(Firstly, “the LP” surely doesn’t “exist”...”The LP” is a concept/label..concepts/labels don’t really ‘exist’..why don’t you and boob barf read ?chapter 2 of bergland’s “libertarianism in one lesson”..?’common obstacles to clear thinking about government…the fallacy of reification,’ etc…especially boob barf..as this relatively new LP fool apparently wants to be head “Libertarian” political honcho!..)

..it’s been obvious to me the “Libertarian Party” has been successfully infiltrated, gutted, etc., by stinking Republican/”Conservative” numbskulls…for years now!..

..think about it!..The most famous “Libertarian” in my neck of the woods is a goddamned loud Republican, ‘conservative’ fool radiohead I have dubbed “Kneel Boor”....a focking, warmongering, corporate shill who, despite frequently working his hole about “the economy,” is worse than clueless as to the most fundamental nature, origin, etc. of the most ubiquitou$ commodity in “the economy”..(hammer hint: you Republicrat dopes call them ‘dollars’)

...he’s virtually indistinguishable from VIRTUALLY EVERY OTHER LOUD, STINKING “CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN” SHILL..

..and he IS the most famous “Libertarian” in my neck..

...and slowly “the LP” has attracted like-minded idiots…and might become indistinguishable from the like-minded idiots, ignoramusses, the Republicrats..if not already..

...it seems if boob Barr even gets close to the LP nomination you’ll know these fucking idiots are firmly planted in the LP!.. ;o)

Debris and fire shot out of the Twin Towers, yet conviently the only other large building to collapse was one where Larry Silverstein had the lease.

9/11 Coincidences (Larry Silverstein and WTC 7)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ9BofDUXv0

In order to truly make inroads, the LPneeds to get votes from the GOP, Dems and Independents and it can. It does need an absolute serious politician though. Barr already nedorsed Badnarik in 2004 (not Bush), so there is at least 4,5 years of genuine rethinking, and no opportunistic bid to use the party ballot access to preach his own “gospel”. As he mentioned, the fair tax issue is secondary, one should first decrease the size of the government considerably and save and then you cans ee about the tax structure. The deficit needs to be eliminated too.

I personally think Barr-Ruwart would be the best option, for various reasons.

Go ahead and nominate Ruwart or Kubby. I voted for Ruwart for VP years ago and Kubby was my choice before Ruwart and Barr came along. But if you do nominate either of these two, you are resigning the LP to another presidential election cycle where we are largely ignored and unheard.

Barr gives us an opportunity for exposure, votes, members and dollars that the other candidates can’t even approach.

The problem is I’m not even a purist technically. I want a pure platform, but I am willing to accept an impure but good candidate. As I wrote to ChinaTownActivist, if Barr could answer those questions in a reasonable way I could support him.

The problem for me with regards to candidates like Barr is not only are the questions not answered, the pragmatists say we shouldn’t even ask them in the first place, and that by daring to ask a prospective LP candidate if he is at all libertarian we are sacrificing electability for purity.

No candidate will ever be perfect, but that doesn’t mean we should not exptect them to be good.

You write:

“Yeah, he probably can’t win either but at least he has been elected to Congress so is (in the mind of most voters) at least roughly qualified for the job.”

In every election since 1880 (when US Representative James Garfield, who was also a former Union general, was elected), the voters you cite have said otherwise.

“The question for LP delegates is do we take a chance on a candidate who can get us the media, attention and votes to make us politically relevant or do we forsake that chance because the candidate doesn’t score 100/100 on the Nolan Chart?”

Nice try, but I have yet to see anyone criticize Barr for not scoring 100/100 on the Nolan Chart [1]. The questions that have been asked don’t pertain to how libertarian he is, but whether or not he is libertarian on various issues, including several issues that are front-burner voter issues this year (foreign policy and immigration, for example).

Media, attention and votes—and, for that matter, winning elections—are means. Their only value to the LP is in helping it accomplish the desired ends. If Barr’s campaign does that, good deal—if it doesn’t, then his campaign is of no value to us and it would run counter to our interests to nominate him.

“If we continue to insist on running candidates that have zero chance of winning then we might as well give up on being a political party that runs candidates. We can then either work for change via the initiative process or become a debating society.”

Not strictly relevant, since Barr would have zero chance of winning as the LP’s presidential nominee … but it does bring up another issue of importance, so I’ll riff on it.

The presidential campaign is not the only campaign the LP is running this year. We’re running candidates for US Senate. We’re running candidates for US House of Representatives. We’re running candidates for state legislatures, county and local offices.

Since we know, beyond any reasonable doubt, that our presidential candidate will not win, it’s worth asking which candidate would, as nominee, best boost the chances of “down-ticket” candidates.

Barr might be that candidate, or he might not. The more likely answer is that he is in some cases and isn’t in others.

As a Libertarian running for Congress from the left against a “conservative” Republican incumbent in a district the Democrats seem to have given up on, a presidential nominee up-ticket from me who’s generally identified as a “conservative” does me no good and as a matter of fact potentially costs me votes.

Not that I expect the LP’s presidential nomination to be awarded on the basis of which nominee would do me the most good as a congressional candidate—that would probably be Mike Gravel, and I don’t even support Gravel myself. But it seems to me that running a presidential candidate who is fairly “plumb line” with respect to the national party’s platform (in other words, Kubby or Ruwart) is the obvious solution to the problem of down-ticket effects. If there’s going to be deviationism (and there will be), then let those down-ticket candidates be the ones to express it instead of having it dropped on them from above.

Regards,
Tom Knapp

Notes:

1. For one thing, anyone can be made to score any way on the Nolan Chart by the simple expedient of asking different questions for scoring purposes. There are numerous Nolan Chart based political classification tests which differ from each other in various respects, and even the best-known variant, The World’s Smallest Political Test, can be and has been changed over the years.

The question for LP delegates is do we take a chance on a candidate who can get us the media, attention and votes to make us politically relevant or do we forsake that chance because the candidate doesn’t score 100/100 on the Nolan Chart? Remember Bob Barr has been good enough to represent the LP in media interviews for many months now. He had all the failure and shortcoming as our paid spokesperson then that we will have as our unpaid candidate.

If we do reject Mr. Barr because he fails our ideological purity test or has failed it in the past, how eager are futures viable candidates going to be to seek our nomination? Gary Johnson, Richard Armey, all have votes that would fail the Montoni/Barr Purity test. Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, the late Milton Friedman all have publicly taken positions very much out of agreement with LP platform.

So what do we do? Continue to be an irrelvant political party or do we take a chance and risk actually being a factor in the presidential election?

If we continue to insist on running candidates that have zero chance of winning then we might as well give up on being a political party that runs candidates. We can then either work for change via the initiative process or become a debating society.

Thanks for the great suggestions for the Ruwart campaign and for your support. We’d love to have you helping the campaign, so please go to www.votemary2008.com, and fill out the volunteer info.

Any financial contribution you could afford is obviously very appreciated as well. Just click on the “Contribute” button. Thanks again Stefan, and let’s get Mary nominated in Denver!

I will be posting my interview with Bob Barr once we down load it normally Gordon links to it.I did ask him about the fair tax, flag burning, gay marriage and the Dept. of education. I think I was starting to piss him off at one point.
Is there any body you guys would like to interview next week. I was thinking of interviewing Redpath about the convention.