Third Party Watch

From the Root for America campaign:

Libertarian Presidential candidate Wayne Allyn Root will be traveling to New York for a Libertarian Presidential debate on Fox Business Channel on Friday May 16th. Former United States Senator Mike Gravel has agreed to debate Root. Former Congressman Barr has also been invited by Fox. Root will appear on other [...]

From Townhall:

There’s scant prospect of any viable third party, however, when potential fringe contenders have an air of “round-up-the-usual suspects”—Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Mike Gravel, Bob Barr, and Chuck Baldwin. Soaring turnout in primaries shows no mass desertion from the two-party system, and the Gallup Poll of under-30 voters notes a scant 8%—unchanged from four [...]

The title was lifted to show how a Reason Facebook-promoted event is currently being billed. Here are the details provided:

A debate on the libertarian vote in 2008

Event Host: Reason magazine
Type: Music/Arts – Jam Session
Date: Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Time: 4:30pm – 8:00pm
Location: Reason
Street:1747 Connecticut Ave NW
City/Town: Washington, DC

Description: As the Republicans settled on John McCain [...]

From David Weigel at Reason:

I saw Ron Paul on Wednesday, at a signing event for The Revolution, and he told me he won’t endorse Baldwin or Barr. He’ll kinda-sorta endorse both. He won’t stop them from using photos of him or talking about his campaign.

“Chuck was in my office today to say hello,” Paul said. [...]

From the Barr 2008 Presidential Exploratory Committee:

Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr will hold a press conference on Monday May 12 to discuss his future plans and the 2008 election. Rep. Barr (bio here) launched an exploratory committee last month to determine whether he should file as a candidate for the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination.

Who: [...]

From the Bob Barr 2008 Presidential Exploratory Committee:

Former Congressman Bob Barr has been invited to speak at the Oxford Union at the University of Oxford, the world’s most prestigious debating forum. Several U.S. Presidents have spoken at Oxford, including former Presidents Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and Richard Nixon.

The topic of the debate will be “This [...]

From the Libertarian Party blog:

Wayne Allyn Root
LD ‘08: $15,764.00
Individual: $29,988.00
Candidate: $4,421.90

Daniel Imperato
LD ‘08: $10,474.00
Individual: $0.00
Candidate: $0.00

Michael Jingozian
LD ‘08: $8,490.00
Individual: $13,090.79
Candidate: $0.00

Mike Gravel*^
LD ‘08: $895.00
Individual: $447,378.97
Candidate: $0.00

Steve Kubby**
LD ‘08: $1,280.00
Total: $2,951.22

Alden Link
LD ‘08: $885.00
Individual: $259.00
Candidate: $4,225.00

George Phillies
LD ‘08: n/a
Individual: $16,727.75
Candidate: $81,527.01

Mary Ruwart***
LD ‘08: $1,060.00
Individual: n/a
Candidate: n/a

Christine Smith**
LD ‘08: $2,460.00
Total: $16,244.00

Bob Barr (still in Presidential exploratory phase):
Total [...]

I’ve only been an occassional contributor on TPW since Steve Gordon took over the site a few months ago. Partly to give Steve room to make things his own, and partly because I haven’t been as excited as I usually am about what’s going on. The promised Bloomberg or Unity ‘08 independent ticket [...]

Over the last few days, people have been commenting about various endorsements for Libertarian Party presidential candidates. While one can learn something about a candidate by these endorsements, one can also learn from who is criticizing the candidates.

Former Libertarian Party vice-presidential candidate Chris Bennett provides the latest published criticism of Wayne Allyn Root I’ve [...]

Paul Farris wants Ron Paul to run on the Libertarian Party ticket:

Now is the time to demand Ron Paul be on every ballot in America come November 2008. The Libertarian Convention is 22-26 May in Denver. Now is the time for Ron Paul to put his name in the hat for a sure presidential nomination [...]

Georgia conducted an e-mail straw poll of actual Libertarian Party National Convention delegates. Here are the results:

GA delegation e-mail straw poll results:

Straw Poll:
Do you have a preference for the Presidential nominee?

[ ] Bob Barr ——- 19.3 —— 74.4 %
[ ] Jim Burns
[ ] [...]

Sam Wood of the Philadelphia Inquirer just conducted an interview of Bob Barr. Here are some of the highlights.

Barr’s epiphany:

Inquirer: As a Republican congressman, you were among the most visible and vocally conservative. What caused you to suddenly switch parties two years ago? Did you have a Paul-on-the-road-to-Damascus experience that led to your conversion?

Barr: [...]

From Zogby International:

Republican John McCain trails Democrat Barack Obama by three points in a national general election test, but leads Democrat Hillary Clinton by 10 points, the latest Zogby Interactive survey shows.

The online poll, conducted April 25-28, 2008, shows that Obama retains 80% support among Democrats, compared to just 66% of Democrats who said they [...]

by Mike Ferguson

I’m here covering the event for the Kansas City Metro Voice, for Third Party Watch and for my online TV show, “Missouri Viewpoints”.

There are about 250 delegates here in Kansas City. I’m guessing there are probably around 100 other attendees as well – there’s a great deal of people moving around during and [...]

John McCaslin reports that Bob Barr will be a guest at the 2008 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. In a different article, McCaslin reports the following:

Former Republican congressman and rumored 2008 Libertarian Party candidate for president Bob Barr was seen huddling with pundits and leaders of various state-based center-right and libertarian think tanks and [...]

From Joe Rothstein:

Consider this scenario:
—After the last primary election votes are counted in South Dakota and Montana June 3 just enough superdelegates declare for Obama to insure his nomination by the thinnest of margins.
—Hillary Clinton claims that the decision to exclude the Florida and Michigan delegations has distorted the nominating process and that the only [...]

Dave Weigel just interviewed Mike Gravel. Having spent some time with Gravel a couple of weekends ago and knowing Weigel pretty well, I can certainly imagine the facial expressions and other nuances during this exchange:

GRAVEL: Who would I be a good vice presidential pick for? I don’t know if the Libertarian Party has had, [...]

We thought we’d provide some video of the key independent and third party contenders for the presidential race in 2008. Our goal was to provide footage of video which (for the most part) hasn’t ever been embedded at Third Party Watch before. When possible, we selected video from the candidate’s official YouTube channel [...]