A video of Constitution Party presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin‘s remarks on the steps of the Capitol building yesterday afternoon has now been posted on YouTube. This first available video appears to begin with Baldwin’s address already in progress, and continues through the beginning of Dr. Paul’s speech to the rally. Highlights include the distinction “You’re either an American, or a globalist,” a promise to release two jailed Border Patrol agents on Inauguration day 2009, and an assurance to assemble Ron Paul supporters that “your fight is my fight.”
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While the religious comments in articles like the one Gene posted get me a little uncomfortable with Baldwin (also his disappointing interview with IPR), I continue to support his campaign and keep him in consideration for my vote in November.
At the time those comments were written by Barr and Baldwin, Barr was a congressman and Baldwin was a reverand. It is no wonder they had such contrasting responses.
Baldwin is also the Constitution Party’s candidate, so he must pander a bit to its conservative base. While Baldwin can not keep from talking like a reverand, expect that in terms of policy, he would run a Ron Paul-like administration.
While I am a libertarian and strictly want government to stay out of social issues, I can see where Baldwin might be coming from with the “normalization” comment. I get very frustrated when I see people try to be so extremely politically correct. I also get disgusted when I see that an apparent majority of politicians and celebrities are sexual deviants.
I find a conservative who is honestly moral and seeking genuine constitutional and democratic solutions to be refreshing in comparison to neocons who act conservative to pander to those voters, but are in fact dishonest to their wives, perverted, and stuck on domestic and foreign policies that are anything but “pro-life.”
Chuck is far from perfect, but I do think he is one of the best options available to us this November. I would call him the “lesser of two goods” (Baldwin and Jay), rather than the “lesser of countless evils” (almost everybody else from a my perspective).
Baldwin is also the best candidate who “can win.” I dare to make that argument only because he is one of only a few candidates with the ballot access to make it possible.
JCJ – Of course it makes sense. For one, Baldwin isn’t portraying himself as a libertarian. For two, he talks about the Fed, he’s really anti-war, and he’s (mostly) constitutional. He’s a better candidate than Barr, period.
I prefer Charles Jay.
That’s why chuck baldwin gets my vote, the new world order is coming down.
I didn’t hear any “blatant protectionism.” I didn’t agree with everything Baldwin said — particularly his support for pardoning two murderous thugs of the state — but he did a “good job” appealing to the crowd, etc.
GE: this particular video is one of a series, if you go to its URL you’ll find the continuation in the related videos section.
LRC posted a link to this playlist earlier, which only includes RP’s speech, and from a much further angle. Audio seems about the same.
Barr sucks for reasons we all know, but it makes no sense to hate on Barr while praises an anti-trade CP candidate.
Blatant protectionism is a “good job”? WTF
Baldwin did an excellent job in this speech.
Is there a part 2 here to hear the rest from Ron Paul?
EOP budget by 10% — whoopee do! How about cutting the federal budget by 90%, at least? That’s a libertarian answer.
Barr didn’t sign the L4J petition for a new *Congressional* investigation, which is kind of pointless for a Pres. candidate anyway. But he has not issued any denunciations or blanket statements. He has managed, so far, to dodge the issue more gracefully than Paul did. (Paul eventually was cornered into issuing something close to a denunciation, and I don’t rule out that Barr may be as well later, to be fair.) He has made the politcal calculation that neither the majority of Americans, nor for that matter, the majority of Libertarians (including his staff), can handle the truth about 9/11 (wasn’t this one of the things that torpedoed Russo in ’04?). (I would add that most “truthers” can’t handle the truth about 9/11 either — L4J, for instance is run by the dominant, co-opted, Steve-Jones COINTELPRO wing of the 9/11 movement.)
Spending — I know I heard Barr say on C-SPAN late last night that he would immediately cut the EOP budget by 10%. I assumed I also heard him talk about similar measures for the rest of the govt, but I may be mistaken. I’ll doublecheck later. Do you have a cite for your contention?
(I don’t find any ignorance in his comments about the Fed, but whatever.)
sunshine – Bob Barr makes not a single mention of the Fed on his Web page. It is NOT a priority issue. His denouncements show ignorance of the system and its problems, and are used as a segue to change the subject to his generic “spending cuts.”
Barr was a CIA man and still is. That’s the way it works.
You are lying or wrong RE: 9/11. He has come out against a new investigation and he refused to participate in the Libertarians for Justice forum (just like every other forum that wasn’t rigged).
Barr is for making abortion illegal even though he paid to murder his own unborn baby.
He says he would immediately freeze the budget at the as-of-yet-undetermined-but-higher fiscal 2009 level. That’s what he said. I didn’t make it up.
I consider myself an American, a globalist, and an individualist.
The CP’s nationalism is post-Lincolnian. The founders saw themselves as citizens of their states, not the United States.
There are so many logical contradictions within the CP of this nature. They’re supposedly anti-Lincoln and yet they embrace his nationalism and mercantilism — the very subjects over which the Civil War was fought!
GEwatch — let’s see what he misrepresented vis-a-vis Barr today:
– Barr has denounced the Fed Reserve in this campaign.
– Barr was not in the operations directorate of the CIA. He was an entry-level analyst working thru grad school and law school, and spent some time as a legeslative counsel after he had his law degree. (Aside: Michael Scheuer was in the CIA at least 3x as long and got a good reception at the RP rally.)
– Barr hasn’t campaigned against any new investigation of 9/11, and has expressed openess to prosecuting Bush officials for crimes. He has obviously dodged the issue, however.
– Barr isn’t for any new federal abortion legislation at all.
– He’s been campaigning on immediate spending cuts not freezes.
I attended the rally in the afternoon in time to hear Dr. Paul and a few speakers beforehand. I’d put the crowd closer the 3,000 rather than 5,000. I heard FreedomFest had about 1,000 year. I can understand Barr not canceling the Vegas trip for the rally, especially since the crowd in Vegas represented a deeper potential donor pool for him than the march,
But it was totally asinine that the LP didn’t bother to have some kind of presence there. They could have put up a table with soe literature and bumper stickers or something. Pathetic.
Chuck Baldwin? No thank you!
http://www.freeliberal.com/blog/archives/003420.php
“I’m neither an American nor a globalist.”
Really? Is that an admittance that you arent a citizen and are open to the idea of being deported? =)
Steve,
Then send Root to the Freedom Fest–he was not booed there last year–and Barr to DC.
George
Steve,
Then send Root to the Freedom Fest–he as not booed there last year–and Barr to DC.
George
“Though I have disagreements with you George, I commend you on your desire to work with local candidates. “
AGREED.
Steve: “Barr is out for Barr only, and the LP is simply a vehicle for him to get on the ballot and as launching pad for media exposure.
Ditto Root.
George:
Two comments-
W.A.R. would be booed if he showed up at a Ron Paul event! He has trashed Ron Paul’s “naive” foreign policy of non-interventionism.
Also, it is becoming quite apparent that Barr has no interest in the LP, or its candndates who are “down ticket”. This is a far cry from how you campaigned as someone who would support and campaign with the local candidates everywhere.
Though I have disagreements with you George, I commend you on your desire to work with local candidates. This is the ONLY way to give the LP more of a footprint in America.
Barr is out for Barr only, and the LP is simply a vehicle for him to get on the ballot and as launching pad for media exposure. I think he will use this exposure to rejoin the GOP and run for Senate or Governor in Georgia in 2010. I say, good riddance! Barr and the LP is a marriage made in hell!
Didn’t we have a Vice Presidential candidate someplace? My nominating campaign had worked out the ‘surrogate’ concept reasonably well; we covered up to four locations at the same time.
I would expect, allowing that Baldwin is fairly competent, that his campaign will use the Ron Paul remarks as a selling point, and some of his surrogates will be using the video as ‘hear Ron Paul endorse Chuck Baldwin’.
Mind you, Paul is much closer to Baldwin than to any other candidate, so they will not need to be fibbing.
Just more evidence of a very, very poorly organized and run Barr/W.A.R. campaign, which BTW isn’t even geared to support local, or state level candidates. Truly a sorry state of affairs, or maybe more likely, a blessing in disguise.
p.s. Even with Viguerie and Verney, this presidential campaign is still third rate! These folks just don’t know how to run a Libertarian campaign, and Barr doesn’t know how to be a Libertarian candidate! Yup . . . a blessing in disguise.
I find it all a bit goofy. Maybe it’s because I’m a pretty big target for pissed off libertarians. They start off mumbling about Dondero and then yell at me about tax details. The other person is blowing a fuse, and I’m sitting with my feet up drinking coffee without pants, wondering what the hell is going on.
Too detailed? Ladies and Gentlemen, it gets much, much better.
Chuck Moulton’s view of the alternatives is better than Chuck Baldwin’s. I’m neither an American nor a globalist.
Shouting at each other and running off in a huff is characteristic of many people who are members of oppressed minorities. All areas of disagreement become reasons for suspicion. It is an unfortunate pathology, but one that some of us, sometimes, overcome.
😀
Eventually.
“In my involvement with the Libertarian Party I’ve met a lot of people who run through a list of issues until they find something they disagree on, then shout at each other until they get red in the face and run off in a huff. In contrast, I try to identify areas where I agree with people and only talk about disagreements in passing once I’ve earned someone’s respect.”
Any chance you’ll run for LP chair, Chuck?
Well, Baldwin spoke for 5 minutes or so and managed to avoid talking about all the social issues. His only unlibertarian words were the “you’re either an American, or a globalist” nationalism vs. world government false dichotomy (there is another choice: individualism/anarchy/freedom) and illegal immigration allusions with the border patrol stuff. It was ironic that Paul spoke out against anti-gambling legislation and legislating morality after complimenting Baldwin.
Similarly Barr could have given a short speech highlighting his most libertarian positions.
In my involvement with the Libertarian Party I’ve met a lot of people who run through a list of issues until they find something they disagree on, then shout at each other until they get red in the face and run off in a huff. In contrast, I try to identify areas where I agree with people and only talk about disagreements in passing once I’ve earned someone’s respect. My point is I would hope Bob Barr is an astute enough politician to give a speech to 5,000 liberty activists without sounding like a neo-con.
G.E., that was a great speech you wrote for him. Whoever he fires he should replace with you. 😀
Normally I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. But with a colossally stupid campaign decision like this one I have a hard time thinking of any reasonable justification for not immediately firing anyone who gave him the horrible advice of not attending the rally.
Any chance you’ll run for LP chair, Chuck?
Chuck – What would Barr’s message have been?
“We need to keep the Federal Reserve to fund foreign aid to Columbia to help them fight narco-terrorists! We need to abolish the income tax and replace it with something else that would redistribute wealth! We need to maintain the CIA, of which I “was” an operative, and use it to install governments that cause the blowback that led to 9/11! We mustn’t have a new investigation into 9/11! We must advocate laws that protect the life of the unborn, even if we personally pay for our wives’ abortions! We must freeze spending at the as-of-yet undetermined by higher levels of the fiscal 2009 budget! And most of all, we must be entirely vague in our policies and just advance the obvious that we are not as bad as McCain or Obama! Long live liberty!”
Yes, it would have been great if Mary Ruwart had been the LP’s nominee — there’s no doubt she would have been at the march. Bob Barr would have been as out-of-place there as he and his friend Jesse Helms would have been at an NAACP meeting.
Wow, Chuck. I could’ve used some of that.
On a more positive note:
I attended the Ron Paul march and rally. It was a ton of fun! I enjoyed hanging out with all you Libertarians and libertarians.
Hanging out with 5,000 liberty lovers at the foot of the Capitol while looking up at that huge dome made me very proud of the liberty movement and optimistic about our future.
Not attending the Ron Paul r3VOLution march was the dumbest thing the Barr campaign has done so far… and that’s saying a lot.
Baldwin got the prime speaking slot right before Ron Paul. Libertarian activist and perennial LP Chair candidate Ernie Hancock gave Baldwin a glowing introduction. Ron Paul complimented Baldwin for a solid 2 minutes in his speech. There were Chuck Baldwin chants during the speeches and the march.
The message was clear: Bob Barr didn’t show up and Chuck Baldwin was the heir apparent to the Ron Paul movement. Game, set, match.
It’s a lot easier to turn an activist into a libertarian than a libertarian into an activist. Bob Barr missed a golden opportunity to reach out to 5,000 dedicated liberty activists. Words can’t describe how moronic that was.
I realize Bob Barr was at Freedom Fest. But seriously… Freedom Fest is a multi-day event and they have this new-fangled invention called “the airplane.”
Normally I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. But with a colossally stupid campaign decision like this one I have a hard time thinking of any reasonable justification for not immediately firing anyone who gave him the horrible advice of not attending the rally.
Being at this rally to bring these great activists into the LP was more important than any other event this year — and that includes all the TV appearances.
Oh well. There’s always 2012.