Live from the Way Home from the LP Convention: We're Gonna Be Friends
David Weigel | May 26, 2008, 6:06pm
On the way out of the Denver convention, defeated candidate and Massachusetts party chair George Phillies pulled me aside to express how worried he was about the Barr/Root ticket. "This is a train wreck," he said. "My delegation* is majority pagan. Nominating this man is the equivalent of nominating an Imperial Wizard of the KKK to lead a party of African Americans." Phillies raised the possibility of a Massachusetts LP convention that would nominate a new candidate at the top of the ticket, like author L. Neil Smith. And as I left, I heard a rumor that Arizona might do the same thing.
I think this would amount to local party suicide. The only thing all LPers agree on right now is that Barr, by dint of his fame and national media pull, could get more votes than any previous candidate. In most states, a certain vote total will get a party guaranteed ballot access. Nominating an unkown, especially when low-information voters will head to the polls expecting to see Barr, would drive down vote totals.
Still, the animosity toward Barr from some of the LP can't be overstated. Mass. Delegate Arthur Torrey had already told me that, as a presidential elector, he'd vote against Barr. If Barr had 269 electoral votes and Torrey held the balance, he'd "think really hard about it. I have to see my [gay] sister from time to time, you know."
UPDATE: Mike Kielsky of the Arizona LP writes in to correct me:
Some Arizona delegates asked if we really had to list Barr/Root while there remained doubt about the depth of their Libertarian positions. I brought this question to Bob Barr directly, and asked his help in convincing some in the delegation.
Kielsky, the party chairman, is empowered to file a presidential ticket with the Arizona Secretary of State. So this will be contentious—the AZ LP includes radical war horses like "rEVOLution" banner designer Ernie Hancock—but the state party's leadership wants to stick with Barr. Massachusetts is another story.
Also, something else happened on my way out of the convention. Radicals won three of five at-large slots on the Libertarian National Committee: Mary Ruwart, Ruwart campaign manager Lee Wrights, and Angela Keaton. It's an important victory for the radical wing, and an important concession by reformers/Barr backers.
* UPDATE II: George Phillies disputes the quote at the top of this post. He actually said that a majority of his state committee was neopagan, not his delegation. I conflated the two when I flipped open my laptop at the airport to write this up.
tarran | May 26, 2008, 11:02pm | #
Or what? You'll vote for Obama? McCain? Do you even think before bitching?
This is too funny....
You
don't have to vote for a president.... Write in 'None of the Above' on your ballot.
I swear, you guys sound like a bunch of feminist Mormons discussing how to find a husband who respects you so that you can be liberated
and get to heaven.
The next Congress is going to be populated by socialists of one strip or another. They will be supported by a president who views his job as to be the daddy to the populace and judges who excel at rationalizing black into white.
Whom you vote for is not going to make a whit of difference in this scenario. Any vote that is not cast for McCain or Obama will be a "protest" vote. It does not matter whether you cast your protest vote for Barr or for Mickey Mouse. At best, someone might point out for 30 seconds on election night that the Democrat won with less than 50% of the vote. Or, they may point out that the "protest" was larger than the difference between the R and the D candidates.
Three months later, all of this will be forgotten, and President Obama will be proposing hi National Food Conservation program or some crap; the inexorable march of Fabian Socialism will continue...
And if, and this is a big if, the Republicans or the Democrats decide that they want to snag the libertarian vote, they'll do what the Republicans have been doing for my entire adult life - they'll talk the talk and continue to expand the state and scream about the "lesser of two evils".
The electoral process is like Roulette. You can come up with all the schemes you want, play long enough, and your money will end up in the house's coffers.
Oh and AynRandian,
You think the Congress would eliminate the income tax after insituting a sales tax? That the entity auditing transactions to ensure that the proper amount of sales tax is being charged will behave differently than the IRS?
How charmingly naive! And we know that politicians rarely lie when they promise not to take advantage of opportunities to levy new taxes. ;)
tarran | May 26, 2008, 11:49pm | #
tarran - I think you're intelligent; but you have a serious blind spot, and it's the idea that we either have Giant State or No State At All. Guess what, my anarchist friend? There will be a State. It's not my choice, but there will be one. So you can either pretend to be so "above the fray" as to mock us all, or you can at least try to make a difference.
Uhmm, I think you misapprehend me.
Couple of points:
I recognize that all human societies in the past and present have had gangs that preyed on them. I also recognize that this will continue to be the case in the forseable future.
I also recognize that people are hardwired to want to submit to a leader. I suspect its an instinct we inherited from our great ape forebears. This manifests itself in extreme cases in joining cults like
this one. More generally, I believe that humans naturally want to align themselves beneath the protection of some alpha leader.
Recognizing this need, some criminal gangs try to convince people that they provide the protection they instinctively crave. These groups, if successful and large enough are called governments and states.
All governments carefully nurture a mythology that "proves" that people want them to rule. One way to establish this myth is by holding elections where the subject peoples are permitted to vote on who will be the official alpha or his lieutenants. The choices, of course, are severely constrained by the governments in question, but the illusion of control is there.
So long as people don't believe that they have the option to opt out - so long as they believe they
must select a "leader" from the slate of officially approved candidates, they are under the control of the members of the government. It is this insight that has informed the Fabian socialists in their extremely successful campaign to reorder every society the practically can get their hands on. Until people start opting out, the trends of the 20th century of expanding states and reduced political and economic freedom will continue. That is, unless, some other natural limits are hit that cause the state to collapse.
If you want to vote for Barr, go for it. You have my blessing. :) But, you don't like any of your choices, there's no reason to hold your nose and vote for the least unnacceptable one or the least evil electbale one the way the Fabians are hoping you will.
Any way, that's my take on this tragicomedy. It's worth whatever you paid for it.
Bill Woolsey | May 27, 2008, 9:02am | #
I want an LP candidate who can reach out to the Fair Tax advocates.
Barr has specifically rejected the pre-bate portion.
And he has also rejected the "revenue neutral" version of the fair tax. (That is the 30% sales tax which is 23% of the now, much higher, total purchase price.) He, instead, insists that we need major cuts in spending. Only then, when spending has been cut, can we look to tax reform like a national sales tax, a flat tax, or maybe some other approach.
In my opinion, for Barr to say that he supports the "Fair tax" is a bit of a stretch. However, his openness to replacing all federal taxes with a national sales tax that would collect significantly less revenue (and fund a much smaller federal governmnet) is close enough, I guess, to say nice things to the fair taxers.
Well.. it is worth a try.
As I see it, what "fair tax" advocates want is to get rid of the IRS and the income tax, and they aren't willing to wait for 90% cuts in Federal spending to get to it. Of course, the "Fair tax" proposal says they can get to it with _no_ cuts in federal spending.
Barr is offering a "compromise." Yes, we can
get rid of the income tax and the IRS with
deep cuts in spending... but not the implausible 90%.
My impression of Fair taxers isn't that they
are against cutting government spending 90%. It is rather that they see that as "pie-in-the-
sky."
Anyway, I think that Barr may be able to reach some of them with his message.
Arthur Torrey | June 1, 2008, 11:30am | #
As the Pagan that believes the 1st Amendment applies to EVERYONE, not just the people Bob Barr likes…
*I* was the person that mentioned L. Neil Smith as a possible, and ONLY *possible* substitute for Barr - At the time of the convention it appeared that we had the votes to call a convention to place a different candidate on the ballot, and when I asked LNS, he said he would be willing. I also STATED that while I favored LNS, I did NOT think that he was as popular with the rest of the LPMA State Committee.
I should point out that in my 26 YEARS as an LP member, Barr is the FIRST Presidential candidate whom I am totally unable to support, even though my first choice didn’t always get the nod in previous cycles. It isn’t JUST the “Pagan thing” or the “Gay thing”, but goes all the way down the record - Barr has consistently VOTED in IMHO anti-freedom ways, and his alleged “conversions” have been weasel-worded half-assed steps at best. Add to this his apparently questionable personal ethics (or lack thereof) and I don’t find any way I can support the guy, or in the admittedly unlikely case that it would come up, cast an electoral vote for him. It would have been a struggle in some cases, but I could have at least somewhat supported ANY of the other candidates that were on the Denver ballot if they had been chosen. I thought George was the best compromise candidate, but could have worked with any of the others.
I am still not liking the idea of placing Barr on the ballot in Mass., but have been convinced that there is not a viable means of preventing it, therefore will reluctantly sign to place him on the ballot in order to protect the Bob Underwood for US Senate campaign that is on the same petition. (while wondering how much Barr will donate to his Republican opponent, like he has supported other Republicans with Libertarian opponents while serving on the LNC) Mass. Law does not allow elector substitution, so if I attempt to withdraw I simply destroy the approximately 50% of the needed petitions to place Bob Underwood on the ballot that have already been collected.
Since we won’t be attempting to replace Barr’s name on the ballot, there is debate about whether we have sufficient reason to attempt to call a Special State Convention to show our objection to Barr, and possibly discuss affiliation with some entity other than, or in addition to, LPUS. I still think we should, but for now we will simply be holding a gathering at George’s house (chosen for it’s central location in the state) to see how much call there is for it among the general membership.
In the meantime, I’m encouraging my fellow Libertarians to ignore the Barr campaign, and work on other races, initiatives, etc. and try to build the party to compensate for the damage that I am firmly convinced that a Barr campaign will do.
Incedentlally, my opposition to Barr is not 100% unalterable, I simply demand that he make concrete actions to demonstrate real intent to reverse the many freedom damaging acts that he has done in the past - all I’ve seen so far has been mealy mouthed posturing…
FWIW, I spent this afternoon helping Carla Howell (who I helped bring into the LP) with petition sorting for the second part of her Repeal the MA Income Tax campaign.
Arthur Torrey
LPMA State Committee (speaking for myself only)
Potential LP Presidential Elector
Elected Libertarian (Town Meeting Rep, Billerica, MA)
Arthur Torrey | June 4, 2008, 12:50am | #
As perhaps the only potential elector who has clearly and distinctly stated that he could not cast an electoral vote for Barr in the admittedly unlikely event that I was called on to serve, I’m finding that a certain amount of heat has been falling upon me, while others are responding positively to my comments about Barr’s unsuitability for the LP Presidential nomination.
This has caused me to get dragged into blog-land in an effort both to see what is being said, and in some cases in self defense.
One of the things that I find frustrating is that while many people are expressing upset over Barr’s nomination, I’m not seeing any clear signs of coordinated efforts to oppose Barr, or do anything else about the situation. Rumours abound, but I haven’t seen or heard much about any definite plans to DO anything… I have to say that I’m less than thrilled by the somewhat muted response of my own Mass. State Committee, but it seems we are doing more than most. Right now it looks like Mass. will put Barr / Root on the ballot, only because doing so is the only way we can get our US Senate candidate on, but will do little beyond that to aid the Presidential campaign. Instead we will urge our members to support Bob Underwoods Senate campaign, the Income Tax Repeal and Marijuana Decrim ballot initiatives, and so forth.
It seems that nearly half the delegates in Denver aren’t happy with the results, but how many are actively attempting to DO something other than just piss and moan about it? How many are working to get their State Party to do something, whether it is putting some other name (or Nobody) on the Presidential ballot? How many are urging a boycott of the Barr campaign? How many are protesting in some other way (if so what are you doing)?
It seems to me that this is an issue that is larger than just Barr / Root - The LP as it currently stands has the potential for multi-state ballot access, something of great potential value to political failures from other parties that have delusions of greatness - arguably we had two efforts in Denver to hijack the party, one from the D’s and one from the R’s - unfortuneately the R’s got away with it. IMHO if we are going to get the LP we want back, it needs to be made painfully clear to those attempting to hijack the party will end up with nothing useful if they succeed - minimal ballot access, no support, etc.
If you are like Mass. where we must put Barr on for other reasons than supporting him, what about passing state wide resolutions of non-support? AFAIK the LPUS bylaws may require a state to put the Pres. candidate on the ballot, but don’t have any provisions about a state refusing to endorse a candidate or even condemming him.
If you are organizing or participating such an act of revolt in your state, or have definite knowledge of others working on such actions, I’d like to hear from you - My email is arthur(underscore)torrey(at)comcast(dot)net (make the substitutions in parens - I don’t want to feed the spambots…)
I don’t want to hear complaints, I want to hear about ACTIONS - they speak louder than words!
Arthur Torrey
LPMA Operations Facilitator
Potential LIBERTARIAN Presidential Elector
Elected Libertarian Officeholder
(speaking for myself only - for now…)
Reason on Facebook
Reason on Twitter
Reason on YouTube
Reason RSS
