Posted by J Clifford January 15th, 2015 at Irregular Times:
Two days ago, the FEC received papers filed by Marc Allan Feldman, a medical doctor from Ohio, registering himself as a candidate for President of the United States. Feldman is seeking the presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party.
This isn’t the first time Feldman will have run for public office. In a 2010 race for the position of Attorney General of Ohio, Feldman received less than three percent of the vote. Last year, Feldman attempted to mount a campaign for Ohio state Treasurer, but failed to collect enough signatures to get on the ballot.
Marc Allan Feldman acknowledges that he never even bothered to register to vote until he was 50 years old. Perhaps his appeal to the non-voting portion of American adults has something to do with his failure to get elected so far.
Feldman’s lack of electoral popularity in the past isn’t necessarily a measure of the value of his ideas, but it is a likely predictor of his performance as a presidential candidate in 2016.
Feldman shares liberals’ opposition to the influence of big sources of money that pays for political campaigns, but he doesn’t appear to seek to regulate campaign finance, as liberals do. Instead, Feldman merely urges people to vote against candidates backed by big money. Feldman’s own record of failed third party political campaigns suggests that this strategy may not be effective.
In keeping with his Libertarian principles, Feldman is currently a member of Stop Mass Incarceration of Greater Cleveland. Feldman also has supported transparency laws in the past, though he hasn’t been specific about which specific pieces of transparency have his endorsement.
In his 2010 campaign for the office of Attorney General, Feldman pledged to take on big corporate lobbyists who were endangering the health of the people of Ohio. He wrote, “We have had a series of catastrophic problems for Ohioans due to the negligence or malfeasance of large corporations and their government lobbyists. 1. Lead paint 2. Asbestos 3. Tobacco 4. Home Mortgages / derivatives
Each time the Attorney General entered the fray too late to help people, the damage was already done. Now we have a chance to fight the big agribusiness that is manipulating food production, marketing, and sales to promote high calorie, high sugar, low fiber, genetically modified products including high fructose corn syrup that are the direct cause of obesity, hypertension, and diabetes.
Obesity has increased from 10% to nearly 30% of adults in Ohio just since 1990. The medical costs alone are over 3 billion dollars per year. Obesity is no longer a major problem just for adults. There is now an epidemic among our children.
As a physician with training in public health, I am the only candidate with the background, the integrity, and the independence, to fight the food lobby for the health of Ohio citizens.”
What I’m not clear about is how Feldman proposed to govern as a Libertarian, and to use the power of big government to reduce the power of corporations in order to protect citizens from sugary foods, tobacco, and risky home mortgages. Isn’t this kind of interference what Libertarians usually deride as “nanny state” authoritarianism? The Libertarian argument I’ve heard over and over again is that people have to take responsibility for their own choices, rather than relying on government bureaucrats to protect them from the consequences of their decisions. Feldman doesn’t seem to agree with that point of view, or he didn’t when he was running to Attorney General of Ohio, at least.
Marc Allan Feldman’s alignment with classic Libertarian ideology also appears to get off the rails when it comes to foreign policy… at first. Feldman calls himself an “interventionist”, saying that “I believe the United States has a duty to project its considerable power to maximum effectiveness overseas.” Look again, and it becomes apparent that Feldman wants the United States to project its power by embodying freedom, rather than by sending the military around the world.
Feldman commented at Irregular Times:
I would not call it flattering to me, but I have to tell you I am impressed by the author of this piece. This rapid yet thorough look at my candidacy is very helpful both to your readers, and to me as a candidate. I will try to clarify a couple points about me and about Libertarians.
You write that I “never even bothered to register to vote” That is incorrect. I did not register to vote as a conscious decision because I did not know anyone or any party that I wanted to support. I was born in Washington, DC and grew up just over the border in Silver Spring, MD. I was young, but I remember when JFK and MLK were killed. The Watergate scandal was my daily local news. I thought the words “politician” and “liar” were synonymous.
I first read about the Libertarian Party in 2009. I had recently joined and criticized the Party for not fielding a full slate of candidates in 2010. I received a call that they had a full slate, except for Attorney General, would I be willing to run? I agreed, although I told them I did not have time for fundraising and active campaigning. I still received almost 3%, over 100,000 votes, even as a Libertarian, and not an attorney. I do not have 100,000 friends and relatives. I considered it a success.
Finally I want to clear up a misunderstanding about Libertarians. Just because we don’t want the government to do something, does not mean that thing does not need to be done. Similarly, just because something needs to be done, does not mean the government should do it. I believe we should fight the food lobby for food safety, not by big government regulation, but by proving the damage in the civil courts and through our choices in the supermarket. I believe we should fignt the influence of big money in campaigns, the same way we fight the influence of racism in campaigns. It is not by making it illegal. It is by not voting for these people. I am running for President to give people someone to vote for who is not getting millions of dollars from the deep pockets of special interests.
IPR note: See more articles at https://independentpoliticalreport.com/?s=feldman
They’re not always bad.
A surprisingly balanced report from I.T.