Third Party Watch

I thought this was a good chuckle.

However, for those not in Nevada, I recommend substituting such a cure for a third-party that closely resembles the IAP.

Electile Dysfunction is a newly discovered psychological disease. It is caused when an elector is unable to become aroused over any candidate running for office. Voting when one is so [...]

Kevin Gosztola just provided two pages of reasons for progressives to support the Green Party.

Dennis Kucinich’s failure to gain a significant percentage of votes in the Democratic primaries and his failure to combat media exclusion was a good thing for the Green Party. Witness the comments that came from supporters who were thinking about what [...]

“Small l” libertarian, former Green Party candidate and Idaho gubernatorial hopeful W. Lane Startin wrote an interesting article on the history and future of third parties. It started with a discussion of issues well known to people engaged in third party politics, such as the importance of ballot access reform and inclusion in candidate [...]

I’ll just pass this e-mail on verbatim:

Greetings California DNC representative:

A complaint has been filed with the Attorney General of California. This complaint is actually aimed at the FCC and MSNBC for allowing the Presidential debate process to be managed by private cable companies.

These private cable companies are not under the jurisdiction of the Federal [...]

Back during the Badnarik presidential campaign, supporters utilized the Internet to put Michael Badnarik’s book up at the top of the charts at Amazon.com. With a considerably larger Internet presence associated with the Ron Paul campaign, such an attempt should have a pretty likely chance of success.

LP activist and Ron Paul supporter Chris Brunner [...]

There has been a lot of internal debate within the libertarian movement between “Beltway Libertarians” and those not so attached to the DC political machine. Some have accused certain institutions of being pro-war or anti-Ron Paul. This interview of Cato President Ed Crane sheds a bit more light on both issues.

A bit of [...]

H/T to Eric.

Perhaps partially in response to DailyKos, Libertarian presidential hopeful George Phillies is addressing the FISA issue:

Libertarian Presidential candidate George Phillies today condemned the Bush Administration for attacking the Constitution. “Warrantless wiretaps of American citizens are felonies,” Phillies said. “There is no legal or Constitutional basis for extended warrantless searches of any kind. That’s exactly what [...]

Texas has some complicated rules with respect to primary voting. This is of particular importance in the March 4 primary for Libertarian Party and Constitution Party members who might also wish to cast a vote for Ron Paul.

Here’s the word from the Texas Secretary of State:

If you are a registered voter in the state [...]

The following release comes from the Libertarian Party of North Carolina:

A superior court judge denied motions for summary judgment today in the Libertarian Party of North Carolina’s lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state’s election statutes.

Judge Leon Stanback Jr. said that, although he personally believed North Carolina’s signature requirements for ballot access are too high, [...]

There’s another Republican presidential debate tonight, and I’m sure viewers once again will be underwhelmed by the leading GOP candidates.

People are often critical because “they” rarely ask many questions of substance in major party debates. Since handling issues like understanding the difference between isolationism and non-interventionism seems beyond the capability of the mainstream media, [...]

In case you don’t know who Paul Jacob is, we’ll let Wiki tell the tale:

Paul Jacob is an activist, organizer, and advocate for legislative term limits, initiative and referendum rights, and limited government in the United States. He writes a weekly column for Townhall.com and his short radio commentary feature, “Common Sense,” is syndicated by [...]

In addition to the immediate Libertarian Party response to President Bush’s State of the Union Address, the LP is also using this opportunity to renew their “call for a safe and timely troop withdrawal from Iraq.”

President Bush’s State of the Union address once again emphasized his desire to remain in Iraq without any finite objective [...]

It looks like Ralph Nader is looking more strongly at jumping into the presidential race. From Ben Smith at Politico:

I just now spoke to Ralph Nader, who said the launch of his exploratory Web site wasn’t timed to Edwards’ withdrawal, but that Kucinich’s withdrawal had made space in the race for him.

“We’re testing the [...]

Libertarian Party presidential hopeful Wayne Allyn Root just returned from a visit to the UK. Here is his report on the political observations he made during his trip. The concluding paragraph:

I learned many lessons on my trip to UK this past week. The most important one is that the solution to any problem [...]

Ron Gunzberger’s take:

Appearing as a guest on the obscure Weekly Filibuster blog radio show on Saturday, former Ambassador Alan Keyes ( R ) attacked Mike Huckabee as “a liberal” on funding issues, said John McCain was not a reliable conservative, denounced Mitt Romney for “changing his positions as he goes along,” and said Ron Paul’s [...]

Rasmussen Reports is looking at the impact of Michael Bloomberg and Ron Paul as potential third party or independent candidates in the 2008 elections.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that roughly 15% of voters would currently vote for one of these two candidates in general election match-ups.

When the two candidates are mentioned as [...]

Free State Project founder Jason Sorens took the opportunity of the Ron Paul vote in the recent New Hampshire primary to gauge the preliminary impact of the FSP. Here’s the general background he provided:

In the more recent study, I argued that attaining 1% of the local population constituted a critical mass.

Until now, however, we [...]

Markos@DailyKos just challenged Libertarians and the Ron Paul campaign for not going after one of the more important civil liberties issues of the day.

Where are the Libertarians on FISA?

For all the talk of “freedom” that the Paulbots claim to believe in, they sure as heck have been silent on the horrible FISA bill we’re fighting [...]

The following is a response by Libertarian Party National Chairman William Redpath to President Bush’s State of the Union Address:

Tonight’s State of the Union address went much as expected. Instead of calling for a more limited role of the federal government in American society, the President laid out plans that would only increase the [...]

When I lived in Germany, there was a rather overweight cat in the neighborhood named Serge which I thought resembled Mikhail Gorbachev, whose middle name happens to be Sergeyevich. I probably never told anyone these thoughts, as I feared being dismissed as being slightly batty. Perhaps I was mistaken, as it appears [...]

Old-time libertarians will recall a lot of the names dropped in this 1988 High Times article about then Libertarian Party presidential candidate Ron Paul: Andre Marrou, Ed Clark, Dick Randolph, Murray Rothbard, John Hospers, Roger McBride, Tonie Nathan, David Bergland, Eric Garris, Paul Jacob, Tim Lewis, Norma Jean Almodovar, Mark Ford, and Ed Crane. [...]

I just saw this on the Libertarian Party State Chairs’ email list:

The Constitution Party of Tennessee, Green Party of Tennessee, and Libertarian Party of Tennessee collectively filed a lawsuit on Thursday, January 24, 2008 in U.S. District Court against the State of Tennessee for unfair ballot access laws and regulations. The suit challenges several provisions [...]

Ron Paul provided a video assessing the past campaign performance which also allows a glimpse into the future of his presidential bid. He also detailed two key new additions to his staff.

With respect to Paul’s current political journey, his starting point of being a self-described “reluctant candidate” around a year ago has advanced to [...]

The following is a press release from the Phillies 2008 campaign:

Libertarian Presidential candidate George Phillies today called on Congress to honor its responsibilities to the city of Washington, DC.

“According to the Constitution, Congress serves as the D.C. legislature,” he observed. “It’s time they did the job right.”

“The first step to a good life is a [...]