-Larry Breazeale, Msgt. (ret.) USAF,
Vietnam/Desert Storm veteran,
Chairman, National Veterans Coalition
of the Constitution party…www.nvets.org

By the way, my earlier post is reply #5, if anyone is interested.

I recommend all of you read his new book: “Citizen Power”. This is a powerful rewrite of his 1972 book while he was in the Senate. The upgrade includes a whole chapter on the FairTax which has been around much longer than Huckabee and Gravel stumping for it. And his National Initiative for Democracy which is something all of the third parties ought to advocate.

Since starting a movement to draft Bloomberg in late 2006, I have been advocating a fusion of the third parties. Even if we have to suspend our separate ideological principles for one cycle to get behind a candidate with either the National Initiative or serious Election Reform that allows fair third party participation – now is the time. Gravel may not be the best to lead this effort, but he does have the gravitas to represent us well.

I’ve been thinking about your 1912 idea, and it has two problems. One, the Bull Moose Party was basically a surrogate Republican Party built because TR got cheated at the convention. In order to get that kind of pull, you’d have to have something like Obama getting his nomination stolen by Hillary and then bolting to form his own party. Two, TR’s platform was well to the left of either of the major-party candidates, so he wasn’t a true left-right fusion candidate at all—just a leftist.

There are other models you might consider, but I think the best of these would be Perot. While Perot pulled more votes from Bush than from Clinton, he did draw liberally from both parties, and people allied with his party (Jesse Ventura, for instance) drew more from the Dems. True, Perot had billions, but these days it’s easier to find a billionaire lying around than a washed-up former President. You’ve essentially got two choices there: Carter and Bush Sr. Neither one would make a good fusion candidate.

ME: A concern, but no. First, in concept, I’d prefer it be Barr/Gravel. Again, in concept, a right/left balance would be important to not give voters that the LP is “conservative” or “liberal.” We’re dealing in metaphors, not science in this scenario, Frank.

Re: Gravel: I have to say, I was far from impressed with his performance in the Dem debates, but he’s damn good at this third party maverick stuff—in many ways better than Nader. If I were Wayne Root, I’d be very, very nervous that this guy was going to steal my thunder at the debate.

Bush did not put us $9 trillion in debt. He inherited about $6.5 trillion, and much of the debt can be chalked up to existed programs. Bush was a big-spender and terrible for fiscal conservatives, but you can’t put all the debt onto him.

As you noted, the Senate plays a part. So does Congress. They ultimately control the purse strings of the federal government. You can rightfully put most of the blame for our debt on both houses of Congress. Remember, the legislature controls the budget.

Your “proof” is simply terrible, as it doesn’t take into account any facts. For example, with Republicans controlling the white house and congress, government shrank in 1954-1955 by 8% and 5% respectively. When Democrats controlled everything in 1966-1968 spending went up by 8 to 10% each year. So much for Republican adminsitrations “always” being more wasteful.

For some real information on federal spending, this is a great piece:
http://www.libertyunbound.com/archive/2004_11/bradford-spending.html

Republicans do tend to be worse spenders than Democrats, but there are exceptions.

A Barr-Gravel ticket with funding could be a major player in this race because McCain is a loser, Bob Dole 2 ! He’s making major blunders almost on a daily basis. Let’s be frank, Obama 3 yrs from the IL state senate isn’t qualified to be the POTUS and if you listen closely he is as much of a socialist as Jesse Jackson, if Clinton is allowed to steal the nomination millions won’t vote Dem in Nov leaving more for Gravel to attempt to gather. If Barr can rejuvenate @ least 60 to 70 % of Paul’s grassroot effort to do the volunteer groundwork and he could take conservatives from both parties, indies and some moderates also if they think he has a chance, who knows ?

Barr actually is a much better candidate than Paul within Republican circles and would get much more funds from them. Almost all of Paul’s funds came from libertarians, constitutionalists, patriots, 9-11 truthers, and the youth (who for the most part are unaffilliated, except to Ron Paul).

If Nader and McKinney can put up credible campaigns a 5-way electoral college contest could be interesting. If Barr-Gravel would hire a professional manager and raise big bucks for paid ads, with a major grassroots effort specifically targeted, who really knows ? I can show you on a piece of paper how they can win with less than 27 million votes.

There is one major problem with my daydreaming. Barr won’t pull the trigger. He is definitely thinking long and hard before he takes on McCain and the Dems. If he failed and McCain lost also he would forever be branded as the man that gave us Hillary or Obama (or both). I’m not sure that Barr is ready to carry that brand ! Barr, no doubt a bright man, is under the faults impression that in a choice between a Dem and Republican POTUS it is always best to have the Republican in the White House. The truth is that the Dem administrations always are more fiscally conservative and spend less money on pork than Repubs. Some of you don’t believe that statement. It can be proven ! Bush 2 has us @ $9 trillion in debt the last I heard. It has to do with the Senate, they (Repub senators) will block Dem POTUS, but let the Repub Prez’ pork slide by and the Dems don’t mind if they get theirs. Hence Republican administrations are always more wasteful of the taxpayers funds.

With Barr hesitating, what’s left to do ? Turn to Milnes and the fusion campaign. He should be able to raise $50 millions from the Teddy Roosevelt wing of the Green Party to finance this effort…

ALLLLLLLL ABOARD !

Do some fact checking.

Barr has been with the LP since 2006. He’s not using the LP for ballot access, as he hasn’t even announced his intention to run for office yet. If he does, I will wager that it is because of the pressure Libertarians are putting on him to run – rather than some diabolical plan he had for 2 years to use the LP’s ballot access.

Good job Robert!