Looooong ago, I was anti-establishment (press & government) and Conservativism was the best alternative for surviving the Liberal juggernaut. There were many of us pre through Goldwater ‘fanatics’ that needed something. I certainly don’t like its end result but it slowed the tide. What little I know of Libertarianism tells me it ‘might’ be the best way, but like the above insider noted, people like me no so very little, and it would seem that you’re more involved with infighting than getting your message out to lure me in with facts of what you stand for and why. I suspect that you’ll be forever on a merry go round. With Bob Barr, maybe you should be concerned with telling the world your message, and that you’re backing him in spite of your differences.

It would seem that the alternative is to continue leaving messages between yourselves.

Regards, my friends.

I’ve had better run-ins than the one we had yesterday. This guy was just so obvious that it shocked me when he actually paid with a credit card. That floored me. He got his booze, then went outside to make more money.

You write:

“Oh…and a funny side-note to this. When we were parking outside the store, there was a somewhat disheveled looking guy in a wheel chair bumming money from people. He was, of course, telling people he needed money for food not booze.”

Great, I get to pull out MY political bum story!

A few years ago, I was at a local Green Party meeting (I interface with those guys when possible—I think I was there to try to set up a debate between one of our candidates and one of theirs or something). It was in a little coffeehouse in a part of town that’s not bad, but that verges on crackhouse/panhandler territory.

Anyway, we’re sitting there at a table (it was their local executive committee and two or three other people), and this guy shuffles in, walks over and launches into his sob story.

So, how do the Great Socialist Protectors of the Poor react? The head cheese turns around and says “we’re trying to talk here—GO AWAY.” Guy shuffles off, walks out.

I followed him out and talked with him for a minute. He had a great story. This was at the peak of the West Nile Virus mini-scare, and he said his cousin in Illinois had died of it and that he was trying to get together enough money to buy a suit for the funeral. His story was so good, I had to give him $5. It didn’t hurt to be a Libertarian doing so outside a large street-facing window with all those deeply caring Greens who’d just chased the guy off looking out.

Again, this is how I see it, and I personally don’t see the slightly higher potential as worth nominating a conservative (Barr) over a real libertarian.

Thank you for your response, Stephen.

I am not claiming that 1 million votes for Ron Paul will translate to 1 million for Barr, Kubby, Gravel, Root, Phillies or Ruwart. I was merely showing what is possible with the right candidate and a message that resonates beyond the traditional LP vote base. Ever since 1980, meeting or exceeding 1 million votes has been THE hope and dream of Libertarians. Could you imagine the media coverage? Could you imagine the gigantic boost in morale? Could you imagine being able to have more influence in the “Freedom versus Statism” debate?

Ron Paul reached out BEYOND Republicans. A Libertarian candidate will have to reach out BEYOND Libertarians. You admit that Bob Barr would likely gain more votes than the other candidates. I will venture to say it’s because Bob Barr will likely resonate with voters more than the alternatives.

We (radicals and moderates, anarchists and minarchists) CHOSE to join the LP and work within the electoral system as a means of maximizing liberty. Since we have committed to that, why not do what we can to move our political system toward the right direction?

If my comments had been made in “rage”, I wouldn’t have used asterisks. I was making a point that you clearly missed.

In case you haven’t noticed, there are mindless sheeples out there. Regardless of anything that we do, there is a certain portion of the electorate who vote for a party simply because their parents did and they were raised a “republican” or a “democrat.”

You have to be able to understand freedom to vote for it. Sheeples believe that they are already free (they call it being protected), and therefore cannot understand anything we propose to them. If we were to effect change, they’d go along simply because they don’t know how to do anything other than follow whoever is leading.

But sheeples are not the entire universe of eligible voters. They are just a subset of those who vote. There are also people who claim to be for freedom and against government interference in their lives who actually refuse to vote. Some of these are people that you’d normally think of as being intelligent, yet they act stupidly (and clearly emotionally) by refusing to vote. These people actually disgust me. Sheeples can’t help themselves. These people refuse to.

There are, of course, those in the other parties who are in leadership positions and work to destroy our freedom. While far from a majority of the electorate, they are dangerous and are in control. Their votes will never be cast for anyone who wants to take their power away.

There are others—the majority of voters—who vote out of fear and anger against the enemy. To them, one side is right and the other is wrong. They are emotionally attached to the concept of “good” politicians and “bad” politicians and cannot see that at the top, both sides are actually working toward the same goal. The Democrats and Republicans want voters to be afraid of what the other party’s candidates will do.

While you are certainly at liberty to throw insults like “Grow some ovaries and take charge of your life, man!” or “Way to talk about people whose votes we want, Mr. Big Tent.”, the truth is that you use exactly the same emotional fear mongering tactics that the Republicans and Democrats are famous for.

You want “purity” and “perfect” libertarian candidates. You try to make people afraid of candidates like Bob Barr, Mike Gravel and Wayne Root by claiming that they are either still Republicans or Democrats.

You fail to remember that you too were once a member of another party. Your conversion to libertarianism is allowed under your rules, but their’s isn’t. Regardless of what issues you may agree with a candidate on, you use fear tactics to point out what you consider to be their failings.

Candidates must be emotional about the message to win voters over, but we can’t be emotional about our candidates. Support based on emotion takes us down the same path that the Republicans and Democrats travel.

You and I disagree on where government reduction should end, but we both agree that we are far beyond anything acceptable and live in an oppressive and statist society.

I have no emotional attachment to any candidate, even the ones I support. I will accept someone who is working toward the goal of restoring our liberty and stripping government of the many powers they have taken without legitimate cause. I will even consider candidates like Mike Gravel, who is far from libertarian in some areas, but clearly libertarian in others.

The party needs a candidate who will actually advance the cause and not just “unite the party”—a term taken straight from the tactics manual of Atwater.

The truth is, you fear success. You fear having any candidate, whether Gravel, Root, Barr, or even your beloved Ruwart actually advance our cause. You want candidates to talk about the message of liberty, yet state quite clearly that you’d rather have the message than win votes that could influence downstream candidates or secure future ballot access.

You fear losing power. What power is that? The power to be in charge of the debating society where you get to set the rules and say who is libertarian enough to be a member. Wake up Susan. This isn’t a debating society. You are running for an at-large seat on the LNC, yet you don’t want the party to actually be a party. You don’t want freedom, you simply want to talk about freedom.

I don’t plan on getting drunk in Denver—or even drinking at all—so don’t expect any “bonhomie attempts” from me. I was simply trying to be polite. Your comments clearly indicate that would be a waste of time. That’s unfortunate.

It’s also unfortunate that you fail to understand where we stand as a party and what our opportunities for success are this year.

The comments by Gene Trosper were well written and were clearly thought out. He makes the case perfectly for why this needs to be a non-emotional decision by delegates.

Though hardly a radical Libertarian myself, I still have been trying to wrap my mind around a Barr candidacy, as I’m uncertain about how I’ll be voting at the convention. Hearing from a self proclaimed radical in this manner has been helpful.

At the very least, it was reassuring to hear from someone acting maturely about differences within the party. The doomsayers on all the various sides seem to get a disproportionate amount of attention.

Way to talk about people whose votes we want, Mr. Big Tent.

Suggest you stop taking your rage out on poor bums, and just pack the car and travel. Getting arrested would make you a martyr to the cause. But the truth is, no one cares if your trunk is full of booze.

Grow some ovaries and take charge of your life, man!

I guess he can’t wait to fire the jackasses who made him look like such a bozo by funding warmongering antilibertarian Republicans while he was serving as a leader in the LP, then.

But on another note…a question for Susan: What brand of vodka? Rick and I were figuring out the booze budget for the suite and there are at least twenty brands of vodka in the store.

Let’s save the bonhomie attempts for after we’re both well drunk. Before is too painful.

Don’t these Root trolls tire of making themselves look foolish? Fuck off back to your GOP bigots you sad cunts!

JESUS LOVES YOU KENNY, WE FORGIVE YOU! GOD BLESS MARY AND GOD BLESS CHILD PORN!

As I said, I’m not convinced that Barr would do any better that many of the other LP candidates. I give Barr a ceiling of about 1 to 1.2 million votes. The other candidates ceiling would vary from about 300,000 to 1 million”.

Steve, being a “radical” party (Latin meaning of radix means going to the “root”)
should the LP not think about a radical aggressive strategy and being different than before, with the braod principles, and propmoting not all, bute the most relevant one’s that affect people the most, e.g. health care, economy, Iraq war,
privacy (vs. Patriot) act, to a lesser extent medical marjiuana.. If you make the legalization of prostitution, hard drugs, gay marriages your main points in the lection it is a recipe for total disaster and these issues affect the least amount of people, while the first mentioned issues, the msot amount of people, if not all.
It is really not so difficult to understand.

Now regarding voter projection:
Firstly I do believe there were some electronic voter fraud in the primaries in at least certain states in the primaries with regard to Ron Paul. Also consider he fared much better in caucuses than primaries. So I think based on this alone Paul has (much?) more than 1 million votes.

Then there is also the issue that some Democrats and Independents registered or were too late in some states with Republican only voters, so that you can also count them to Paul’s totals. This is an unknown amount obviously.

Then there is also the issue of people who wanted to vote for Paul, but voted for Romney, Huckabee or any of the other GOP candidates instead as they thought they were more electable. They probably thought Paul would not last til Super Tuesday, or shortly thereafter, including the astute David Nolan (and Paul himself as a certain stage). ANd look where he is, he is still running and campaigning. There are delegates that voted for Romney, Huckabee etc that now voted for Paul, not McCain. Some people have said they wished they have voted for Paul instead. This also means more votes for Paul at this stage.

Then there are also even Paul supporters that thought Paul had dropped out, and they would have voted for Paul if they knew he was still in the race. This is all due to the media black-out and false reporting.

Paul’s message has reached more people all the time.

ALL this means that Paul represents much much more than 1 million people. It would simply be foolish to put the ceiling to say 1,2 million people. Say maybe 3 million plus?

Now regarding Barr, one can speculate that not all that voted for Paul would vote for Paul. I do think that most voters for Paul would be inclined to vote for Barr or Ruwart (or SMith), rather than any other Lp candidate, given their close association with Paul. Barr could perhaps get the most votes from Paul supporters?

It is unknown how many Paul supporters would vote for Baldwin. I think – from what I have read – many of them would vote for Barr if Barr is the LP nominee, otherwise they may vote for Baldwin, especially if a more “liberal”, strong “pro-choice”, Paul critic like Dr. Phillies is elected. (I know Ruwart is personally pro-choice, but she has not made it a big issue, and Barr has also not made his pro-life a big issue, unlike Dr. Phillies who has made PR statements about this).

Now, I do think that while Barr may not attact as many as Paul from the 1 million we know of, he can “counter-balance” and attract more ‘mainstream” Republican voters, like Romney and Huckabee, and Thompson voters (I do think most Giuliani type voters would vote for McCain). Eeven among McCain voters there have been defections to Paul, in ALaska among the delegates for instance, and they could also vote for Barr. Most of the people supported the war, all or most of the 25-33% anti-war Republicans could vote for Barr AND Barr could also attract voters from GOP who were pro-war, but have doubts now and very dissatisfied with McCain regarding illegal immigration, the constitution, the economy, false promises about smaller government etc. etc.

COncerning Ruwart, whom I also like as person, she could bring in a lot of women voters Paul could not bring in, and perhaps more minorities and left wing voters than Paul. She may attract these people as VP candidate as well. She may not attract so many traditional conservative Republicans as Barr.

For this and more reasons I do think – on paper at least – a Barr-Ruwart ticket could prove to be the very best option for the LP and one should think in terms or 3-5 million voters plus, and NOT 1 - 1,2 million only. The more money the Lp can raise, and actively and enthusiastically spread the message, the better and more people it can attract. In Russ Varney with the Barr campaign, the LP has access to a person with national campaign experience (Perot with 19%). A good campaign should also involve some of Ruwart’s people. Who knows, the LP could fare even better than 20%, it may sound extremely optimistic, but with enough money and zeal, even with not a lot of media attention, possible. IMHO certainly possible if the Lp could raise 30,50, 80 million. With a few money bombs and pro-active campaign, it has a lot. Many Paul supporters justly fight with Paul till early September with the RNC, and wait to see what happens. Although remote, there is still a chance Paul might get the nomination (for different reasons I do not want to go into here). If not, and the GOP HQ “reject” him, many Paul supporters would be angered and throw their weight full time behind the LP nomination (if it is Barr-Ruwart) as well as Ron Paul Republicans, Libertarians, Constitutionalists in their local areas.

SO if the LP can build some substantial momentum till September and then receive more impetus in September till November. You must communicate the message you can win and fight to win. This will also inspire more people to vote their conscience and not for the “lesser of two evils”.

Why would you expect the Republicans to support Barr over more principled LP candidates, like Ruwart and Kubby?”

It seems to me the Ron Paul platform would not satisfy the LP. Barr runs on pretty much the same platform (not so extensive in going on the Fed etc.). Paul did not emphasize the war on drugs every time and in congress he has the medical marijuana bill together with Frank, and a general ending of the war on drugs would take much longer time. Paul is perhaps a bit more radical than Barr, but both believe in federalism (which the radicals like Susan Hogarth and Steve LaBianca do not) and an incremental approach in change.
The Ron Paul movement grew into much bigger than the LP (he also had an appeal to Greens, Democrats (who believed in big govt. and in process of “evolving”, they joined Paul because of the anti-war appeal etc.) . We know both of them are pro-life, with which radical LP strongly disagree. Paul faces this issue in 1988 as well and am sure he does not want to go though all party infighting as an LP candidate and struggle with LP’s that do not like him and not supportive of him.

The radicals, who accept an “all or nothing approach”, NO incremental change (like Paul,Barr) should ask themselves why Mary Ruwart has supported Paul ever since 1988. If a “more liberty”, but not “hardcore libertarian” campaign/approach would give people a “false sense of liberty” and even damage the LP (in the long run), e.g. mean a “watered down message” and “compromise with principals” (one has to consider which basic principals as there is not a single definition of libertarianism), neither Paul nor Barr seem to contribute towards liberty? or they contribute towards liberty, but it does not represent “the real thing” (in their reasoning) and give people a “false sense of what liberty means”.

I listened to a very informative interview in 2004 with LP co-founder David Nolan. In it he mentioned sen. Barry Goldwater as being the modern day political founder of the ideas of the LP. Well Barry Goldwater very strongly believed in “states rights”, federalism throughout his career. You can also read more about it in the new book “Pure Goldwater” by RW Dean and Barry Goldwater Jr (who endorsed Ron Paul).

I do think “libertarianism” has the tendency to be a more “right wing” politicla belief, while “anarchism” a more “left wing” tendency.

Personally I do think a Barr-Ruwart ticket would be the ideal in many ways.
In order to attract the maximum amount of voters for the LP , they could campaign together and also seperately whereby Barr could target more “conservative’ traditionally Republican audiences and Ruwart more “liberal” traditionally Democratic and Green audiences (and radio interviewers), whereby they can empathize their own strength more. Note that Barr can appeal to “liberals” as well, to a lesser extent, and Ruwart also to a “conservatives”, to a lesser extent. On the Nolan chart one could place Barr perhaps somwhere between conservative and libertarian and and Ruwart somewhere between libertarian and liberal…? Many people paint themselves on the top of the Nolan chart, but I am a bit sceptical whether one can do this 100% in reality. Libertarianism is understand in short as “classical liberalism”, which means a tolerance and integration for both “conservative and “liberal” ideas. Also, the average voter have a “simplistic” conservative-liberal scheme, so it is best to go to their level and explain liberarianism as having the ability to integrate both liberal and conservative policies. It makes IMHO no sense to explain it as something “beyond” conservatism and liberalism/progressiveness.

Barr uses “conservatism” to appeal with “libertarian ideals” to traditional Republican voters. Most people do not even know about the LP and many do not understand “libertarianism” yet. It would also take some time to explain to especially older voters. Young voters can research on the internet etc. Reagan also explained true conservatism as libertarisnism once, so when Barr refer to “conservatism”, he means “fiscal conservatism” especially which means limited/smaller government and more individual rights for many Republicans.

This year is very crucial to the LP, it can finally make a big breakthrough and achieve much more than 1%, even double digits plus and it has to go for it with a win attitude, otherwise many people will not be inspired. The LP has been in existance for over 3 decades about, yet its best performance was in 1980 with only 1,3 2% about and it has to ask itself with the hunger for a viable third party, why was the Reform Party being able to be successful in getting 19% with a non-politician Perot that were at a time of his campaign dropping out for a while and even the election year thereafter 5% plus. The Reform party also fielded a governor in Minnesota. The LP should do some critical introspection and ask themselves have he not given people the false perception and how to combat this false perception effectively. The best way to combat the imagine of a dope smoking, anarchist party is to nominate a reformed conservative congressman with name recognition and can represent the basic libertarian philosophy of non-interventionism, radical more civil liberties, smaller government (now the only small government party of the 3).

2008 is do or die in a certain sense for the LP. If it does not use the exceptional chance this year and seize the opportunity and achieve more or less the same as in the past, it may well rename itself to a debating society club from a political party. It should also try to concentrate of a few congressional seats where it stands the best chance and give everything, rather than fielding candidates in too many districts and then see if it can achieve some successes in seats. Senate races will be more difficult. I believe, especially in a 4 party race and very good local candidates (also some of the contenders for the LP nomination?) and ample money it can upset, surprise and win.

Steve LaBianca Says:

May 16th, 2008 at 2:26 pm

And Ron Paul garnered over a million votes, massive media attention and the imagination of countless voters who have NEVER voted Libertarian before.

The LP on the other hand…...

Mr. Trosper, you just solidified my point. I million votes for Ron Paul DOES NOT transfer over to 1 million votes for the LP candidate, Ron Paul or not. Most primary voters vote very differently than in the general election.

As I said, I’m not convinced that Barr would do any better that many of the other LP candidates. I give Barr a ceiling of about 1 to 1.2 million votes. The other candidates ceiling would vary from about 300,000 to 1 million.

Again, this is how I see it, and I personally don’t see the slightly higher potential as worth nominating a conservative (Barr) over a real libertarian.