Gary Johnson and other presidential hopefuls will participate in a Libertarian Party debate Saturday afternoon in Orlando.

Johnson, the former New Mexico governor, who dropped his bid for the Republican nomination last month, will be joined on the debate stage by party activist Lee Wrights, Kiowa Nation member and Afghan war veteran R.J. Harris, author and documentary filmmaker Bill Still, former Texas Libertarian Party chair Roger Gary, entrepreneur Leroy Saunders and Carl Person.

The presidential debate, held as part of the Libertarian Party of Florida convention at the Embassy Suites, will be open to the public.

All the above candidates have been in past debates of LP presidential candidates, except for Leroy Saunders. The Sun-Sentinel adds

Libertarian front-runner Gary Johnson will campaign in the state this week, including a stop in Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday.

He also plans to attend the state Libertarian Party conference in Orlando Feb. 10 to 12 — all part of seeking the party’s nomination at a national convention in May in Las Vegas.

[...]

Johnson will visit the Tampa area on Tuesday, where he will speak at 3 p.m. at the University of South Florida.

And on Wednesday, he will meet with the Broward County Libertarian Party at 7 p.m. at the Denny’s restaurant, 3151 NW 9th Ave., in Fort Lauderdale.

Newt Gingrich may have won South Carolina. But this wasn’t a Newt victory, as much as it was a devastating rebuke to the national media. 

Study the poll numbers. Yes, Romney really dropped the ball with the tax return and 15% capital gains issues, but the numbers started flipping from a Romney landslide to a Newt Gingrich landslide only after the ABC television interview with Newt’s ex-wife. And voters made the final decision to change their votes only after hearing Newt strongly and courageously scold and shame the media in the South Carolina Presidential debate on Thursday. 

Make no mistake about it- this was a resounding rebuke of the mainstream media. They were kicked in the teeth. 

Read on. I’ll tell you why they deserved it. 

 America may hate politicians, they may hate Congress, they may even give Obama among the lowest ratings in modern history at this point in a Presidency. But the media has now sunk to even lower depths than the politicians.

 And deservedly so.

 Only days ago I pointed out what a travesty it was the media sharks were in a feeding frenzy to destroy Romney over taxes, Gingrich over ex-wives, and Ron Paul over 20 year old newsletters, but seemed to lack the same level of enthusiasm about Obama’s mysterious past. But the biased leftist media doesn’t care. Par for the course.

 This same mainstream media also snickers at the idea that Obama is a socialist. Funny how they ignore a brand new Pew poll that proves that liberal Democrats not only favor socialism over capitalism, but by a wide 59-33 margin they see socialism as a positive. Even more shocking is that the same poll proves that a large majority of African American voters (Obama’s staunchest supporters), by a 55-36 margin, also see socialism as a positive. Shouldn’t alarm bells be ringing in the mainstream media?

 Well, the alarm bells aren’t ringing for a good reason. The mainstream media is made up of radical, extreme, progressive leftists who also see socialism as a positive. Want proof? Let’s head back to my Columbia University days. You know, the same place where my classmate Barack Obama was indoctrinated…oops, I mean educated…in the philosophy of radical socialism.

 Something extraordinary happened on March 30, 1981 at Columbia University. I was sitting in the biggest political science class at Columbia University. Perhaps 200 or more students in a theatre in the round. If Obama was attending Columbia at the time, as he claims, and he was a Political Science major, as he claims, he would almost certainly have been in this class.

 On this date in history my hero Ronald Reagan was shot. The reaction in that large political science class that day tells you all you need to know about the media. Because all these years later, when I read Columbia College Today magazine, with updates on my classmates’ careers, it is extraordinary how many of them are now leading members of the mainstream media.

 As I sat in class that day listening to the professor lecture, a strange loud noise came from the back of the room. The entire class turned around. The doors in back burst open and a breathless student ran in and screamed, “They just shot Reagan. President Reagan has been assassinated.” Can you imagine what the response was at that moment of horror from the future leading members of America’s media? Take a wild guess.

 A standing ovation. Wild celebration. High fives. Cheering. Fists pounding the air. My classmates were jumping up and down and hugging each other like they had just won the lottery. It was the happiest day of their lives! And I can’t forget the words wafting through the air in the midst of this celebration, “YES, they killed that bastard Reagan!”

 Reagan was my hero. He felt like a second father to me. I got sick to my stomach and ran out of the class. I raced into the bathroom and vomited, then sat on the bathroom floor with tears streaming down my face. I thought my hero President Reagan was dead. Worse, I realized my ultra-liberal classmates were not just your run-of-the-mill leftists. They were socialists and Marxists who openly hated America, despised capitalism, and were cheering for the death of a man simply because he was a conservative and capitalist. I was dazed, disgusted and disillusioned.

 Please keep in mind that many of these same men and women now run the American media. They are at the very top of many of the most important television news shows and news organizations. And they proved that day (and throughout my 4 years at Columbia) that at their core they despise conservatives, conservatism, patriotism, and the exceptionalism of America.

 This is the same media expected to give a “fair shake” to a conservative Presidential candidate like Mitt, Newt or Ron Paul? Not a chance.

 Now you know why the media is so desperate and obsessed with digging up dirt on Newt’s ex-wives, Mitt’s old taxes, or Ron Paul’s 20-year-old newsletters. But this same media seems to have no interest in digging up Obama’s mysterious and questionable past. They sit across from Obama, tingling, lobbing softball questions, while gazing into their fellow socialist’s eyes. Now it all makes sense. Now the pieces of the puzzle fit.

 The sudden turnaround in South Carolina after a media “hit piece” on Newt is the first sign that the American people are finally starting to understand how biased the media really is.

 Now you know why the mainstream media had their teeth kicked in on Saturday in South Carolina.

 And…they deserved it.

 Wayne Allyn Root is a former Libertarian VP nominee and the author of “The Conscience of a Libertarian.” He now serves as Chairman of the Libertarian National Campaign Committee. He’s a regular guest on Fox News and hundreds of television and radio shows across America.  His syndicated column has appeared on Newsmax and Forbes.

He’s also a gun-slinging, riverboat gambling, entrepreneur and capitalist evangelist. His web site: www.ROOTforAmerica.com

Gary Johnson Files Complaint With the FEC and FCC, Has No Plans to Run as a Libertarian

Lucy Steigerwald | November 15, 2011

Former Gov. Gary Johnson, the guy having the world’s most frustrating presidential campaign, is joining Congressman Ron Paul in rejecting calls to run on the Libertarian Party ticket. Johnson hopes to find some campaign steam in New Hampshire and he doesn’t want to think about any third party steps, even though the idea of a libertarian-friendly independent/third party candidate makes some Republicans very nervous, because it could tip 2012 to Obama’s favor.

The rest of the article at Reason Magazine

http://reason.com/blog/2011/11/15/johnson-files-complaint-with-the-fec-and

“Ron Nielson said I could quote him as follows … He’s pushing Gary to run on the LP ticket, and is 99% sure Gary will seek our nomination. That was maybe a week or so ago …”

Mister McLendon is quoted as saying this on an open Facebook discussion thread he is actively participating in.

The thread and Group are both at: https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/RecruitGaryJohnsonLP2012/

From comments on a prior IPR post. The debate can be viewed at http://rjharris2012.com/:

Instead of finishing what I was supposed to be doing tonight, I went ahead and watched this entire debate. Here are my thoughts on what I saw and heard. Interested readers should know that I’m a supporter of third parties but not a Libertarian, so my interest here is to have the strongest possible Libertarian win the Presidential nomination. I’m not an expert in Libertarian ideology, so I’ll leave issues of that sort up to real Libertarians and just tackle the presentation aspects of the candidates.

I was excited to see this debate because it’s the first time all five of the serious candidates have shared a stage. I think these will in fact be the only five serious candidates except for 1) last-minute entrants or 2) Wayne Root, who has sort of been running a shadow campaign all along. Which is to say, I think we’ll have these five and no others for at least the next few months.

First of all, I think Libertarians can feel confident in the fact that this is a field full of actual ideological Libertarians. Lee Wrights and Roger Gary are what you might call “pure” Libertarians; I doubt anyone in the party would find them deviating from the party line in any significant way. RJ Harris, Carl Person, and Bill Still are all Libertarian-oriented people. When they deviate from the party line on occasion, they are being heretical Libertarians, not impostors. I know there has been some concern about Harris because he ran in a Republican primary, but my sense is that he was and is by and large a Libertarian ideologically. (I wonder how the Republicans reacted when he told them he wanted an immediate withdrawal from all foreign wars?) This is a big difference from 2008, where some of the major candidates were only Libertarians if you could shoehorn their records into a Libertarian box (Gravel) or if you believed they were completely different people from what they’d been five years earlier (Barr, Root).

That said, I do think that Gary and Person are non-starters. Gary seems like a nice man and a fine Libertarian, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a worse debate performance in a third-party presidential campaign. Gary’s presentation was slow and halting, even in his opening and closing statements (which appeared unrehearsed). He seemed old, which is partly because he was the oldest candidate there, but he’s not significantly older than Still, who seemed much more chipper. Gary repeatedly stopped to haggle with the moderator about meaningless issues. His discussion of his Mexican friends was…dated, to say the least. (On the other hand, he declared his support for an almost completely open border, which I suspect will surprise a lot of Libertarians.) He showed absolutely no improvement from the MA debate last month. Overall, his presentation seemed lazy and sloppy. He even stated that he didn’t expect even to visit all 50 states, let alone campaign there. I don’t know why he’s such a poor candidate — his party pedigree certainly speaks highly for him — but if he can’t step it up, he’s going to be a non-factor in this race.

Person gave a somewhat better presentation, but yet again was done in by his crackpot ideas — and I mean crackpot from a Libertarian perspective, not from my perspective. His campaign strategy apparently consists of terraforming a town of 10,000 people — in what, the three months after the convention? — using some sort of crazy Libertarian media strategy that would produce universal employment there, then leveraging the media coverage of this miracle into a national campaign. Um, good luck with that, Carl. He repeatedly rambled and strayed off topic in the debate. Again, even if I didn’t have serious reservations about the company he keeps, I’d consider Person a non-factor in the race.

The remaining three candidates — Wrights, Harris, and Still — all presented themselves very well. I think any of them would be a credit to the LP as Presidential candidates. At the same time, they also present three clearly different approaches to the race. Wrights would focus on the war, Harris on freedom and liberty issues, Still on money and finance. Wrights would run an Internet-based strategy, Harris would focus on Oklahoma (where he has some name recognition, and expects to get ballot status for the first time in over a decade) and battleground states, Still would leverage his own following and connect with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Of the three, Wrights definitely laid claim to the mantle of “pure” Libertarian standard-bearer in this debate. He’s clearly spent a lot of time with a debate coach, and the results were like night and day compared to his performance in the MA debate last month. It’s hard to believe that just last month he was as bad a public speaker as Roger Gary. (His opening statement still needs work, though.) Wrights displayed an engaging speaking style, well-rehearsed answers to many questions, and a supple ability to think on his feet and to come up with creative answers to difficult questions. He’s also beginning to draw contrasts between himself and other candidates — particularly Harris and Still, whom he clearly considers his main competition at this point. All in all, a very impressive performance by Wrights that left me thinking he could be an effective Chuck Baldwin-style candidate instead of the halting mutterer I was afraid he’d stay.

Harris presented himself with an air of confidence that suggests he’s the frontrunner, which, right now, I suppose he probably is. He’s clearly benefited from running a major-party campaign and participating in debates with seasoned politicians; his speaking style was measured, articulate, and polished. Some of his rhetoric was aimed at Tea Party types rather than Libertarians — I thought his comparison of himself with George Washington at the beginning wasn’t appropriate for this crowd — but overall, I was impressed with how well he fit in with the lifelong Libertarians. I also thought he handled the abortion issue effectively. He dodged about a bit, but essentially said that while he personally is really upset by abortions, he thinks the decision should be up to the states. That’s not exactly a mainstream Libertarian view, and Wrights called him on it, but it’s Ron Paul’s position, and as such I think a lot of Libertarians might find it acceptable. Meanwhile, those of you with bad memories of Barr and Root will be happy to hear that Harris came out unequivocally against foreign aid (including, specifically, for Israel — which Roger Gary strangely disagreed with him about), unequivocally against all foreign interventions, and unequivocally against the drug war. Given Harris’ definite right-Libertarian lean, I can see him becoming the candidate of the Starr/Root faction of the LP in the event that Root doesn’t run. This actually wouldn’t be a bad thing, as I think Harris would be more palatable to other Libertarians than just about any other candidate that faction could come up with.

Then there’s Bill Still. Frankly, I was kind of blown away by what I saw from him at this debate. Certainly there were moments where he looked like some guy who’d wandered into a Libertarian Presidential debate and didn’t know what the heck was going on, but I’m going to go ahead and forgive him for all of that given that he’s basically only been in the race for a week. There were other moments, though, where I saw flashes of a magnetic, charismatic speaker who knows Libertarian financial policy like the back of his hand and who might turn out to be the most compelling Libertarian presidential nominee in years. One minute he was reading his opening statement off his laptop like it was a teleprompter, the next he was ad-libbing with gracious humor, the next he was arguing loudly with Wrights about Libertarian priorities. He does have some real deviations from Libertarian orthodoxy — he opposes gutting Social Security because it wouldn’t be possible politically, he wants state banks to issue currency (and isn’t a goldbug), he said he “probably” supports the Fair Tax — but what’s interesting is that they’re eccentric deviations, not ones that suggest he would be a better fit for some other party. He seemed exceedingly raw as a candidate, as indeed he is, but if he’s willing to put in the hard work of running a campaign and developing strategies and issue policies (as Wrights and Harris are doing), he could end up being the best of the bunch. I tend to think he may have the Mike Gravel problem that he has no natural constituency in the party — too many deviations for the Radicals, too radical on fiscal policy for the Reformers — but if he can generate some support, he might find himself getting tapped as a compromise candidate if one of the sides finds itself without a standard-bearer.

Overall, I was quite heartened by what I saw in the debate. Before watching it, I thought the party had one serious and well-organized candidate (Harris) who wasn’t really a Libertarian. Now, I think there are three such candidates, and all of them are Libertarian to some degree. I think any of them would be a good choice for the party in 2012.

October 9, 2011 10:00 AM
Tweed’s Restaurant
229 Grove Street, Worcester

[...]

Carl Person (confirmed attending)
Brian Irving (surrogate for R. Lee Wrights, confirmed attending)
R. J. Harris (may attend)
Roger V. Gary (may attend).

The Moderator
George D. J. Phillies
Former Candidate, President of the United States

On October 4, the seven candidates for President of Ireland held a televised debate. This story about that debate was written just as the debate was beginning.

If the United States held inclusive general election presidential debates, and invited every candidate who was on the ballot in enough states to theoretically be elected, there would never have been a U.S. presidential election with a number of candidates greater than seven who would have been eligible for such debates. In 2008 and 2004 there would have been six such candidates.

An incumbent with a well-known political lineage, an outspoken Lexington government official and a Libertarian with computer skills are vying to be Kentucky’s next treasurer.

The three made their positions known Monday night on Kentucky Educational Television.

[...]

Libertarian Ken Moellman has been politically active for years, but is making his first attempt at elected office this fall. Primarily, Moellman wants to eliminate state treasurers and replace them with computers.

“I’ve been working in I-T for 15 years. I’ve actually automated myself out of a job twice in my professional career. I’ve done exactly what I’m trying to do here twice in the private sector where I have replaced myself with a computer,” he says.

In salaries alone, Moellman claims eliminating the state treasurer’s office and two top assistants would save $300,000 in taxpayer dollars.

[...]

Moellman avoided much the back and forth between the mainstream candidates. Instead, at the end of the hour-long KET forum, he talked about voter dissatisfaction and predicted the statewide race for treasurer could become an indicator on voter attitudes in the fall of 2011.

“This is both a learning experience for the party but more specifically it’s going to give us a real gauge of how strong we are in a statewide race that isn’t as contentious as president or US Senate,” says Moellman. “Something that we can actually gauge what support really is out there.”

Video of the debate from KET TV is here.

Previous campaign updates from http://ken4ky.com/ken_media:

September 13th – Debate coverage (WFPL)
September 12th – Watch the KET debate online (KET)
September 12th – Republicans drop lawsuit against Moellman (The Republic)

September 8th – Republican activists sue to remove Moellman from ballot (C-J)
September 5th – Moellman speaks at Nothin’ Fancy Farm event (Richmond Register)

August 31st – RELEASE: LIBERTARIAN MOELLMAN HAS SIGNIFICANT MOMENTUM
August 30th – Moellman increases to 16% in polls (PPP PDF)
August 22nd – Moellman to speak at Nothin’ Fancy Farm (Richmond Register)
August 7th – Libertarian Ken Moellman protests his denial to speak at Fancy Farm (nky.com)

August 3rd – Libertarian Ken Moellman files petition to run for treasurer (C-J)
August 3rd – RELEASE: LIBERTARIAN CANDIDATE FILES PETITION

July 27th – Libertarian Ken Moellman to run for state treasurer (KY CFG)
July 27th – Libertarian Ken Moellman to run for state treasurer (C-J)
July 25th – RELEASE: CANDIDATE GOES TO FANCY FARM THOUGH DENIED INVITATION

June 13th – RELEASE: Moellman pleased with initial 5% support

April 11th – Statewide campaigns crank up (KY Enq)
April 4th – Ken Moellman is one of two candidates to file as non-R, non-D in 2011 (KY SoS)

March 26th – Ken Moellman receives majority of votes for treasurer at NKY Tea Party forum (nky.com)
March 25th – Kentucky Libertarians Plan Statewide Petition Drive in 2011 Election (ballot access news)
March 25th – RELEASE: Libertarian Announces campaign for Kentucky State Treasurer

A selection from recent updates from facebook:

Ken here – Bumper stickers are here! Any donors to date will be sent a bumper sticker. We’ll also be bringing them to events from here on out. We’re working on the rest of the campaign still, and still need donations. So, if you have some to give, it’s a worthy cause! Thank you!
4 hours ago

………..

Ken here – For those that have asked, I’m putting about 2500 miles per week on my car. When I put the engine in the car, back in February, the odometer showed 160,000. It’s now at 210,000! It’s a good thing I work on my own vehicles. That would have cost a fortune.
September 25 at 9:47am

………..

Any readers who wish to donate to Moellman’s campaign can do so here.

Disclosure: The computer that I am borrowing to post to IPR was made operational again by Ken Moellman at no charge. Much appreciated.
-paulie

CNBC has a talking head segment featuring Green Ben Manski in Madison Wisconsin against State Assembly Rep Scott Suder. Skip to the 6:25 mark for the fireworks. Note how Manski disarms Suder when he claims that “your party wants…” and Manski replies “I’m not a Democrat. I ran as a Green for State Assembly and your Party’s candidate came in third place…”

Interestingly – aside from how interesting the debate itself and the fact that it’s a group of people from the mainstream media talking about this – a poll of the audience was conducted before and after the debate.  Beforehand, 46 percent were in favor and 40 percent against (that is, 46 percent thought the two party system is making America ungovernable).  Afterward, 50 percent were in favor and only 24 percent were against.

Correction:  The 40 percent and 24 percent figures were actually reversed, which is interesting in its own way, but perhaps less relevant to our blog’s mission!  Thanks to Pete Healy for that tip.

Matt Reichel

The Center Square Journal is reporting that 47th ward aldermanic candidate, Tom O’Donnell, has elected not to attend next Tuesday’s debate at the Dank Haus in Lincoln Square.

As to why O’Donnell may have decided to not come, fellow candidate Matt Reichel responded:

Ask Carol Moseley Braun. She might have some idea. Tom did not perform very strongly at the last debate at Coonley Elementary. He probably feels that he has a lot to lose, and little to gain, by attending this forum.

Reichel continued to rally progressives:

It is very important that we use this opportunity of an open election with a particularly weak establishment candidate to galvanize progressive support behind me. We have gained a lot of momentum since Schulter’s departure from the race, as progressives from throughout the ward have approached me and said “Now is the time.” We can use this candidacy as a vehicle to help stop this disastrous tidal wave of privatization and union-busting going on in this city.

Reichel, who refused to be considered for endorsement by the corporate newspapers on principle, is hoping to galvanize union support over the last 10 days. He said: “The Chicago Teachers’ Union will make their decision on Monday, and there are a few other unions whose decisions are pending. If we receive any of their support, we will have all of the momentum we need to carry on to victory in the 47th ward.”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Matt Reichel for the 47th

(773) 803-1185

info@mattreichel.com

www.mattreichel.com

Related Articles

• Reichel claims debate victory; Admonishes Mainstream Press for Failing the Public (wilderside.wordpress.com)
• Reichel (G) is Front-runner for Alderman (wilderside.wordpress.com)

Reichel claims debate victory; Admonishes Mainstream Press for Failing the Public

This Wednesday, the four contenders for the now-vacant 47th ward aldermanic seat met in a packed gymnasium at Coonley Elementary School, and discussed a number of issues ranging from TIF’s to environmental policy.

Reichel emerged from the debate as upbeat as ever: “This debate marked a clear victory for the Reichel camp. I was the most energetic, determined and progressive of the candidates, and provided the most well-founded and realistic solutions to the problems facing this city.”

While the debate remained civil throughout, the candidates did find room to inject friendly jabs at one another. In response to Reichel’s pleas to the community to join him in cleaning out the ward organization and removing the machine influence that exists there now, Tom O’Donnell disparaged Reichel and claimed “This isn’t about “machine” this or “machine” that. This is about getting things done.” Reichel retorted: “With all due respect, Mr. O’Donnell, the Democratic machine is very real, and poses a real road block to getting anything done for the 99% of us that are not integral members of it.”

Mr. O’Donnell is a long-time member of Ald. Schulter’s ward organization.

Reichel continued: “Our progressive and populist message resonated most with voters in attendance, who were also impressed by the enthusiasm of our campaign. Today, we have made a big step forward to victory on February 22nd.”

Reichel also took the chance on Thursday to comment on the thorough lack of mainstream press coverage of the event:

“I don’t know if anyone at the Sun Times, Tribune or NPR has gotten the memo, but THERE IS AN OPEN ELECTION IN THE 47TH WARD. YOU MIGHT WANT TO COVER IT.”

“The press serves the public function of making people aware of civic and political affairs. In this, the first open election in this ward in 36 years, you would think that there would be interest in providing comprehensive election coverage for our neighbors in the 47th ward. To this extent, the mainstream press is collectively failing us.”

The event received no coverage in any of Chicago’s major papers or television news programs.

################################

Reichel for the 47th

www.mattreichel.com

info@mattreichel.com

(773) 803-1185

Kentucky holds its gubernatorial election on November 8, 2011. So far, it appears there are no minor party candidates running in this race. However, one independent candidate, Gatewood Galbraith, is running and is already collecting signatures. Galbraith has been invited to a Kentucky Press Association forum for the gubernatorial candidates, to be held on January 21. The primary is in May, 2011, and the announced Republican gubernatorial candidates, David Williams and Phil Moffett, will also attend. Incumbent Democratic Governor Steve Beshear is also expected to run, but he has declined to appear at this event. See this story.

Galbraith was the Reform Party gubernatorial nominee in 1999, when he received 15.42% of the vote. Galbraith will need 5,000 signatures to appear on the November 2011 ballot. The signatures are due in early August.

Last week, Rebecca Williamson, Socialist Workers Party nominee for U.S. House in Iowa’s 3rd district, polled 2.61% of the vote. The 3rd district includes Des Moines. That is the highest percentage that any party with “Socialist” in its name has received for U.S. House in Iowa since 1918. Williamson had a Democratic and a Republican opponent. The Socialist Workers Party has been running candidates in Iowa since 1948.

Williamson participated in a debate with her major party opponents that was broadcast on Iowa Public Television.

The only other Socialist Workers Party nominee for U.S. House who was on the ballot anywhere in the U.S. was Roger Calero, who ran in New York’s 15th district. Election night returns showed that he was polling 2.51% in a four-candidate race. His opponents were from the Democratic, Republican, and Independence Parties.

Dear Friend of Liberty,

First of all I want to thank our over 800 candidates again for taking the time to run for office.

Now that we’ve all had a little time to catch our breaths after election day, we’re working to compile and analyze the results of our efforts.

While it looks like our percentages improved a little overall, I can’t report that we had any major breakthroughs that we always hope for. The few races we won that we’re aware of so far were for small local races, like soil and water district boards.

We’ve compiled the results for Governor, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House here.

Currently we have 15 Libertarians for U.S. House who received over 5% of the vote. (That only counts races where a Republican and a Democrat both appeared on the ballot.) That’s a big increase from past years. In 2008, three Libertarians for U.S. House got more than 5%. In 2006, one candidate; in 2004, two candidates.

In 2000, Libertarian Carla Howell ran for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts (against both a Republican and a Democrat) and got 11.88% of the vote. Since then, no Libertarian running for U.S. Senate (against both a Republican and a Democrat) has gotten more than 4%, until this year: Rebecca Sink-Burris got 5.33% in Indiana, and David Nolan got 4.68% in Arizona.

Those and other miscellaneous highlights are posted here.

We’re still compiling results for other races. We should have complete results next week.

I like to keep reminding Libertarians that even if we don’t win an election, our candidates help focus the debate on important issues. And many voters appreciate having a Libertarian candidate to vote for.

Our candidates also get a big bang for the buck. Preliminary reports I’m seeing show that Libertarian Party candidates for U.S. Congress spent about 50 cents per vote, while Republicans and Democrats spent twenty times that much (about $10 per vote nationwide).

Thanks again for supporting the Libertarian Party.

With the holiday season coming up, perhaps you’d be interested in the special offer that the store LPStuff.com is offering. See below.

Sincerely,

Wes Benedict
Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee

P.S. If you have not already done so, please join the Libertarian Party. We are the only political party dedicated to free markets, civil liberties, and peace. You can also renew your membership. Or, you can make a contribution separate from membership.

From the Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party:

No matter what your current party affiliation — and especially if you aren’t enrolled in any party — we’d like to invite you to our annual State Convention to hear us out, and to find out if the party behind the candidates you support this fall could be your home. We promise lively discussion, workshops, reports from the campaigns, and presentations from each of our candidates. No matter what the results are come November 2nd, this convention is going to be a celebration. Whether you gathered signatures for the ballot, contributed financially, showed up at rallies, or even simply wore a button and talked to your friends, our Party and candidates owe you a debt of thanks. Please join us so that we can thank you, personally, for all you’ve done.

We’d also to invite you to consider running for office in the Green-Rainbow Party itself. All positions will be open as of the 14th. Learn more on our website—Green-Rainbow.org >Party Members>GRP Committees Committee. If you’re not ready to run for an office, we hope that you’ll at least consider joining one of our working committees.

We’re the people who are changing the face of politics in Massachusetts. We can take tremendous pride in what we accomplished this year—getting on the ballot, battling our way into debates, enjoying record-breaking fundraising drives. The Convention is an ideal opportunity for all of us to re-commit ourselves to the struggle for a secure green, future

Thank you for your heroic efforts this year, and we look forward to seeing you in Worcester on November 14th!

Official release:

“Thank you to all donors and volunteers! John Jay Myers raised more than any other Libertarian candidate in the 32nd district with over $7200, and he received the highest percentage of any Libertarian candidate in the district’s history. Your efforts made this record year possible. As a result of your contributions, we were able to distribute 3000 flyers, launch 128 TV commercial airings, plant 100 yard signs, mail 8000 postcards to voters, and run two weeks of Facebook advertising. John Jay also personally attended dozens of radio interviews, parades, and outreach events over the past year while incumbent Pete “Bailout” Sessions remained hidden from the people he supposedly serves. Though his $1.8 million in corporate payoffs won Sessions reelection this time, you have proven through your contributions and support that a Libertarian campaign can get the message out and increase those vote totals. Thank you all again!”

For the next few months I am going to turn my focus on my family and my business. I will be spending only some spare time in making videos and writing to promote the party. Maybe a few hours a week.

Our facebook fan page and Johnjaymyers.com will change to a non-election format.

I know our message above sounds upbeat, but I am very disappointed in the results of the election.

Though we received a higher vote total than any other Libertarian in this district we put more into this election than any other Libertarian has. Originally I started out as a “educational” candidate, I don’t know if we ever really shifted our focus, the fact that there was no debate was a major set back.

We could not get press regardless of the message we sent out.

A few things I would do different:

1. Though our message should resonate with the “Tea Party” people it did not here in Dallas. We have a very pro-war, big religion Tea Party (in other words Republicans) which is run by members of the Republican establishment. Unfortunately most of our website and our videos etc seemed to be targeting the Tea Party voters…. who were probably all voting straight ticket. This was a mistake.

2. What should our message have been? 4 things:

A. End the Wars.

B. End Corporatism.

C. Live your life as you see fit.

D. End entitlements sooner rather than later.

That’s it. We should have approached it from that angle. Though this was our message we didn’t brand it correctly in a way that was palatable to the both the left and the right (and mainly independent).

3. We should have done radio spots months before the election. On both left and right media with a different message to each.

4. We didn’t have enough volunteers to cover the early voting locations, there were 8 in my district, I would like to have had the money to pay 8 people to work 10 days at 8 locations. (around an additional 5k) I honestly think this would have tripled our totals. We ran completely out of money about 3 days before early voting.

5. I would like to have had the money to send a letter to every likely voter in the district. Once about 3 months prior to the election, and once a week before early voting, we covered about 4% (once).

6. Dallas is incredibly partisan, I would like to educate the masses and try to break the monopoly the D’s and R’s have…. that is one of my main goals in the next two years. I would hate to say without education, we don’t have much of a chance electorally. America can not continue with this incredibly divisive “two party system”.

Americans need to understand their rights, and that Government is not the answer to all their problems. I am now more committed than ever in ending big government, especially our large corrupt Federal Government.

This is my first facebook post since the election, I needed some time off.

Thanks for reading all of this.

From Illinois Green Party gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney:

November 4, 2010 – 12:34 am

Don’t Lose Heart! Cause for Hope Amidst the Disappointment

A “Final” Campaign Message (But Read On!)
by Rich Whitney, 2010 Green Party Candidate for Governor

To the hundreds of people who supported me in my campaign for Governor, and to the roughly 100,000 or so who saw fit to vote for me, despite the politics of fear that swept Illinois this election season, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

We acknowledge our disappointment but are not consumed by it. We will assess the causes of our disappointing results but will not be obsessed by them. We live to fight another day, and fight on we shall.

The people who worked on my campaign and other Green Party campaigns learned a lot, and future Green Party campaigns will be the stronger for it.

We also have some unfinished business with the Chicago Board of Elections. In addition to the “Whitey” incident, we have received an additional credible report of an electronic voting machine literally flipping votes from me to Pat Quinn. We had reports of an election judge training session in which the instructor disparaged the Green Party. We are continuing to investigate and we are calling on the authorities to investigate. We aren’t taking this lying down. The Party of Green will continue to take on the Chicago Machine until we win.

The Marin County, California District Attorney dropped charges against Laura Wells. See this story. Wells was the Green Party gubernatorial nominee. She was arrested for trespassing for attempting to use a valid ticket to sit in the audience at one of the Jerry Brown-Meg Whitman gubernatorial debates.

Laura Wells, Green Party gubernatorial nominee, will appear in court in San Rafael, California, on election day. She was arrested for trespassing last month when she tried to sit in the audience for one of the Jerry Brown-Meg Whitman major party gubernatorial debates. She and her attorney, Matt Gonzalez, are holding a press conference on the county courthouse steps at 12:30 p.m. See this story.