidential nomination, Wrights for the VP and gave my token to Jim Burns for both to try to get him in the debate. In 2008 I voted for Kubby til he was out, then Ruwart, and Kubby for VP… but then I had a lot more problems with Barr than with Johnson and was always a lot less wildly optimistic than a lot of delegates about either one’s breakthrough potential, especially Barr’s.
I don’t have any polling data but I know quite a few.
Yep!
And even if he was afraid of getting flak from his neighbors, how hard is it to not put up any bumper sticker? Most people don’t.
Sounds like a rather weak excuse.
”
Robert Capozzi
November 6, 2014 at 2:31 pm
‘a: who admitted to me that they did not agree with them [BB and GJ] on all of the issues…’
me: Did everyone who voted for MW or LW agree with THEM on all the issues?”
I do not know, but the general consensus was that they had a more libertarian platform than Barr and Johnson, but that the main reasons that people were not going to vote for them (and the other candidates) was because Barr and Johnson had greater name recognition and would have more potential to get media attention and raise money.
a: who admitted to me that they did not agree with them [BB and GJ] on all of the issues…
me: Did everyone who voted for MW or LW agree with THEM on all the issues?
“Robert Capozzi
November 6, 2014 at 2:03 pm
Andy, 100%, then? Not one of the BB or GJ voting delegates preferred their candidates position to MR or LW? They only voted for the starpower and fundraising potential?”
There might have been a few, but they would have been a small minority. I spoke to a lot of people who voted for Bob Barr and Gary Johnson at the conventions who told me that they knew that they were not hardcore libertarian, and who admitted to me that they did not agree with them on all of the issues, but they told me that they voted for them because they believed that their higher name recognition (as compared to the other candidates for the nomination) would lead to more publicity and campaign funds than what the other candidates for the nomination could get.
I spoke to delegates at the 2008 National Convention who really believed the line that Bob Barr was going to raise $35-$40 million, and some even believed that Bob Barr would get into the debates with the Democrat and Republican because Bob Barr was such a big name that they would not be able to ignore him. I thought that this was delusional, wishful thinking, and I turned out to be correct.
Andy, 100%, then? Not one of the BB or GJ voting delegates preferred their candidates position to MR or LW? They only voted for the starpower and fundraising potential?
”
Robert Capozzi
November 6, 2014 at 12:54 pm
‘a: They were rejected as candidates, not because of philosophy, but rather because of their lack of name recognition and lack of money to run a campaign for President.’
me: You state this definitively, but I wonder how you know this? You’d need some data of delegates saying, “I preferred Ruwart and Wrights as candidates, but I voted for Barr and Johnson for their name rec and relative fundraising potential.” What percentage of Barr and GJ voters held that view?”
I attended the 2008 and 2012 LP National Convention, and this is my assessment based on having been there, and everything that I’ve read and heard since then reinforces this assessment.
Nick,
“If your media guy is trying to fit into his neighborhood and not trying to change it, you need a different media guy.”
Exactly. We just moved back into our former home in Alpine (after being away since 1999). I put my ANDY MCCULLOUGH LIBERTARIAN for AG sign up in the front yard on day one — I want the neighbors who are Libertarian to connect with me, and the ones who aren’t to stay away.
If I were Catholic here (a 90+ percent Mormon neighborhood) I suppose I’d put up a bathtub Madonna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_Madonna).
The point is, IMO, to stand up for what you stand for, without compromise, without spin, without apology, with pride and a desire to create/join with a community of folks with the same values.
Joe
a: They were rejected as candidates, not because of philosophy, but rather because of their lack of name recognition and lack of money to run a campaign for President.
me: You state this definitively, but I wonder how you know this? You’d need some data of delegates saying, “I preferred Ruwart and Wrights as candidates, but I voted for Barr and Johnson for their name rec and relative fundraising potential.” What percentage of Barr and GJ voters held that view?
Yep, I agree with that too. As far as either myself of Andy can remember, the last time there was any real effort made by the party to recruit any was when we got involved, that is the petitioning for the 2000 elections (I got involved on the local level in Alabama before that, but if Ron Crickenberger had not been on the lookout for people like that to take us to other states it’s not likely I would have ended up on the road the last 14 years of my life).
I didn’t say you made it up. I believe you that he said it. My response was assuming that you relayed the information correctly.
Thomas Knapp said: “So let’s go with the most expansive definition offered: 22% of the American population as “libertarians.” That’s 30-some-odd million Americans. And yet at no time have more than 30,000 or so (1/1000th of the alleged “libertarian” population pool”) been committed enough to that even to fill out a form and mail a check for 25 bucks.”
This is because the Libertarian Party has never had the kind of money that it would take to reach out to this group of people. I believe that the Libertarian Party has the potential to be many times larger than it has ever been.
Thomas Knapp said: “I don’t agree with Perry Willis on a lot of things, but back in the late 1990s he made the point that the LP has a ‘thin bench’ of competent/skilled people for nuts and bolts political work. And he was right.”
The libertarian movement is a lot bigger than the dues paying membership ranks of the Libertarian Party, and it is also a lot bigger than the number of people who are registered to vote under the Libertarian Party banner. It is also a lot bigger than the number of people who vote for Libertarian Party candidates.
“Thomas L. Knapp
November 6, 2014 at 8:09 am
For the record, I agree with Andy that, whenever possible, the Libertarian Party should hire libertarians (preferably partisan Libertarians as well) to do Libertarian Party work, including petitioning. And I strongly suspect that there are enough people answering to that description who would be interested in and competent at petitioning work to make that happen.”
I do not want this to just be about petitioning for ballot access. I’m talking all aspects of work that the Libertarian Party needs done, from answering the phone at the national office, to accounting, to managing campaigns, to building websites, etc…. Whenever possible, actual libertarians should be doing this work. We should not have a Libertarian campaign for President where the “media guy” for the campaign is a Romney supporter. The Libertarian Party has been around long enough, and the libertarian movement is large enough, to where things like this should not happen.
Exactly. But when challenged on the amount of support for YOUR subcategory (MIHOP), you cite the total number of all categories in order to inflate the perceived support for yours … after having just called all those other sub-categories “fools” for not actually supporting your theory.
Look, I am glad that large numbers — majorities, even — agree with the LP on this or that issue. And I’m glad that significant minorities agree with the LP on several issues such that they could POTENTIALLY be converted into an LP voting bloc. And I’m glad that some of these people actually vote Libertarian. And I’m glad to be part of the very small “ideologically libertarian with some knowledge of what that implies” libertarian community.
But the fact remains that no, there is not some giant pool of Libertarian Party activists out there. We are historically and presently able to, at MOST, get even an exceedingly minor commitment — signing a pledge, writing a small check — out of a low-five-figure number of people from a nine-figure population. And in terms of major commitments — running for office, working large numbers of hours on campaigns, putting in the time to petition (volunteer or paid), we’re probably in the mid four-figures AT MOST.
I suspect that out of that four figures yes, there are enough to fully staff LP petitioning efforts with actual LP activists. And I’d love to see that happen. I’d love at the beginning of every election cycle for LPHQ to set aside money for ballot access petitioning in a way that includes recruiting Libertarian petitioners and not just paying them to petition, but paying them to take a fairly comprehensive class taught by people like Andy and Paulie on how to do it right, and then making sure that when they get out in the field, they are teamed with experienced Libertarian Party petitioners until they’re fully up to speed themselves.
Thomas Knapp said: “That being the case, how many of them are likely interested in doing the kind of hard work that Andy does — traveling from place to place based on the political agenda, standing outside in all kinds of weather, asking people to sign petitions, sometimes getting paid reasonably well and sometimes getting screwed by corrupt or incompetent bosses, etc.?”
You wouldn’t really need a lot of people to have all of, or at least a large majority of, Libertarian Party ballot access work to be done by actual Libertarians. I’d say that a team of 15 Libertarian petitioners could knock out every petition drive that the Libertarian Party has to do, if things were planned properly (as in if every LP ballot access drive started well before the deadline, and if there were strategies implemented (as I have suggested in other threads on this stie) to ensure that Libertarian Party petitioners had access to high foot traffic locations. Even if every petition drive did not start early, and even without any strategy to help Libertarian Party petitioners to gain access to high foot traffic locations, a small team of hard working, dedicated Libertarian Party petitioners could still knock out the vast majority of LP ballot access drives.
I have not seen hardly any effort to recruit Libertarians to work as paid petitioners since Ron Crickenberger sent out an email to the Libertarian Party email list that said that the party was looking for people to work as paid petitioners in various states back in the year 2000. This was 14 years ago.
The real reason that there are not more Libertarians going out and doing ballot access work is because there has been little to no effort put into recruiting Libertarians to do this type of work. The same as true for other aspects of work that the Libertarian Party needs to get done.
Oh, and just for the record, petitioners are almost always independent contractors, so technically, there are no employees or bosses, but rather parties to a contract.
“Andy’s doing the same thing here he does with “9/11 Truth.” On the one hand, he’ll assert that anyone who doesn’t agree with the “inside job” hypothesis is a “fool” and that there’s a huge movement of people who agree with him. Then when it’s pointed out that in fact very few people are actually on record as agreeing with the “inside job” hypothesis, he’ll trot out a bunch of people who “want a new investigation,” treating them AS IF they agreed with the “inside job” hypothesis for the purpose of massively inflating the population of people he can co-opt as agreeing with him.”
There have been multiple surveys conducted that show that a significant number of Americans do not buy into the official government story about 9/11. Not a majority of the population, but not a trivial number either. Now out of those who do not believe the official government story about 9/11, there are different subcategories. Some people have broken it down to MIHOP and LIHOP, and in there are those who believe that the government Made It Happen On Purpose, and there are those who believe that the government Let It Happen ON Purpose, and then out of these groups, there are different subcategories. There are also those who do not believe the official government story about 9/11 who think that the government just screwed up, or that they screwed up and are lying to cover up for screwing up.
So just like there are subcategories of libertarians, there are subcategories of 9/11 Truthers.
For the record, I agree with Andy that, whenever possible, the Libertarian Party should hire libertarians (preferably partisan Libertarians as well) to do Libertarian Party work, including petitioning. And I strongly suspect that there are enough people answering to that description who would be interested in and competent at petitioning work to make that happen.
As for what I know about the petitioning business, I admit I’m no expert. I’ve been involved in hiring petitioners, I’ve hung out with some paid petitioners a bit and I’ve done volunteer petition circulation (starting in 1992 with Ross Perot; gathered all of my own signatures for my 1997 city council run; etc.). I suspect I know a little more about it than Andy believes I know, but a lot less than Andy himself knows.
All that said, let’s not inflate the numbers beyond reason.
IIRC, in all the years of the LP’s existence, perhaps 150k Americans have cared enough about the LP to “join” by filling out a form. At any given time, no more than about 30k have cared enough about the LP to become “sustaining members” for a year by forking over $25.
The population of PARTISAN LIBERTARIANS is smaller, not larger, than the vote totals of Libertarian candidates because a lot of our votes come from people affected or disaffected over one or two issues in a given election cycle, and some others come from general contrarians who will always vote for whatever third party candidate is available rather than for a Republican or Democrat.
I would be very pleasantly surprised if a poll was done showing that as many as a million Americans both described themselves as “Libertarian” for party affiliation and could correctly answer two out of three questions regarding what that means in terms of what the party calls for. And usually at least half of those will desert the Libertarian candidate for office the first time a Republican waves the Lesser Evil Voodoo Doll in their faces, which probably means they’re not committed enough to the partisan cause to take up the cross of real party work like petitioning, which involves a certain amount of dedication and sacrifice.
“Robert Capozzi
November 6, 2014 at 6:45 am
a and tk, it seems you are talking passed one another. I’d say TK’s about right…NAPsolutist/ZAPsolutist Ls are pretty rare, likely less than 1% of the pop.
However, I got the impression that there were candidates for nomination who are NAPsolutists in the last 2 cycles…Ruwart and Wrights. Both were rejected for heretics with resumes, from a NAPsolutist perspective.”
They were rejected as candidates, not because of philosophy, but rather because of their lack of name recognition and lack of money to run a campaign for President. Barr and Johnson won the nomination because they had greater name recognition and it was perceived by the delegates who voted for them that they’d be able to raise more money and get more media attention than their opponents for the nomination.
tk: for any particular purpose, I can be easy to get along with on definition, but there has to BE a definition, not 50 different definitions, if any purpose is to be served in a discussion.
me: First, yes, I’ve fed back to Andy in the past that he can deflect or otherwise be evasive, and this is another example.
As for definitions, it would be nice and neat if there were 1 definition, especially for politics and political philosophy, which involves layers and layers of constructs, perceptions, and opinions. It feels like a set up for failure to expect such precision.
It’s why I coined the term “lessarchist.” It allows for a wide inclusion of people who prefer peace to force in human action and the institutional arrangements that facilitate such interactions.
That all said, I take Andy’s point that using lessarchists as political operatives for L politics makes sense to me. Whether there are any equipped to run national campaigns…dunno.
Using operatives who have bumper stickers for opponents for neighborly reasons doesn’t pass my smell test. I call bullshit on that one.
“Thomas L. Knapp
November 6, 2014 at 6:29 am
So you think that occasionally voting for a Libertarian candidate, or checking off a few particular boxes about this or that issue, defines being a ‘libertarian?'”
Many libertarians do not vote, and are not even registered to vote.
“I suspect that by the latter standard, you don’t have a problem on the petitioning thing, then, as most of the ‘mercenaries’ you dislike would probably ‘lean libertarian’ according to that poll.”
First of all, you know so little about the petition business that you really have nothing on which to base this statement (and I would say that most mercenary petitioners are not what I’d call libertarian, most of them are more in the category of people who will do anything for money).
Second of all, there are obviously different levels of being a libertarian. If you look at the Nolan Chart, those at the top of the diamond would be the most hardcore libertarian, and as you go further down the diamond people in the lower sections of the libertarian quadrant would be more moderate libertarian.
I don’t think that anyone really knows how many libertarians that there are in this country, but I’d be willing to bet that the number is a lot higher than what is reflected in Libertarian Party vote totals.
Just to play Devil’s Advocate, let’s say that the number of libertarians in this country is less than half of the 1% of the population that I talked about above (and I think that the real number is higher than 1% of the population). Let’s say that it is less than half of the number that I gave above. That could still be 1.5 million people. So out of 1.5 million libertarians, are you telling me that you could not find say 12 or 15 people to work on Libertarian Party petition drives? Are you telling me that you could not find a few dozen more people to do other aspects of Libertarian campaign work? If so, I call bullshit on that.
For Paulie’s 4:41 AM post…
Gary Johnson made the quote “nobody broke any laws” (reference mortgage fraud) on stage at the Libertarian Presidential debate in Florida 11 Feb 2012. It was recorded and played back on the Karl Denninger blog (who was working for Libertarian Presidential contender Bill Still) and could be found on YouTube in a couple of places too. I was also there when he said it, and it gave me great consternation because I saw this as one of the great means for the LPF to make headway in economic policy.
.
Robert,
Well, that’s the thing … for any particular purpose, I can be easy to get along with on definition, but there has to BE a definition, not 50 different definitions, if any purpose is to be served in a discussion.
So far as I can tell, Andy is an ideological libertarian and when he talks about hiring libertarians instead of mercenaries, he is referring to ideological libertarians. But when it’s pointed out that there are very few ideological libertarians, then all of a sudden anyone who’s ever walked past a library while three LP members were having their monthly meeting inside is a “libertarian” for counting purposes.
Andy’s doing the same thing here he does with “9/11 Truth.” On the one hand, he’ll assert that anyone who doesn’t agree with the “inside job” hypothesis is a “fool” and that there’s a huge movement of people who agree with him. Then when it’s pointed out that in fact very few people are actually on record as agreeing with the “inside job” hypothesis, he’ll trot out a bunch of people who “want a new investigation,” treating them AS IF they agreed with the “inside job” hypothesis for the purpose of massively inflating the population of people he can co-opt as agreeing with him.
So let’s go with the most expansive definition offered: 22% of the American population as “libertarians.” That’s 30-some-odd million Americans. And yet at no time have more than 30,000 or so (1/1000th of the alleged “libertarian” population pool”) been committed enough to that even to fill out a form and mail a check for 25 bucks.
That being the case, how many of them are likely interested in doing the kind of hard work that Andy does — traveling from place to place based on the political agenda, standing outside in all kinds of weather, asking people to sign petitions, sometimes getting paid reasonably well and sometimes getting screwed by corrupt or incompetent bosses, etc.?
I don’t agree with Perry Willis on a lot of things, but back in the late 1990s he made the point that the LP has a “thin bench” of competent/skilled people for nuts and bolts political work. And he was right.
a and tk, it seems you are talking passed one another. I’d say TK’s about right…NAPsolutist/ZAPsolutist Ls are pretty rare, likely less than 1% of the pop.
However, I got the impression that there were candidates for nomination who are NAPsolutists in the last 2 cycles…Ruwart and Wrights. Both were rejected for heretics with resumes, from a NAPsolutist perspective. This is proof positive that the LP has been infiltrated by R operatives or CIA plants or worse!
Somewhere pushing toward 25% of the pop are lessarchists. They are insufficiently principled, consistent, or reliable to hold the banner of the cult of the cadre. Certainly they can’t be relied on to execute the Leninist strategy! 😉
So you think that occasionally voting for a Libertarian candidate, or checking off a few particular boxes about this or that issue, defines being a “libertarian?” I suspect that by the latter standard, you don’t have a problem on the petitioning thing, then, as most of the “mercenaries” you dislike would probably “lean libertarian” according to that poll.
Let me put it this way: If the Libertarian Party can’t find a libertarian presidential slate, or a majority of national convention delegates to support such a presidential slate, out of its own very small and self-selected population, it seems to me that the situation “out there” is probably even worse.
“Thomas L. Knapp
November 6, 2014 at 6:00 am
If even 1% of Americans are libertarian, that would be over 3 million people.”
And if even 1% of Americans were leprechauns, that would 6 million little black leather buckle shoes.
But I’ve seen no evidence that even 1% of Americans are libertarian.”
Gary Johnson received over 1.2 million votes in 2012. Ron Paul received 1-2 million plus votes in the Republican primary.
Here is a poll that says that 22% of Americans are libertarian, or lean libertarian:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/10/29/poll-22-percent-of-americans-lean-libertarian/
The real number of libertarians in this country is much higher than what is reflected in Libertarian Party vote totals.
If even 1% of Americans are libertarian, that would be over 3 million people.”
And if even 1% of Americans were leprechauns, that would 6 million little black leather buckle shoes.
But I’ve seen no evidence that even 1% of Americans are libertarian.
I’ve never really heard him make it a talking point. He does answer the question when asked.
“Yet prison privatization is a popular conservative example of free markets operating more efficiently than government – even though the prisoners are delivered by government (along with guaranteed minimums!) and the companies are therefore not seeking earnings on the market by pleasing consumers, but seeking contracts by pleasing governments. I stand against prison privatization, and for massive reductions in prison populations by the elimination of unjust laws. What is New Mexico’s record on this?”
One of Gary Johnson’s talking points about his accomplishments in New Mexico is all of the prisons that he privatized.
True, but there was no announcement.
Prisoners are not customers of private prisons, they are inventory and (involuntary) labor. States are the customers.
Not good.
Proponents of private prisons such as Johnson argue that the operation of prisons is a separate issue from reducing prison population by eliminating unjust laws, which he says he is for. I presented him with evidence that private prisons have lobbied to put more people in prison and keep them there longer, but he said they never did that to him in NM and that the employee unions of prison guards at government-run prisons are the bigger lobbyist for harsh sentencing and victimless crime laws. You could continue to press the argument if you debate him at state conventions next year and/or 2016.
Rand Paul is certainly far from ideal on foreign policy, but he wants to take it in a less bellicose direction as compared with most establishment Democrats and Republicans who have climbed as high up Mt. Doom as he has. For that matter he is also relatively better than most high ranking Republicans on both social and economic issues.
I agree with Gary that he is relatively better than Rand Paul on social issues.
” Harry Browne didn’t do as well his second time out. ”
Harry Browne did not do as well his second time out because he was in a race against two higher profile minor party candidates in Ralph Nader (and note that while Nader did run in 1996, Nader’s 2000 run was better organized and had more funding) and Pat Buchanan, and also because the race between Al Gore and George W. Bush was considered to be a close contest.
I think that Harry Browne would have done much better running for President had he been alive and running in 2012 than he did in 2000.
Excellent point.
Another excellent point.
I agree that Gary is not as solid as Harry Browne was ideologically but that is a long way from saying he is indistinguishable from the establishment Demopublicans. The best way to get him to reconsider his positions is by running against him for the nomination. As a politician, he responds to pressure. Someone like me can talk his ear off and he may tell me my ideas are good (which could just be blowing smoke up my ass) but he has no incentive to actually change his public positions in response to my arguments.
I don’t think they will. Someone like Jesse Ventura or Judge Napolitano conceivably could, but they are a lot less likely to seek the LP nomination. I hope that activists such as Joshua, Darryl and some of the others you mention if they decide to run, do run a strong and vigorous race for the nomination and help raise the bar for whoever our nominee ends up being. I think the odds are against the relatively less well known activists, but they have a lot to add to the contest for the nomination. For example, I think Lee Wrights running for the nomination in 2012 made Gary Johnson a better candidate, which Gary said himself – and before Andy starts, that’s true regardless of what you think of Wrights as a person, his stints on the LNC, his personal life, his aborted run for Governor of Texas or anything else about him.
Well, I certainly disagree with that position, but then I don’t remember him saying that, either, and I followed the campaign very closely. So, while that’s far from helpful, if even I don’t remember that, it’s not likely to have hurt very much. If he keeps saying that (which I have not heard him do) I’ll do my best to convince him that is incorrect.
“Nicholas Sarwark
November 5, 2014 at 6:01 pm
If your media guy is trying to fit into his neighborhood and not trying to change it, you need a different media guy.”
I totally agree.
“Thomas L. Knapp
November 5, 2014 at 5:59 pm
‘The libertarian movement in this country is not big enough to where it is a majority, but even so, it is still a pretty big movement, and there are several million people in this country who are libertarians, and who know that they are libertarians.’
They do a pretty good job of hiding themselves, then.”
If even 1% of Americans are libertarian, that would be over 3 million people. The latest population figure that I’ve seen for this country, has the population at 318,968,000 people. 1% of 318,968,000 is 3,189,680. I think that the 1% figure for percent of the population of this country that is libertarian is low (as in I think that the percentage is higher than this), but even going with this number, 3,189,680 libertarians is a lot of people. Now you expect me to believe that out of 3,189,680 libertarians, you could not find a few dozen of them to work on campaigns? I don’t buy that. I think the real reason that there are not more libertarians doing libertarian campaign work is due to laziness and lack of foresight from the people who are doing the hiring on libertarian campaigns (some of it may be due to internal sabotage as well, but this is another discussion).
If your media guy is trying to fit into his neighborhood and not trying to change it, you need a different media guy.
“The libertarian movement in this country is not big enough to where it is a majority, but even so, it is still a pretty big movement, and there are several million people in this country who are libertarians, and who know that they are libertarians.”
They do a pretty good job of hiding themselves, then.
Thomas Knapp said: “There’s a shortage of libertarians, period. It may be that there’s just as high a percentage of libertarians qualified to do campaign work as there is a percentage of other political movements qualified to do campaign work, but libertarians are somewhere in the neighborhood of 1% of the population — and that estimate may be a little high.”
I totally disagree. I’ve seen it for years on LP ballot drives and on petition drives for libertarian ballot initiatives. There is zero, or close to zero, effort put into hiring actual libertarians to do this work. It is quite funny, because every time I’ve been in a position to hire petition circulators, I’ve ALWAYS been able to hire actual libertarians. Have I ever hired non-libertarian mercenaries? Sure, but on anything where I’ve done the hiring, most of the work has been done by actual libertarians, and sometimes all of the work has been done by actual libertarians.
I think that the truth of the matter is that most of the people in “management” positions in the Libertarian Party, or on libertarian ballot initiatives, are either too lazy to implement a pro-libertarian hiring preference, or they lack the foresight to even understand why this is important (in which case, they really should not even hold a management position in the first place).
I can give a little more leeway on ballot initiatives than I do with Libertarian candidates, because initiative petition drives typically take a lot more signatures to qualify than the number of signatures needed to qualify Libertarian candidates for the ballot, and also because the proponent of a libertarian ballot initiative may not necessarily be a libertarian themselves, as in they may support liberty on whatever issue they are trying to get on the ballot, but they may not support other initiatives. However, even when it comes to ballot initiatives, I can point out several instances where an initiative campaign was headed up by somebody who is a libertarian, yet they still farmed most of the work out to non-libertarian mercenaries.
The libertarian movement in this country is not big enough to where it is a majority, but even so, it is still a pretty big movement, and there are several million people in this country who are libertarians, and who know that they are libertarians. Not all of them are dues paying members of the Libertarian Party, and not all of them are registered to vote under the Libertarian Party banner, and a lot of them are not even registered to vote at all. I believe there is a big enough pool of self identified libertarians in this country, to where the majority of campaign work on Libertarian campaigns could be done by actual libertarians.
Haven’t read the thread so someone may have said this already but Gary did not announce, nor did he say anything different from what he has been saying for quite a while.
“I totally disagree with your statement that there is a shortage of libertarians who know about electoral campaigns, or who are willing and capable of learning. There are plenty of philosophical libertarians out there who are just as qualified, and in some cases more qualified, than any Republican, Democrat, or apolitical mercenary are to do all aspects of campaign work.”
There’s a shortage of libertarians, period. It may be that there’s just as high a percentage of libertarians qualified to do campaign work as there is a percentage of other political movements qualified to do campaign work, but libertarians are somewhere in the neighborhood of 1% of the population — and that estimate may be a little high.
“Gene Berkman
November 5, 2014 at 4:12 pm
Andy – find some actual philosophical libertarians who know anything at all about electoral campaigns. Please.
Until you can do that, candidates will get staff that is either philosophically good, or competent at running a campaign. Or sometimes neither. But so far, finding someone that is both is tough.”
I totally disagree with your statement that there is a shortage of libertarians who know about electoral campaigns, or who are willing and capable of learning. There are plenty of philosophical libertarians out there who are just as qualified, and in some cases more qualified, than any Republican, Democrat, or apolitical mercenary are to do all aspects of campaign work.
It is not as though the Republicans, Democrats, and apolitical mercenaries are doing a great job when they work on libertarian campaigns. If anything, I’d say that the opposite is true.
Also, hiring philosophical libertarians to do all aspects of campaign work on libertarian campaigns means that you will build up a team of people who are experienced at working on campaigns, and who really believe in what they are doing and are not just out for money, and yes, this makes a big difference in the quality of the work that is done.
Andy – find some actual philosophical libertarians who know anything at all about electoral campaigns. Please.
Until you can do that, candidates will get staff that is either philosophically good, or competent at running a campaign. Or sometimes neither. But so far, finding someone that is both is tough.
How about hiring actual philosophical libertarians to work on Libertarian campaigns, instead of hiring Republicans, Democrats, or apolitical mercenaries?
This is something that I’ve been preaching for years, yet nobody seems to listen.
“Joe Hunter (Romney for President bumper sticker while being Gary’s ‘media guy’ (are you kidding me?!?! — said he needed to fit into his neighborhood),”
This sounds like a BS excuse to me. No bumper sticker on his car would have been better than a Romney bumper sticker on his car.
“Bondurant
November 5, 2014 at 11:47 am
RE: Joe Hunter
I would never trust anyone so excited by Mitt Romney that they would put a campaign sticker on his car.”
I agree.
RE: Joe Hunter
I would never trust anyone so excited by Mitt Romney that they would put a campaign sticker on his car. At least I can understand why Obama zombies put the HOPE stickers on theirs. Challenge the integrity and intelligence of anyone exited by the dullard Mitt Romney.
On a more serious note, let’s send an actual libertarian to the ballot in Orlando. Much respect to Johnson but his ship has sailed. He’d be better served as a reformer within the GOP.
Joshua,
“The Republicans are not for free markets – they use the term to mean corporate privilege. They use the term to refer to a tax regime that, instead of lifting the onerous burden from our shoulders, shifts it instead onto the poor via a consumption tax. ”
Score one for Joshua in this debate. The idea that “Rand Paul is half right” is half-assed at best.
Governor Johnson had his chance. He’s certainly libertarian-leaning; he was far from the worst POTUS candidate the LP has ever had, he might even have been one of the better ones (top half anyway), but he has shown repeated critical unrecoverable flaws and should not, IMO, get a second change, bite at the apple, shot, whatever NOT ONLY because of his lack of hard-core libertarian political philosophy, but ALSO because of the lack of transparency in his campaign, muddy fundraising, selection of state directors (Burke in Oregon for example), republican connections (Roger Stone, Judge (police are heroes) Grey, Joe Hunter (Romney for President bumper sticker while being Gary’s “media guy” (are you kidding me?!?! — said he needed to fit into his neighborhood), and general ineffectiveness at a very high cost of his chief consultant Ron Nielson, etc.
The delegates will get to decide, and let’s hope after two former republicans switched to the LP to gain its POTUS nomination WE WILL NOT DO THIS AGAIN.
Joe
jk: It positions us as a grab-bag.
me: Agreed. Hence I offered GJ and all a tweak that may work better.
jk: we’re not describing libertarian economic policy.
me: There’s no such thing, to be precise. Why? Because Ls are not MAKING policy. To do requires getting elected. Ls DO make economic policy proposals, and almost none are adopted. Last one I can think of was airline deregulation in the 70s, by the Ds!
tk: What is a “fiscal conservative?”
….
Why? Because conservatism per se can mean one of two things:
1) Maintaining the existing status quo; or
2) Returning to some previous status quo.
me: Right, it’s not precise. It’s a headline, a way to give people a sense of what L means. It’s a sound-bite world, in some ways, sadly so.
And, yes, again literally, “conservative” can mean what you say. When I use economic or fiscal conservative, socially liberal, I mean — and I think most understand me to mean — that I’d like to see the government smaller.
In my case, I would not like to “go back” to anything. I’d like to see PROGRESS. To me that would mean steady improvements toward a more peaceful, more voluntary, political arrangement. When doing politics, that means the time horizon is bounded by, say, what can plausibly be accomplished in 5 years.
ATC, were I in Congress, I would vote against a Taft-sized state, were such a budget for next year ever to get to the floor. Why? Because it would create far too much dislocation. Of course, neither will happen, since — barring the Frankel Singularity — change happens in rather small increments.
I’ve made my peace with this fact. I invite members of the cult of the NAPsolutist state(lessness) to consider the benefits of such a stance.
“We don’t toss crumbs to the poor to prevent rebellions”
This was one disagreement I always had with my union comrades back when I was a United Food and Commercial Workers member.
AFL-CIO unions were always pushing minimum wage increases, “saving” Social Security and getting socialized health care, and I considered all three of those things to be very anti-union.
“Secondary interventions” are there to, as you put it, toss just enough crumbs that the people feeding on those crumbs are unwilling to RISK the crumbs for something better.
Repeal minimum wage, food stamps Social Security, Medicaid and you’ll see union organizing in virtually every low-wage industry for good wages, good retirement, good health insurance instead of “oh, no … if we go on strike I might lose the pittance I make now!”
1. Fiscally conservative, socially liberal sets conservative and liberal as, in a sense ‘defaults.’ It positions us as a grab-bag.
2. Even if we expand fiscal beyond what the word actually means, and use it to entail the conservative approach to economic policy – we’re not describing libertarian economic policy. Conservatism grew out of a desire to lessen the equalizing impact of the industrial revolution. It hearkens back to authority and tradition. It is a defense of the “primary regulation” that shifts the playing field to the rich, but the cry of “no!” when it comes to secondary regulation. It’s not about free markets, it’s about socialism for me, free markets for thee. It is the economic policy of bailouts, subsidies, tariffs, and regulations on home-brewing. It is the economics of big business.
3. Libertarianism is the only approach that will actually help the poor. We don’t toss crumbs to the poor to prevent rebellions, we don’t tilt the economy to the rich, we don’t want to arrest the poor for every attempt to climb out of poverty or create a dependent underclass. The reason our policies do not resonate with those who are concerned with the poor is because we insist on linking them to conservative “don’t care” attitudes, and then mumbling something under our breath about charity. Let’s loudly and proudly proclaim – freedom works for the poor, conservatism and liberalism don’t!
“Rhetorically, if there’s a better term than ‘fiscal conservative’ that the public can easily grok, I favor substitution.”
Well, we certainly need one, if for no other reason than that “fiscal conservatism” is meaningless.
What is a “fiscal conservative?”
Well, in 1920, 1940 or even the early 1950s (Taft) a “fiscal conservative” would have called for sticking to (earlier) or returning to (later) minimal military spending and not getting involved in expensive foreign military adventures.
Today, most “fiscal conservatives” call for regular annual increases in the “defense” budget.
In 1920, 1940 or even as late as the 1950s, a “fiscal conservative” would have fought against the inception of (earlier) or for the repeal of (later) Social Security.
Today most “fiscal conservatives” talk about “saving” Social Security.
Ditto Medicare — “fiscal conservatives” fought tooth and nail against it in the mid-1960s, but try to find one who will lay a finger on it today.
Why? Because conservatism per se can mean one of two things:
1) Maintaining the existing status quo; or
2) Returning to some previous status quo.
So “fiscal conservatives” today consist of three groups in descending order of size:
1) The ones who just want to keep the ball rolling the way it seems to be rolling.
2) The ones who want to push the ball back by perhaps 5 or 10 years.
3) The equivalent of the Jacobites, who want to push the ball back 50 or 60 or 80 or 100 years.
It just so happens that “small government libertarians” resemble group (3), but that is a tiny rump group of “fiscal conservatives.”
Most “fiscal conservatives” aren’t anything like that.
When Libertarians call themselves “fiscal conservatives,” most people who are actually for smaller government (the people we are trying to get the support of) are going to think “oh, like Paul Ryan — the guy whose MASSIVE GOVERNMENT CUTTING budget proposal called for continuing to increase spending for at least 10 years and for balancing the budget in 20 years.”
I like Mr. Capozzi’s answer. It is time to stop saying the LP is “like” one party one on thing and the other party on the other. Neither old party is really like what LPers are claiming to be “like.”
Let’s say what we are for, without reference to the other parties. If someone says, “Oh, you
are like the GOP on limited government.”, we can say, “No, the GOP isn’t for limited government” and give some prime examples. Same with social issues – the Dems’ actions aren’t
really like anything the LP believes.
tk: Taxation sprawls across both of those topics, but one could be a “fiscal conservative” and still support intervening in various markets for purposes other than raising revenue.
me: True. But I stand by my “large” description.
Rhetorically, if there’s a better term than “fiscal conservative” that the public can easily grok, I favor substitution. I perhaps like the term “free market,” but my sense is that it’s NOT easily grokked by most.
It could be tested, but my guess is most would equate “fiscal conservative” with “less government intervention in a wide range of economic issues.”
Rhetoric and common usage matters mightily in politics.
more…
OTOH, I’d like to see GJ shift some of his rhetoric. I’ve heard him say Ls are something like “very conservative on economics and very liberal on social issues.” He just leaves that stand, which makes Ls sound bi-polar. I’d rather him use language like, Ls are consistent…we want more individual liberty in the marketplace AND in our private lives. On some issues, we may sound like conservatives, on others more like liberals. We’re both and neither. That’s because Rs, Ds, conservatives, and liberals contradict themselves, perhaps unknowingly. We all know that hypocrisy doesn’t work, which is why our government is so completely out of control, constantly working at cross-purposes and giving into to the special interests.
L is a third way, a way out of the mess our country is in. A peaceful, compassionate, prosperous path out of this stagnating quicksand that holds us back from the great nation we were intended to be.
“Further, ‘free markets’ has a rather large overlap with ‘fiscal conservative.'”
Only if by “large” you mean “very small.”
“Fiscal conservatism” relates to how much money the government takes in and spends.
“Free markets” relates to whether or not the government controls, or intervenes in, markets.
Taxation sprawls across both of those topics, but one could be a “fiscal conservative” and still support intervening in various markets for purposes other than raising revenue.
In theory, at least (at the lower levels, asset seizure does a more significant revenue role), drug prohibition, sex work prohibition, and other direct market interventions are not undertaken for the purpose of raising revenue, and many politicians who call themselves “fiscal conservatives” support those things not because “we shouldn’t be raising our tax revenues from them” but because they happen to also be social conservatives.
jk: However, this buys into the myth that libertarians are ‘fiscal conservatives and social liberals.’ I am for free markets – not the Republican, mythologized version, but true free markets.
me: Might be a “myth” for you, but it sounds about right to me. I notice how you move the goal posts here: “fiscal conservative” does not equal “Republican.” Some Rs may tend to claim to be fiscal conservatives, but then so do some Ds.
Further, “free markets” has a rather large overlap with “fiscal conservative.” It seems to me non-controversial that the path to the free market construct proceeds through fiscal conservatism, at least for most who use the prevalent meanings of those terms.
I’ve not studied Rand Paul closely, but all indications are that he’d like to see freer markets and smaller government (lower spending and taxes as a % of GDP). He may at times vote with corporatist Rs on individual bills.
So, in the game of hand grenades, GJ’s “half right” sound bite seems in the neighborhood of truth. It’s short-hand for saying, “If you like Rand Paul on economics, but you are more ‘liberal’ on social issues, consider the L alternative.”
That sounds like great positioning, since large percentages of the pop hold those views.
If you wish to persuade, consider not using obvious sleights of hand….
George is right — Johnson’s statement was the same stuff he’s been saying for two years.
He’d “like to.” He’d “hope to.”
It’s the flip side of the same coin where people who are almost certainly going to run coquettishly talk about “how much more I have to do in [current office]” and “my wife would really hate it if I ran” and “I don’t have any plans to do that.”
Of course, it tends to mean the same thing — they’re probably running, but for this or that reason don’t want to definitively say so.
As a side note, although I am still firmly in support of NOTA, Joshua Katz is definitely onto something approach-wise. The LP needs to stop being the GOP’s Mini-Me on economics.
I would think Mr. Johnson’s desirability as a Presidential candaite would depend at this point on his ability to raise money (exploratory committee) and build prepratory grass root orgs. If someone can do that I think any party would take them seriously.
I think if Howie hawkins ends up being taken seriously as a Green Presidential candaite it will be because he can raise money and builds a national ghrass roots org.
That seems to me the signs of a strong candaite. And not just a celebrity, elected official or someone with name recognition.
He didn’t say it, guys. The original source is:
“I hope to be able to do this again,” Johnson said Monday on “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV. “I’d like to. I would like to.”
Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.Newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/Gary-Johnson-libertarian-president-change/2014/11/03/id/604938/#ixzz3I9IEGlD9
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He for sure does not appear to mention, at least in the text version of the interview, where he would be running.
Announcing on Election Day is not the wisest political move.
Mr. Katz would also be a good candidate. More philosophically libertarian than Johnson, but without the name recognition & gubernatorial experience.
Johnson says that Rand is right on half the issues. However, this buys into the myth that libertarians are ‘fiscal conservatives and social liberals.’ I am for free markets – not the Republican, mythologized version, but true free markets. The Republicans are not for free markets – they use the term to mean corporate privilege. They use the term to refer to a tax regime that, instead of lifting the onerous burden from our shoulders, shifts it instead onto the poor via a consumption tax. They shut down the government, shutting off social programs instantly, but only after assuring themselves that their pay and their wars will continue. Libertarians should give no legitimacy to this sham.
Libertarians need to focus our attention on underlying causes of inequality – the vast amounts of government-granted privilege, the network of laws making it harder for the poor to build themselves up or start small businesses using their own unused capacity, the war on drugs. No, Rand is not right on ‘half the issues’ since, time after time, he has tossed in his lot with the Republican Party and privilege, not freedom.
To see the difference, one need look no further than prison privatization – it is sheer corporate privilege to grant some companies the right to ‘customers’ who have no choice in the matter. Free markets do not include the market in human beings and their cages. Yet prison privatization is a popular conservative example of free markets operating more efficiently than government – even though the prisoners are delivered by government (along with guaranteed minimums!) and the companies are therefore not seeking earnings on the market by pleasing consumers, but seeking contracts by pleasing governments. I stand against prison privatization, and for massive reductions in prison populations by the elimination of unjust laws. What is New Mexico’s record on this?
Furthermore, we need to prioritize issues. There are more than numbers involved. If Johnson thinks that Rand is right half the time, we have a serious problem. He isn’t only wrong on social issues, he’s wrong on foreign policy – the most important issue of our time, and the one on which the President has the most direct impact.
While both Rand and Johnson/Gray took the right stance on domestic spying, Rand took a stronger stance. Both, though, favor punishing whistle blowers such as Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. How one can be in favor of punishing whistle blowers while also opposed what they exposed is beyond me. It makes it harder to see, though, how exactly Johnson is a strong option to Rand.
I agree with Johnson that we need to present a strong alternative – not just be another option, but a winning option. I ask you what that alternative should look like.
I think Gov. Johnson was a good candidate, and have no problem with him running again. I’d like for him to have a different running mate, though.
I wish that a better candidate would emerge.
I am not sure what to make of this. Harry Browne didn’t do as well his second time out. Gov. Johnson has quite a ways to go to be as “libertarian” as Browne was. I wonder what changes in positions he is willing to make to really distinguish himself from Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. If he is really serious about being libertarian I would hope he would try for a really hardcore running mate.
“Look, Libertarians are flaming liberals when it comes to social issues…”? And the civil liberties line will never be heard. This type of talk is so polarizing, it will kill the potential support of those we hope to get to our side. You can appeal to the sense of justice and defense of rights nature of most Americans without going here. And in truth, it is misleading.
I can’t help but think about what Gary Johnson said in the 12 campaign that really hurt him was that Wall Street and Mortgage fraud should not be prosecuted because “nobody broke any laws.” Oh, really?
This is supposed to be helpful? This is an “experienced” politician talking?
Oh great… hopefully Joshua Katz, Darryl Perry, Chuck Moulton, or Starchild defeat him for the nomination.