Third Party Watch

Bob Barr, the 2008 Libertarian Party candidate for President, has prevailed over New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a lawsuit involving a Georgia sports store that sells guns. Here is the Associated Press story on the case.

Also on the Second Amendment front, Stephen Halbrook’s The Founders’ Second Amendment, which Barr praises, skyrocketed on [...]

Jon Basil Utley, on the Antiwar.com blog, gives another view of conservative patriarch Paul Weyrich, who died last Thursday. While most people are familiar with Weyrich’s role on social issues, Utley focuses on his war position and support for civil liberties. He notes, for example:

Weyrich also funded for several years an e-mail letter [...]

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina has dismissed a lawsuit by Ralph Nader that accused the Democratic Party of conspiring to keep him off the ballot in 2004. Nader ran as an independent candidate for President this year. The Associated Press story is here.

Lynne Williams, an attorney who has championed numerous environmental and human rights causes in Maine, has announced that she intends to run for governor in 2010. She is state chairman of the Maine Green Independent Party and serves on the planning board in Bar Harbor.

The Bangor Daily News covers her entry into the [...]

Ballot Access News

In 2004, Constitution Party presidential nominee Michael Peroutka was on the ballot in states containing 66.4% of the national presidential vote. Where he was on the ballot, he polled .173% of the total presidential vote in those places.

In 2008, Constitution Party presidential nominee Chuck Baldwin was on the ballot in states containing 59.0% [...]

The following is a media release from the Constitution Party:

12/09/2008

Got Birth Certificate?
Constitution Party Calls For Barack Obama To Prove Eligibility For Office

Lancaster, PA, The country’s fastest-growing third party (Ballot Access News 12/08) challenged Barack Obama to release his birth certificate and dispel the grave concerns that he is ineligible to assume office as president of [...]

According to an American Independent Party blog, Rush Limbaugh is recommending to Governor Blagojevich that if he really wants to stick it to Obama and company, he should nominate Alan Keyes to be Senator from Illinois.

Karole Noymann has this to say about the idea on Daily Kos:

For those who may not be aware Keyes was [...]

The following is a media release from the Libertarian Party:

Dec 11, 2008

Barr Condemns Newest Bailout
Auto Bailout Will Only “Compound the Problem”

Former Congressman Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party’s 2008 presidential nominee, issued a statement condemning the proposed $15-billion bailout of the auto industry apparently nearing approval in the Congress. Barr said “the Faustian bargain” the [...]

The following is a media release from the Green Party of the United States:

Greens offer six big steps for economic recovery

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org
For Immediate Release:
Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, cell 202-904-7614, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@gp.org

Greens support workers occupying a factory in Chicago after layoff: bailout money isn’t [...]

The following is a column by Chuck Baldwin, the 2008 Constitution Party presidential candidate:

Selective Constitutionalism
By Chuck Baldwin
December 9, 2008

Many conservatives are up in arms regarding the charge that President-elect Barack Obama may not have been born in the United States and is, therefore, not qualified under the U.S. Constitution to be President of the United [...]

The Houston Chronicle’s Texas on the Potomac blog gives the vote totals for Indiana, North Carolina, and Missouri. It is obvious that Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr and Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader got enough votes to make the difference in those three states between the two major-party candidates. (Constitution Party presidential [...]

The following is a news release from the Libertarian Party of New York:

For more information contact: Eric Sundwall, Chairman (518) 857-1731

Libertarian Party Supports Anti-Corporate Welfare Lawsuit
State Committee decries unconstitutional spending

ALBANY, NY (12/08/2008; 1324)(readMedia)—On December 7, 2009 the LPNY State Committee passed a resolution supporting a lawsuit seeking to end corporate welfare via the New York [...]

Herman K. Trabish in the NewEnergyNews blog is surprised to see the carbon tax emerge again after the election, when both Obama and McCain had supported versions of a cap-and-trade system:

A tax on emissions (dubbed a “carbon tax”) was considered a better idea but politically unreachable.

That was then.

In the past few days, consumer advocate Ralph [...]

This is like finding saints in hell, or devil creatures in heaven, depending on your point of view. Apparently there are 5,915 people living in the District of Columbia—the very core of the government conspiracy—who are libertarian enough in their views to vote for the Libertarian Party’s candidate for “shadow” U.S. Senator. Ballot [...]

Update: Angela Keaton is reportedly resigning from the LNC, at the insistence of her employers at AntiWar.com.

At its meeting in San Diego on Saturday Dec. 6 and Sunday Dec. 7, the Libertarian National Committee tightened its budgetary belt, targeted the LPWA top-two primary lawsuit, mulled the Barr-Root campaign, deferred action on the mission statement and [...]

Chuck Baldwin, the 2008 Constitution Party candidate for President, says there is only one way to get the change that President-elect Obama promised in his campaign:

There will be no real change in Washington, D.C., until the CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] and their elitist cronies are thoroughly and universally removed from power. And the [...]

The holiday season is here. Many Greens are looking for ways to celebrate the holidays while still living simply. The Green Party has ideas for alternative holiday giving that can help the Green Party AND give you a good feeling during the holidays.

The following is a news release from the Capital District Greens:

Greens Oppose Nomination of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State
Capital District Greens

For immediate release, December 1, 2008
For More Info: Mark Dunlea 518 283-6512, Howie Hawkins 315 425-1019

The Capital District Greens criticized President-elect Obama today for nominating Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) to be his Secretary of [...]

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader makes the Wall Street Journal with a column, coauthored with Toby Heaps, entitled “We Need a Global Carbon Tax.” They write:

If President Barack Obama wants to stop the descent toward dangerous global climate change, and avoid the trade anarchy that current approaches to this problem will invite, he should [...]

The following is a column by Ralph Nader, this year’s Independent presidential candidate:

In the Public Interest
by Ralph Nader

In ancient China, the character for “crisis” was associated with “opportunity.” This month Congress will be faced with both challenges from General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, whose CEOS are begging for a very rapid $34 billion in emergency [...]

According to the Political Insider blog in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, former Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr has endorsed Republican Saxby Chambliss in today’s Senate runoff. Political Insider reprints the text of a Barr letter “presumably distributed to Libertarians in Georgia.”

Ironically, Barr claims Chambliss is for “ending the government bailouts,” when much of [...]

How will Georgia libertarians vote today? That will probably decide who wins the Senate runoff—Republican incumbent Sen. Saxby Chambliss or Democrat Jim Martin. And the Georgia race may decide whether the Democrats get their filibuster-proof supermajority of 60 in the Senate.

Chambliss fell just short of the majority he needed November 4 to avoid [...]

This is how Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party’s presidential candidate this year, sees the election results:

For all intents and purposes, conservatism—as a national movement—is completely and thoroughly dead. Barack Obama did not destroy it, however. It was George W. Bush and John McCain who destroyed conservatism in America.

Moreover,

...the greatest tragedy of this deception is [...]

Canada directly subsidizes its political parties, under the pretext of eliminating big money in campaigns. Now the new conservative administration threatens to end those subsidies.

Here is part of the response from Green Party executive director Maureen Murphy:

This could well be the biggest challenge ever to face the Green Party of Canada….

What does this mean [...]

Doug Bandow, on his blog, writes about “The Demopublican Duopoly,” and states:

There were alternatives on some of the ballots–including the Libertarian Party’s Bob Barr, to whom I lent a helping hand. Unfortunately, however, the two big parties tend to make the rules as arcane as possible, while election law bureaucrats often seem to work [...]