Third Party Watch

It appears Chuck Baldwin’s website just went live, although it certainly isn’t fully fleshed out yet.

Chuck Baldwin is obviously relying heavily upon a candidacy which portrays him as a surrogate for Ron Paul. His main page says he is “continueing the Revolution”. Baldwin’s site also features a quote from his acceptance speech at the Constitution [...]

For the record, I’m still in love with Liv aka Mona aka Ron Paul Girl. While Gravel is busy chasing after Obama Girl, I’m at least getting some internet play from Ron Paul Girl. Mona still provides some linky-love to one of my websites and hasn’t dropped me as a Facebook friend (yet).

Here’s Ron [...]

It looks like Dr. William (B. J.) Lawson aka Ron Paul, Jr. just poured an entire can of ass-whoopin’ on Republican Augustus Cho in North Carolina’s Fourth Congressional District GOP primary. Here’s an update from last night from David Weigel:

UPDATE 9:04: I just spoke to B.J. Lawson, who is clobbering Augustus Cho 70-30 with [...]

Ron Paul finished third in the Indiana and North Carolina primaries tonight, but it looks like those showings of 8% and 7% respectively will be enough to push him past the one million vote mark.

As of this moment, Paul has added 60,757 votes to his total… with 15% of the votes still to be counted [...]

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 [...]

I realize that every time I cover issues within the Democratic Party or the Republican Party on this site, someone (reasonably) asks what this has to do with third parties. In this case, I’ll respond in advance that there is a tie between Ron Paul supporters and several alternative parties. Many members (and [...]

Reminder: The Constitution Party Convention is being carried live and can be viewed online here.

At the moment, debate is ongoing to determine if Ron Paul can or should be considered a potential nominee of the Constitution Party.

They are now announcing the vote totals for each candidate by state. Here are the votes [...]

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 an e-mail I just received:

On Alan Keyes Web Site now CP Convention live: www.alankeyes.com

Howard Phillips calling Alan Keyes Names. See under General Discussion on Alan Keyes web page.

In other words, if one clicks the link, he or she can watch live streaming video of the convention.

It looks like Daniel Imperato will be speaking soon. [...]

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 [...]

Here are some recent news stories about Libertarian presidential hopefuls that weren’t generated by Third Party Watch. I’m mixing some news and some opinion in this article.

Bob Barr at Newsmax:

Best quote: “Former Republican Rep. Bob Barr is seen as the Libertarian Party’s most likely presidential candidate — and he could wind up torpedoing John [...]

While I don’t normally post inside information provided on the Libertarian Party State Chair’s list in a public forum, there are several reports there (plus a bit more additional information) pertaining to several LP State Conventions which would be of interest to our readers. I’m not aware of any reason for confidentially to be [...]

Bob Barr spoke at the Libertarian Party of Alabama convention last weekend and the Birmingham News showed up. From their online breaking news report:

“I think the Libertarian message is a mainstream message,” said Barr, who is considering a presidential bid as the Libertarian Party’s candidate. “We just have to make people realize it.” [...]

“We [...]

Here’s the article:

The poll also gauged potential head-to-head match-ups if independent Ralph Nader or possible Libertarian candidate Bob Barr, a former congressman, get on the ballot. Nader drew 3 percent and Barr 2 percent in both national match-ups.

McCain fared slightly worse against Obama with Barr and Nader in the race, but their presence did not [...]

The two topics seem unrelated.

On 9/11:
Ralph Nader, the consumer activist and independent presidential candidate, seems to think that the report of the commission assigned to investigate the events of 9-11 should not be the last word.

“There are unanswered questions in the 9-11 investigation, and they should be answered,” Nader said at a recent address at [...]

...is located here.

If one can encapsulate the entire article in one sentence, here it is: “The thought of Bob Barr and Mike Gravel fighting it out for the same party’s nomination leaves us speechless.”

Here’s more:

And it’s not that other Libertarians have been sitting around waiting to see what Paul would do. Candidates already in the race for [...]

Remember James Kirchik of NewsletterGate fame? He’s reporting that he has a source who says Bob Barr will run as an independent, but not as a Libertarian Party candidate:

Rumors have been circulating over the past week that former House Manager and Georgia Congressman Bob Barr may run for president on the Libertarian Party ticket. [...]

Click here to participate in the survey.

Libertarian Lists has initiated new online survey. While anyone may participate in the poll, this one is primarily geared towards Libertarian Party members, as the questions deal with Libertarian Party presidential candidates and other Libertarian National Convention issues. If you aren’t an LP member, don’t worry—the next [...]

Over at The Ledger, Michael Freeman asked:

So where do supporters of Ron Paul go now?

He also noted:

So where do the Libertarians go this fall? Assuming it’s an Obama-McCain matchup, they could split, with some opting for Obama because of his opposition to the war in Iraq, or some believing McCain is more likely to [...]

Back in January, Third Party Watch covered the “Ron Paul Billionaire” thread. The general topic was about a billionaire who wished to mount a parallel campaign to augment Ron Paul’s official campaign for president. The topic recently resurfaced on Ron Paul Forums because of this interview (skip to the 20:10 mark) with Ron [...]

I ran into Reason’s Dave Weigel at an event last night in DC. He asked the usual questions about Mike Gravel that I was getting from other members of the media yesterday, but he was insightful enough that we went into a greater level of details about the actual convention process than I generally [...]

I just got off the phone with Libertarian Party Executive Director Shane Cory and he confirms the following information: Former US Senator and Alaska House Speaker Mike Gravel has joined the Libertarian Party. Cory says he’ll provide more in a media release to be expected over the next few hours.

Gravel is currently one of [...]