Mike Gravel might have done as well as Barr or better, in terms of media. Anyone could have done as well as him with the vote total, really.
Paulie – I didn’t understand what you were saying. But of course the Greens and LP have more effect on policy on a larger scale, because they’re national and global parties.
It’s easy to claim not to be surprised after half the vote has been counted.
The word “conservative” is of course not in the Reform playbook — except as something to be distinguished from Libertarian. Wayne Root does a decent job of that (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAR69ofQ9GU), but Barr doesn’t. Barr got us more votes and more media than any alternative other than Paul would have, but that media has to be discounted somewhat the by suboptimal branding necessitated by Barr’s strategy.
The Barr/Verney play was to try to appeal beyond the 13%-20% lessarchist vote to Perot/Paul/Goldwater-type conservatives in hopes of creating political momentum for federalist and fiscally conservative policies.
That could have had libertarian-friendly results, and might have helped grow the LP, but it’s not the Reform play.
The Reform play is to distinguish the Libertarian brand as the only ballot choice that is neither liberal nor conservative, and to unite all the voters who seek both more personal liberty and more economic liberty.
Root or Phillies were more suited for the Reform play. The Barr/Verney strategy was worth trying in the year of the R3volution, but only if Paul was going to be friendly to it. If anybody in Denver predicted Paul’s reaction, I’d appreciate a citation. Root was compatible with both strategies, and that’s why I voted for him on every ballot except Phillies on the first and Barr on the last.
Brian Miller
November 5, 2008
Reasonable people can disagree on how to measure such success
Funny. Sounds a lot like the sales guy my boss fired last week.
I’m not arguing whether the reform agenda is successful. Reasonable people can disagree on how to measure such success and what the result of such an evaluation is. All I’m arguing is you are making things up and engaging in strawman arguments.
Here is my impression of a Brian Miller style comment:
Brian Miller promised if we let him comment on Independent Political Report then Proposition 8 would fail, Obama would come out of the closet, and everyone would get a pony. We didn’t get ponies; therefore, letting Brian Miller comment didn’t work and we should forbid him from commenting anymore. He had his chance.
Plus, most of the floor discussions at the Libertarian National Convention.
Now, Chuck, you were going to explain how there was no Reform Caucus, the term means nothing except as a term to insult people, and that the LP has raced to success on the Reform agenda. Don’t let me stop ya, bro. 🙂
The big Third Party presidential story of the night is independent Richard Duncan, who was barely (if at all) covered here but came in ahead of Charles Jay, apparently.
Brian Miller
November 5, 2008
The Reform agenda promised big electoral benefits if we changed the platform and nominated a conservative.
The platform was changed, the a Reform-Conservative ticket was nominated, and there were literally no dividends.
At all.
The numbers don’t lie. The Libertarian Party followed the Reform agenda to the letter and received absolutely nothing.
If you wish to assert that the Reform agenda was a roaring success, you’re welcome to do so. I wouldn’t want to take up that responsibility, however. 😉
And the Libertarian “Reform†agenda fizzled. The promised big dividends and overwhelming new vote totals promised didn’t come through.
Where is this reform agenda? Where specifically did it promise big dividends and overwhelming new vote totals immediately? Where did reformers embrace Bob Barr as their poster child? Citations please.
If you are just going to conflate “reformer” with “moderate” or “conservative” or “[something]-lite”, don’t bother responding. Semantically redefining a word to attack people associated with it isn’t an interesting conversation to me.
I give Nader and the Greens an immense amount of credit for pushing the Dems to the left. The Democratic party is far from perfect but the issues Nader was pushing in 2000 have emerged as being central to this election.
LaineRBT
November 5, 2008
Congrats to Nader he is already on his way to passing his 465,650 votes that he had in 04.
@ 19 – yes, that might be a good thing. The WFP has 1000x the influence on policy that the Green or Libertarian party does, for the reason that they are essential to the Democrats and that gives them influence within the Democratic party. But if the Democrats cross them or if no Democrat is in a race, they run their own. And who knows, someday they might be able to go off on their own.
Brian Miller
November 5, 2008
I stopped reading Miller’s post at “Paultard.â€
Not a surprise. This was the situation the whole election through — people just drove off the cliff, ignoring the warnings, and now are wondering “what happened” after they hit the bottom.
Some can recognize it, others can steam about the inevitable conclusion of their self-delusion.
I stopped reading Miller’s post at “Paultard.â€
Most of the rest was on the money.
LaineRBT
November 5, 2008
I am still holding out hopes for Nader to do well on the west coast with numbers from WA, OR and CA still to come in. I hope he gets near a million come on!!!
Bob Barr is likely to underperform, or at best more-or-less equal, Harry Browne’s 1996 vote totals. As a percentage of the vote, he’s done worse than other LP candidates for the highest office in the country.
The Paultard “revolution” was a fraud that delivered nothing, as I pointed out. The whole thing was self-deception.
The CP and Greens still aren’t “the” third party. The LP are.
And the Libertarian “Reform” agenda fizzled. The promised big dividends and overwhelming new vote totals promised didn’t come through.
This means the LP should reorient towards its traditional mission — educating voters and putting out ideas for the major parties to steal — and give up the delusions of grandeur that some picked up as of late.
The Barr candidacy has completely failed to “electrify” the electorate as promised. The “compromise” of giving up a large chunk of Libertarian principle and clear LP identification to get legions of new support simply failed to deliver.
This isn’t a crisis for Libertarians — it just proves the Reform experiment is a failure and we should go back to being thought leaders bringing new ideas to the election for the majors to borrow.
LaineBRT – hopefully a new, more innovative way of conducting business in most third parties. Something that resembles the new Working Families Party or the Vermont Progressive Party rather than the old Prohibition or Equal Rights Parties.
Something needs to come from this reexamination. For now, I must celebrate the victory of our Revolutionary General Barack Obama! LO, HE HATH COME TO POWER ON THE SILVER THROWN, THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD TO COME. OUR UNIMPORTANT LIBERTIES SHALL DIE AS THE LIBERTARIAN SOCIALIST CHRISTIAN MUSLIM NEW WORLD ORDER ARISES FROM THE EAST TO WEST, NORTH TO SOUTH, ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL! Take that Nader Mastermind Conspiracy. Bwahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahhahahaha!
I think if the third party movement doesn’t really reexamine itself in the coming year or so then it will be a complete failure.
rdupuy
November 5, 2008
I’m sorry but my math shows Barr is not on pace to get .5%.
Barr was the only 3rd party candidate in Georgia, Indiana, and Texas…Georgia being his home state and heavily campaigned. These were good vote totals for him, but as we go later into the night, I don’t see those margins holding.
Looks like Nader and Barr have worked there way to about the same results as 2004. Maybe the same could be said of CP candidate Baldwin too, but that has to be a big disappointment.
He got the Paul endorsement. He got more free media than Peroutka, inclusion in third party debates. I thought he ran a very successful swiftboating campaign against Barr, which Barr didn’t even notice, let alone respond too.
So they can bemaon ballot access issues and esp. California….but they still had to have been hoping for better than .12%.
Complete spanking all around, so I won’t gloat.
I do think it shows why 3rd party movements, really don’t need egomaniacs like Ron Paul and Ralph Nader. The cult of personality always fades…all they do is damage. The Green Party and the Libertarian party are lasting vehicles for change, that have not benefited from these clowns.
When will the perennial celebration of dying liberty be drawn to its end?
Catholic Trotskyist
November 4, 2008
A good point about Hillary Clinton; she’s being mentioned a bit tonight, but only in that most of her votes are going to Obama. Ron Paul is not mentioned at all. It’s too bad that he may have gotten fewer write-in votes than Hillary.
LaineRBT
November 4, 2008
I think Nader will still do better in his vote total than in 2004 but a million votes for him seems a long way to go now.
Well, hopefully third parties reexamine themselves after this year and take on a new form. We can no longer play the spoiler in order to get our policies enacted and we can no longer do what we are doing – it is completely ineffective.
LaineRBT
November 4, 2008
Yes this is depressing for third party candidates Nader had nearly 100K votes in NY in 2004 and he may just barely get there again this year.
I went to two polling places to record the results on a video camera and I found 3 write-ins for Hillary Clinton, one for Charlie Emanuel (manager of the Phillies), and one for Ron Paul.
Found about 20 third party votes for POTUS out of about 2000 votes.
This will be a very disappointing year for third parties due to the Democrats’ “momentum.”
Mike Gravel might have done as well as Barr or better, in terms of media. Anyone could have done as well as him with the vote total, really.
Paulie – I didn’t understand what you were saying. But of course the Greens and LP have more effect on policy on a larger scale, because they’re national and global parties.
It’s easy to claim not to be surprised after half the vote has been counted.
The word “conservative” is of course not in the Reform playbook — except as something to be distinguished from Libertarian. Wayne Root does a decent job of that (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAR69ofQ9GU), but Barr doesn’t. Barr got us more votes and more media than any alternative other than Paul would have, but that media has to be discounted somewhat the by suboptimal branding necessitated by Barr’s strategy.
The Barr/Verney play was to try to appeal beyond the 13%-20% lessarchist vote to Perot/Paul/Goldwater-type conservatives in hopes of creating political momentum for federalist and fiscally conservative policies.
That could have had libertarian-friendly results, and might have helped grow the LP, but it’s not the Reform play.
The Reform play is to distinguish the Libertarian brand as the only ballot choice that is neither liberal nor conservative, and to unite all the voters who seek both more personal liberty and more economic liberty.
Root or Phillies were more suited for the Reform play. The Barr/Verney strategy was worth trying in the year of the R3volution, but only if Paul was going to be friendly to it. If anybody in Denver predicted Paul’s reaction, I’d appreciate a citation. Root was compatible with both strategies, and that’s why I voted for him on every ballot except Phillies on the first and Barr on the last.
Reasonable people can disagree on how to measure such success
Funny. Sounds a lot like the sales guy my boss fired last week.
I’m not arguing whether the reform agenda is successful. Reasonable people can disagree on how to measure such success and what the result of such an evaluation is. All I’m arguing is you are making things up and engaging in strawman arguments.
Here is my impression of a Brian Miller style comment:
I’ve read the site and I don’t see any promise of “big electoral benefits if we changed the platform and nominated a conservative”. Citations please.
Citations please.
http://www.reformthelp.org for starters.
Plus, most of the floor discussions at the Libertarian National Convention.
Now, Chuck, you were going to explain how there was no Reform Caucus, the term means nothing except as a term to insult people, and that the LP has raced to success on the Reform agenda. Don’t let me stop ya, bro. 🙂
Citations please.
Most of Charles Jay’s votes will be write-ins, so they will take several weeks to months to be counted.
http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s48indpolrep&r=6
The big Third Party presidential story of the night is independent Richard Duncan, who was barely (if at all) covered here but came in ahead of Charles Jay, apparently.
The Reform agenda promised big electoral benefits if we changed the platform and nominated a conservative.
The platform was changed, the a Reform-Conservative ticket was nominated, and there were literally no dividends.
At all.
The numbers don’t lie. The Libertarian Party followed the Reform agenda to the letter and received absolutely nothing.
If you wish to assert that the Reform agenda was a roaring success, you’re welcome to do so. I wouldn’t want to take up that responsibility, however. 😉
Brian Miller wrote:
Where is this reform agenda? Where specifically did it promise big dividends and overwhelming new vote totals immediately? Where did reformers embrace Bob Barr as their poster child? Citations please.
If you are just going to conflate “reformer” with “moderate” or “conservative” or “[something]-lite”, don’t bother responding. Semantically redefining a word to attack people associated with it isn’t an interesting conversation to me.
Um, no, pay attention.
Greens and LP have more effect on national and world policy.
How are the Greens and LP the nationwide and worldwide WFP?
38 addressed in 37.
California will likely depress percentages, but provide a fair chunk of raw numbers.
There is no nationwide and worldwide Working Families Party.
There’s no nationwide and worldwide WFP.
Greens and LP.
Looks like slight improvement by LP from 0.3% to 0.4%, if numbers hold up.
GP and CP round off to 0.1% in both 2008 and 2004.
Nader improved from 0.4 to 0.5%
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/specials/election_night_2008/election_map_premium/index.html?SITE=CSPANELN&SECTION=POLITICS
Nader 0.5%
Barr 0.4%
McKinney 0.1%
I give Nader and the Greens an immense amount of credit for pushing the Dems to the left. The Democratic party is far from perfect but the issues Nader was pushing in 2000 have emerged as being central to this election.
Congrats to Nader he is already on his way to passing his 465,650 votes that he had in 04.
There’s no nationwide and worldwide WFP.
Nation and world wide.
What about in New York state?
The reaction to McCain’s speech: “If McCain had campaigned this way, he could have won or done much better. This is the real McCain.”
Same exact as the Hillary speech.
Disgusting.
I disagree on the policy difference. GP and LP may have far more than readily apparent.
@ 19 – yes, that might be a good thing. The WFP has 1000x the influence on policy that the Green or Libertarian party does, for the reason that they are essential to the Democrats and that gives them influence within the Democratic party. But if the Democrats cross them or if no Democrat is in a race, they run their own. And who knows, someday they might be able to go off on their own.
I stopped reading Miller’s post at “Paultard.â€
Not a surprise. This was the situation the whole election through — people just drove off the cliff, ignoring the warnings, and now are wondering “what happened” after they hit the bottom.
Some can recognize it, others can steam about the inevitable conclusion of their self-delusion.
I stopped reading Miller’s post at “Paultard.â€
Most of the rest was on the money.
I am still holding out hopes for Nader to do well on the west coast with numbers from WA, OR and CA still to come in. I hope he gets near a million come on!!!
paulie – what do you mean?
You can make a post about the Catholic Trotskyite Party winning the election.
I stopped reading Miller’s post at “Paultard.”
Exactly I can’t think the way to go after this is to become a subsidirary of the two major parties.
19 was @ 16
You mean an apendage of a major party?
Nothing surprising here.
Bob Barr is likely to underperform, or at best more-or-less equal, Harry Browne’s 1996 vote totals. As a percentage of the vote, he’s done worse than other LP candidates for the highest office in the country.
The Paultard “revolution” was a fraud that delivered nothing, as I pointed out. The whole thing was self-deception.
The CP and Greens still aren’t “the” third party. The LP are.
And the Libertarian “Reform” agenda fizzled. The promised big dividends and overwhelming new vote totals promised didn’t come through.
This means the LP should reorient towards its traditional mission — educating voters and putting out ideas for the major parties to steal — and give up the delusions of grandeur that some picked up as of late.
The Barr candidacy has completely failed to “electrify” the electorate as promised. The “compromise” of giving up a large chunk of Libertarian principle and clear LP identification to get legions of new support simply failed to deliver.
This isn’t a crisis for Libertarians — it just proves the Reform experiment is a failure and we should go back to being thought leaders bringing new ideas to the election for the majors to borrow.
paulie – what do you mean?
LaineBRT – hopefully a new, more innovative way of conducting business in most third parties. Something that resembles the new Working Families Party or the Vermont Progressive Party rather than the old Prohibition or Equal Rights Parties.
Catholic Trotskyist wins.
Post?
Catholic Trotskyist wins.
Something needs to come from this reexamination. For now, I must celebrate the victory of our Revolutionary General Barack Obama! LO, HE HATH COME TO POWER ON THE SILVER THROWN, THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD TO COME. OUR UNIMPORTANT LIBERTIES SHALL DIE AS THE LIBERTARIAN SOCIALIST CHRISTIAN MUSLIM NEW WORLD ORDER ARISES FROM THE EAST TO WEST, NORTH TO SOUTH, ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL! Take that Nader Mastermind Conspiracy. Bwahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahhahahaha!
And what would come with that reexamination?
I think if the third party movement doesn’t really reexamine itself in the coming year or so then it will be a complete failure.
I’m sorry but my math shows Barr is not on pace to get .5%.
Barr was the only 3rd party candidate in Georgia, Indiana, and Texas…Georgia being his home state and heavily campaigned. These were good vote totals for him, but as we go later into the night, I don’t see those margins holding.
Looks like Nader and Barr have worked there way to about the same results as 2004. Maybe the same could be said of CP candidate Baldwin too, but that has to be a big disappointment.
He got the Paul endorsement. He got more free media than Peroutka, inclusion in third party debates. I thought he ran a very successful swiftboating campaign against Barr, which Barr didn’t even notice, let alone respond too.
So they can bemaon ballot access issues and esp. California….but they still had to have been hoping for better than .12%.
Complete spanking all around, so I won’t gloat.
I do think it shows why 3rd party movements, really don’t need egomaniacs like Ron Paul and Ralph Nader. The cult of personality always fades…all they do is damage. The Green Party and the Libertarian party are lasting vehicles for change, that have not benefited from these clowns.
Obama will be an improvement over Bush and better than McCain would have been, that’s for sure.
When will the perennial celebration of dying liberty be drawn to its end?
A good point about Hillary Clinton; she’s being mentioned a bit tonight, but only in that most of her votes are going to Obama. Ron Paul is not mentioned at all. It’s too bad that he may have gotten fewer write-in votes than Hillary.
I think Nader will still do better in his vote total than in 2004 but a million votes for him seems a long way to go now.
I might have been overly optimistic. Damn. I wonder what it would be like to build a third party movement under Obama.
Barr seems to be on a pace to collect only about 700K votes, or 0.5%. That’s at the low end of I was expecting.
Well, hopefully third parties reexamine themselves after this year and take on a new form. We can no longer play the spoiler in order to get our policies enacted and we can no longer do what we are doing – it is completely ineffective.
Yes this is depressing for third party candidates Nader had nearly 100K votes in NY in 2004 and he may just barely get there again this year.
I went to two polling places to record the results on a video camera and I found 3 write-ins for Hillary Clinton, one for Charlie Emanuel (manager of the Phillies), and one for Ron Paul.
Found about 20 third party votes for POTUS out of about 2000 votes.
This will be a very disappointing year for third parties due to the Democrats’ “momentum.”