Gary Johnson wins the Libertarian Party presidential nomination on the second ballot (both ballots below, with percentages corrected for first ballot, from Wikipedia)
| Libertarian National Convention Presidential vote, 2016 – 1st Ballot[5] | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | First Ballot | Percentage |
| Gary Johnson | 458 | 49.5% |
| Austin Petersen | 197 | 21.3% |
| John McAfee | 131 | 14.2% |
| Darryl Perry | 63 | 6.8% |
| Marc Allen Feldman | 58 | 6.3% |
| Kevin McCormick | 9 | 1.0% |
| None of the above | 5 | 0.5% |
| Ron Paul (Write-in) | 1 | 0.1% |
| Vermin Supreme (Write-in) | 1 | 0.1% |
| Heidi Zemen (Write-in) | 1 | 0.1% |
| Derrick Grayson (Write-in) | 1 | 0.1% |
| Totals | 925 | 100% |
No candidate achieved the majority on the first ballot, so there will be a second ballot vote. McCormick will be excluded from the second ballot.
| Libertarian National Convention Presidential vote, 2016 – 2nd Ballot[6] | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | First Ballot | Percentage |
| Gary Johnson | 518 | 56% |
| Austin Petersen | 203 | 21.9% |
| John McAfee | 131 | 14.2% |
| Darryl Perry | 52 | 5.6% |
| Marc Allen Feldman | 18 | 1.9% |
| Others | 3 | 0.3% |
| Totals | 925 | 100% |
Update from Editor: Johnson’s nomination is the top trending item on Facebook at the moment (Sunday around 1:30 pm)
No, speculation on the irrational behavior of anonymous individuals is entirely on point for explaining the fact they repeat themselves endlessly. But the Star Wars sheets and your mother’s basement are only one of the explanations. Cheers.
I wonder if he is still living in his mother’s basement and using the Star Wars sheets? There are other explanations, of course. But given that he is unwilling to use his own name we cannot know.
Now you’re just posting ranting non-sequiturs, MPF.
Goodbye.
Yes, there are many architects and engineers who design such communities of the future. Thousands of alternative forms of development have been prevented by foolishly building roads and cars.
This horozontal transport is so inefficient, GP, that almost no one would choose it in a free market. Human beings want to live where it is safe, they have access to the necessities of life, they can work, save and invest, they can raise their families and do it all at the lowest reasonable cost while obtaining the best possible lifestyle.
It is socialism and stupid government that has so overwhelmingly funded and subsidized horozontal transportation and pollution, urban sprawl and waste, that the natural construction of sustainable, ecological communities utilizing vertical transportation and walking as would be demanded in a free market has been prevented totally.
Stop being boring and reconnect your brain to your mouth. Rescinding laws is the same as repealing them. Action is taken and they go away. It happens and by this time you should have encountered at least one reference to the practice.
“Torture is illegal by our laws. It’s illegal by international laws.”
— Ron Paul on Saturday, November 12th, 2011 in a Republican presidential debate in Spartanburg, S.C.
Was Ron right?
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/nov/15/ron-paul/ron-paul-says-torture-banned-under-us-internationa/
True Paul
“Torture is illegal by our laws. It’s illegal by international laws.”
— Ron Paul on Saturday, November 12th, 2011 in a Republican presidential debate in Spartanburg, S.C.
Ron Paul says torture is banned under U.S., international law
By Louis Jacobson on Tuesday, November 15th, 2011 at 10:23 a.m.
Republican presidential candidates Jon Huntsman, Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, Herman Cain, and Mitt Romney, listen during the CBS News/National Journal foreign policy debate on Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011, in Spartanburg, S.C.
During the CBS-National Journal Republican presidential debate in Spartanburg, S.C., on Nov. 12, 2011, one of the moderators, Major Garrett, invited Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, into a discussion of torture.
Both Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and former Godfather’s Pizza executive Herman Cain had already said they favored allowing interrogators to use waterboarding — the practice of simulating drowning to elicit information from a detainee. Waterboarding was permitted under the George W. Bush administration, but the policy was rescinded soon after President Barack Obama took office.
“Congressman Paul,” Garrett said, “my fighting sense tells me we have a debate about to get launched here. I know you have an opinion and would like to weigh in.”
Paul responded, “Yes, torture is illegal by our laws. It’s illegal by international laws.”
The exchange attracted significant attention following the debate. Obama was asked about it at a news conference in Hawaii. He responded that that Bachmann and Cain are among those who are “wrong. Waterboarding is torture. It’s contrary to America’s traditions. It’s contrary to our ideals. That’s not who we are. That’s not how we operate. We don’t need it in order to prosecute the war on terrorism. And we did the right thing by ending that practice.”
Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who ran against Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign, tweeted, “Very disappointed by statements at SC GOP debate supporting waterboarding. Waterboarding is torture.”
We wondered whether Paul was right that torture is illegal under U.S. and international law. So we decided to check.
First, however, we should note that many — though not all — observers consider waterboarding to be a form of torture. We’ll address that issue more fully in a moment. For now, let‘s stick to Paul’s specific claim.
Is torture illegal under U.S. law?
Yes, under several different portions of the law.
• A provision of U.S. law (18 U.S.C. 2340) that took effect in 1994 makes torture a crime.
The law defines torture as “an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control.”
• A different provision on war crimes addresses torture as well (18 U.S.C. 2441).
The provision reads, “Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death. … As used in this section, the term ‘war crime’ (includes) … torture …”
• Finally, as we noted here, two days after taking office, Obama issued a detailed executive order on torture and related issues.
Melinda Pillsbury-Foster you truly are clueless. When you repeal laws or rescind laws or repeal consitutional amendments, the old laws and amendments remain as historical facts. Events have happened, actions were taken, people were prosecuted. You can’t make those facts disappear, so you have to pass legislation to repeal.
What you are talking about is an Archology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology
Arcology, a portmanteau of “architecture” and “ecology”,[2] is a vision of architectural design principles for very densely populated habitats. The concept has been primarily popularized, and the term itself coined, by architect Paolo Soleri. It also appears in science fiction.[3] These structures have been largely hypothetical insofar as no “arcology” envisioned by Soleri himself has yet been completed, but he posited that a completed arcology would provide space for a variety of residential, commercial, and agricultural facilities while minimizing individual human environmental impact. Arcologies are often portrayed in sci-fi as self-contained or economically self-sufficient.
Starry eyed Sci-Fi fans have been talking about them for decades. In fact, Dan O’Dowd wanted to build one in San Luis Obispo County where it makes no sense whatsoever. People move to SLO because they want to be out in nature. It might make sense in a high crime area because an increased level of security could be imposed. Cheers
“All the housing, shopping, schools etc for a single section of land could be built in a single skyscraper.”
This would require human beings who all want to live in skyscrapers. The difference between your proposal and science fiction is that science fiction has to be believable.
You rescind laws, which removes them. Rescind
To declare a contract void—of no legal force or binding effect—from its inception and thereby restore the parties to the positions they would have occupied had no contract ever been made.
You have to pass legislation to repeal laws.
Ahem. The point of the philosophy are fewer laws (even no laws) not more laws.
We have to stop funding roads and highways, stop repairing roads and highways, then privatize them. Local governments get their authority from the state government, so this is a state level political problem. It requires a plurality vote in the state legislature in most states to make the changes necessary. It’s the same problem as other libertarian change. We have to elect libertarians and make deals to pass legislation.
Then you can just site there and wait for it to happen. No action on your part is necessary. Spontaneous Order will arrive shortly.
There is nothing to organize.
Who organized the shift to using butchers?
The market. It’s so efficient nothing could stop it.
Compared to the outrageous cost and pollution of horozontal transportation, vertical transportation is nearly free. All the housing, shopping, schools etc for a single section of land could be built in a single skyscraper. No cars and no roads needed. Of course, architects and engineers – when free from stupid government rules, taxes and subsidies – are much more creative than that. We can design the most beautiful communities – from tiny hamlets to a quarter of a million people – without roads or cars.
Local government services and regulation, property and land taxes and regulation are the greatest curse on mankind of all levels of government.
Cats. Try it. And you continue to neglect sharing your experience with organizing.
To put this in perspective, how many people do you know who buy and butcher their own meat? Buy a whole steer, cut it up, store the meat for their personal use?
The low cost and convenience of buying at the local supermarket has driven virtually 100% of all consumers away from buying and butchering themselves. Even farmers who raise cattle will take a steer to a butcher and bring the meat back home cut up.
Transportation and city design are the same way. The current system is so far from what the market would build, that once the change starts – if we can get the government out of the way, a political problem – the change will come roaring in like a tsunami.
Your talking about routes as if you need roads. You don’t need any roads at all, no routes. Landowners who don’t wish to sell can’t get in the way, since no routes are needed.
Some stubborn individuals may cling to their property for a while – No problem. They can stay and maintain their own easement across the parcel. Few will wish to do the maintenance or snow removal on a very long, unimproved easement that they don’t own and can’t sell. So, they will eventually sell, too, and move to one of the remaining very expensive neighborhoods that will remain for those stubborn and ornery enough to continue to pay the very high annual cost of maintaining their own private road system.
What will happen is that the roads will be returned to the landowners. It will now become their problem. They may try to cooperate, or do the work themselves, but the communitarian model will quickly fail just as socialism fails. They will want an alternative. Developers will buy out sections of land from property owners looking to get out, or they will trade for shares in the corporation.
A negative incentive, cost, will drive the desire to sell and move. There will be no need to convince anyone.
A positive incentive will pull the people out of their current high cost neighborhoods. This will come from seeing the kind of new communities that will be built in the absence of all local government and taxes. People will want to live in the new communities, since their homes will be far more spacious, with parks and recreation facilities just outside, schools and shopping all within walking distance, and it will be far cheaper with no property taxes and no need for cars, insurance, gasoline etc.
Second attempt.
It does not appear you have any experience with organizing or persuading people to adopt The Plan. Small easy plans are less burdensome, but depending on the number of people getting them to agree can be difficult.
It is easier when you can draw from a larger database and find a smaller number of people who agree to The Plan.
Generally, when projects were carried out by identifying three routes would be chosen. This took place when it was not possible use use eminent domain. Options to buy the land at price over market value were offered for signing by those owning the land needed on the three routes. Then, the first of the three possible routes was obtaining by exercising the options obtained along that route.
Two possible routes were not deemed to be sufficient.
You are asserting you can get all of the individuals in a square mile to agree to be dislocated so their system of roads, which may compromise ongoing businesses and other activities large and small, with the real possibility of delays which could continue for years.
Let me suggest you start with trying to get 20 of 20 named Libertarians to cooperate with a project of moderate complexity which will inconvenience them for one month. And remember to give each of them a performance bond stating what you will pay them if it does not work out.
Good luck. Let me know how your plan works out.
Of course we need to respect what people choose for themselves.
That’s exactly the point. The people would never choose to build a grid of streets as we have today, if we had a free market. The financial cost is so overwhelming that once the costs were allowed to fall directly on the owners and consumers, they would quickly begin to rip up their streets and rebuild America’s cities.
In the face of global warming and the coming rise in sea levels, it is imperitive to make the adjustment now. Otherwise the govenment will begin a series of projects that will be unsustainable, make the problem worse for those affected, eventually fail and cost trillions of dollars that will eventually prove to have all been wasted. We need to rebuild, and in many cases relocate our coastal and near sea-level cities. We can’t fight the laws of physics, we can’t fight the power of he sea and we can’t overcome the resource waste of horozontal transport based infrastructure. If we don’t do it right this time, civilization will not survive.
The current system of roads has already wasted trillions of dollars and caused massive resource misallocation, homelessness and poverty. Had we had a free-market in transportation and energy, mankind would not be facing a global warming or sea level rise disaster.
Despite what most Ls think, the worst and most damaging level of government in America has been local government and the property tax, especially the tax on land, the worst of all taxes, in terms of economic damage and resource misallocation. (Fortunately, they Federal Govt doesn’t use a property tax and the IRS doesn’t enforce property tax laws.)
Ever tried herding cats? You will never get people to agree to that. As theory, it is practical and efficient. That, incidentally, was Bob’s argument for ‘privatization.’ But freedom is not efficient because what people want is very individual and not necessarily logical. We respect the right of individuals to choose for themselves.
You are missing the point entirely about the roads: We do not need alternative horozontal transportation. We have too much. We need to rip out the roads, redesign the cities and build vertically, with a logical, rational layout of buildings, green space, solar access, recreation etc. To do this we have to recombine parcels, rip out the existing infrastructure, section by section, and rebuild.
(A section is a quare mile of land.)
So, we could, in some cases, return the roads to the adjacent landowners. If there are two, one on each side, they would likely each be able to claim half, split down the middle. They would be able to do what they want, probably sell the whole lot and the additional road to a developer or trade their property for shares in the new project.
Postage stamp lots inside a grid of streets is a failed system. We need to rip it all out and rebuild. Within any section, or several sections, no roads whatsoever are needed, if the land is developed rationally, which engineers, architects, city planners, and developers would easily discern in a free market without the government.
And, of course, victims of sexual slavery are often reluctant to seek help for fear of being charged with victimless crimes, such as drug use, immigration violations, and so on.
If you mean involuntary prostitution, then yes, it’s most certainly subsidized by governments. Specifically, just as drug prohibition artificially reduces supply and thus makes illegal drugs more profitable for those willing to provide them, the same is true for the prohibition of voluntary prostitution.
That’s just one way. There are probably others, too. For example, you yourself mention Child Protective Services furnishing such “sex slaves” to criminal groups. I’m sure similar things happen in other countries.
Alright. When you google the words “sexual slavery in the United States” About 2,620,000 results (0.48 seconds
http://www.businessinsider.com/a-portrait-of-human-sex-trafficking-in-america-2014-8
When I was writing on the child sex trade I knew some people who had escaped from it. Found children who had been sold into the sex trade from Child Protective Services, too. Are you going to say these were ‘victimless crimes?’ What about the child sex rings in South East Asia? There are lots of guys, wealthy ones, from the US who ‘vacation’ there for the purpose. These are not happy hookers, these are children stolen to be sold as sex slaves.
wiki – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sex_tourism
What justice system is going to enforce the individual right to freedom in a free market?
Whichever one the market selects (i.e. whichever one outperforms its competitors). As I said above, it is impossible to make predictions about market outcomes with any degree of specificity.
Please point to the ways slavery, as it exists today, which is on a very large scale, is subsidized by government.
You’re being too vague. If you would like to point out a specific instance of slavery, perhaps I could answer your question.
Hi Langa, You said, “Well, I think that the libertarian rationale for prohibiting slavery in a free market is the same as for prohibiting contract killings: If the provision of a particular good or service violates the NAP, then it’s illegitimate, and the provision of that particular good or service would actually constitute a violation of genuine free market principles.”
What justice system is going to enforce the individual right to freedom in a free market? Would you please cite the Free market where this took place? Inquiring minds want to know.
“Incidentally, slavery (at least on a large scale) would be very unlikely to exist in a free market, since its practitioners would not have access to government subsidies (e.g. government assistance in catching runaways, putting down rebellions, and so forth), and therefore, the practice would not be profitable.”
Please point to the ways slavery, as it exists today, which is on a very large scale, is subsidized by government. Which governments do you mean? I recall the South insisted on a law mandating that escaping slaves would be retrieved for their owners but I was unaware this had been reinstituted. How does putting down rebellions relate to the subject of chattel slavery? Those sold into slavery today are usually either women or children and they do not tend to rebel. Please clarify.
This immediately raises questions about slave trafficking or other ‘goods’ which violate the rights of individuals, unless you view those treated as chattel as subhuman. Clearly some people want this sort of goods – and are very willing to pay for them.
Well, I think that the libertarian rationale for prohibiting slavery in a free market is the same as for prohibiting contract killings: If the provision of a particular good or service violates the NAP, then it’s illegitimate, and the provision of that particular good or service would actually constitute a violation of genuine free market principles.
Incidentally, slavery (at least on a large scale) would be very unlikely to exist in a free market, since its practitioners would not have access to government subsidies (e.g. government assistance in catching runaways, putting down rebellions, and so forth), and therefore, the practice would not be profitable.
A road has two sides so two property owners would have to agree for even one parcel of road. Once it had been converted to other uses those depending on its existence would lose the ability to travel using their accustomed technology (car, bike, motorcycle, skateboard, horse et al)
Perhaps the roads should be put in abeyance until the alternative forms of transport (helicopter, microjet, or any of the other fascinating vehicles which have arrested interest) have been developed and are in very common usage.
Just a thought. So, what about the now existing potholes and failing infrastructure?
While it’s true that we can only speculate as to what exactly would have been built, when the government is obviously so far away from the market, we can clearly see in general what would have been and not been produced.
What we can’t do is anticipate the new ideas and improvements that would have moved us even further away from roads and cars under government subsidized horozontal transport. It may be that we would have needed none at all in a free market.
What we need to do now is privatize all roads. Turn them over to the adjacent land owners or to local neighborhoods or whatever works. More importantly, allow the private owners to redevelop the land any way they want by removing all zoning and eliminating all property taxes, especially land taxes which are the worst of all taxes.
Owners will need to accumulate large plots of land and to rip out streets, sewers etc. They will need to hold land empty as they accumulate and plan for proper future development. Since eminent domain also leads to resource misallocation, it must be abolished as a government tool.
It is a horrible thing for the economy, the environment and the people when land owners are coerced by property taxes to build too soon, by zoning to build for the wrong purpose, and by government provided roads and other services which actually have negative value to build the wrong size developments in the wrong places.
Yes, but speculating is fun and can elicit an interesting dialog. The reason Free Markets could work is because they respond rapidly to what people are willing to pay to have.
This immediately raises questions about slave trafficking or other ‘goods’ which violate the rights of individuals, unless you view those treated as chattel as subhuman. Clearly some people want this sort of goods – and are very willing to pay for them.
So the issue for Libertarians is the moral and ethical neutrality of the Free Market and how to assert accountability when the Free Market delivers goods which violate our standards for individual rights.
Conundrum.
The fact is, the free market would NOT build all the roads and highways precisely because most of these things should not be and should never have been built. Very little of our existing modern infrastructure would have been built by the free market because it’s expensive, polluting, and non-sustainable.
The fact is that we have no idea exactly what would happen in a true free market, because we have never had anything close to one. But that’s the beauty of the free market. The biggest reason why central planning fails is the impossibility of sitting down and calculating exactly what sorts of things need to be produced, in what quantities, at what price, and so on. Only the market itself can provide the answers to those questions. We can speculate, but it’s really no more than guesswork.
Hi Be Rational! Politicians are what they are, sad but true.
People are living in cities with high rises and horizontal roads on the ground with occasional interchanges. Many of these are also deteriorating. What do you see as possible? Remember, highways are now in danger of collapse, along with dams. In California about 25% of the infrastructure is in this condition.
California has experienced both of these disasters before and, as is also true with petroleum infrastructure, those in use are not being maintained and continue to deteriorate. We need a solution to prevent deaths and injuries. So, think about it. What do we do now?
No. What I’m saying is at least 80% of all roads and cars in cities and towns are not and never were needed nor would they have been built in a free market.
We should and would have built vertically instead of horozontally.
With all roads completely private, elevators would have supplanted them. Elevators are cheaper to build and maintain and take little energy to run, they require no private automobiles. Solar cars, if they can be made cheap enough, still are not cheap enough to counter the cost of roads themselves. We wouldn’t need either roads or cars in properly designed communities. Although we would need some horozontal transport between communities, there would be more mass transport alternatives to highways and cars since we would be transporting between much more compact and dense population centers.
But the government subsidized horozontal transportation so extensively that few people can even envision what I’m talking about. Re-imagine how a developer would build if there were no road subsidies of any kind provided by the government. He would build vertically instead of horozontally.
The world you image does not exist because government, in cooperation with corporations, had a different idea, beginning with railroads which were subsidized by Congress.
When the automobile came into use a private organization, the Automobile Club of Southern California, took on the job of putting up signs and encouraging roads be built. This was a private response to a technology then gaining market share.
But federally subsidized projects were already in motion. There is the funding of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific, which was certainly a subsidy of corporations by American Taxpayers. If a corporation is subsidized either directly by taxpayers or receives special considerations and limitations of liabilities it can’t be considered ‘private’ in any meaningful sense. From the balance of what you wrote I assume you place all of the projects carried out this way outside of your use of the word, ‘private.’
The Hetch Hetchy (water supply for San Francisco) came about as a bribe for votes in a deal cut with the Woodrow Wilson Campaign. The city of San Francisco had been pushing for this for decades. The dam and aqueduct to SF were not completed until 1934, where fortunes were made by the same people who had begun pushing for the dam in 1882. In parallel, a water supply from Owens Valley was completed in 1928.
Rights to private property were violated during each project and resulted in population growth over what could be supported by local resources with the associated reliance on long distance transport. Each project was carried forward using deceitful projections by individuals who can truthfully be categorized as a corporate elite (Greedville).
The first water projects in California were built on land occupied by Yokuts, who were killed or removed by force to reservations. This was a violation of their claim of residency, which is recorded in thousands of years. For an interesting and informative narrative on these events you can read, “Tailholt Tails,” by Frank F. Latta.
Let’s agree that all of these large scale projects violated the rights of individuals and were ethically unsupportable.
You raise an interesting question on either repairing or eliminating these dinosaurs. Do you have a plan for the technology to make this possible without disrupting commerce and travel? Retrofitting for this could also violate individual rights.
Solar vehicles still need roads. Are you talking about off the ground transport? There is development in this direction I have seen. Something on the model of “The Roads Must Roll?, by Heinlein?
The material under discussion could be used for any of the applications you mention but if government is not providing the funding from unwilling taxpayers, a precondition for Libertarians, how would your proposal be funded and built? Vote in the local area? By private development with the infrastructure already included? I assume this would include roads and water systems.
The material under discussion works perfectly for roads and any infrastructure, has extended longevity, is fire-proof and hydrophobic and utilizes no petroleum products. It is entirely sustainable and can be reused with no carbon footprint.
And don’t forget the protection from EMP.
I look forward to you response and links. Cheers, Melinda
“… radically reduces the cost for restoring infrastructure …”
I’m not sure what you’re proposing.
However, when it comes to infrastructure, this is the most misunderstood subject in economics and politics.
All infrastructure should be immediately privatized, ownership, funding, construction – all of it.
Economists have long asked the question: “Who will build the roads?” They have correctly asserted that a free market would never build all the roads and highways that we have today – and they think we actually need more.
The fact is, the free market would NOT build all the roads and highways precisely because most of these things should not be and should never have been built. Very little of our existing modern infrastructure would have been built by the free market because it’s expensive, polluting, and non-sustainable.
Just to begin, a fee market would have substituted elevators, moving sidewalks and walking for most roads, based on construction, maintenance, insurance and operating costs alone. Add in the cost of not polluting privately owned airspace instead of government owned air, and we never would have built the grid of crisscrossing streets that are destroying the Earth. Building taller and closer together (East to West, while leaving solar acess, recreating and parks on the solar side) would have eliminated the need for expensive roads and freeways, expensive gas guzzling cars to drive on them, the pollution and global warming generated by the cars, and the international machinations and war necessary to secure the oil.
Politicians and nearly all economists have no engineering understanding to even imagine how wrong and stupid they’ve been.
The campaign that proposes these programs will have no problem with publicity. Lots of photo ops built in, too. We could run it like a reality TV show.
Thank you, Be Rational. What would you say to a plan which reduced tax dollars spent on social services while creating jobs and small businesses, gets people off the grids, and also radically reduces the cost for restoring infrastructure? At the same time we would be providing structures immune to EMP.
Most Blues would get behind it.
We can also have a Health Care Plan which returns to a real Free Market. I was just talking to a friend of mine at Judicial Watch about it and she loved it. But so would the Blues.
Targeting means major network broadcast TV advertising.
Unless a lot of big donations come in, big cities such as NY, DC, Chicago and LA (even though it’s in a target state) will be too expensive.
But, we should target the 10 states above first, with at least the first $10 million raised by any Super PAC.
Just a note to any Johnson Super PACs out there:
We need to take support and states away from Hillary first if we’re going to shake up the race and have an impact.
We need to start NOW, spend the money now – in early June – to get polling numbers up past 15% and hopefully put some of the safer Democratic or Blue states into play.
*************************************************
“Unless the Libertarian campaign of Johnson – Weld takes significant votes from the Blue side we are electing Hillary. Not a good outcome.
Winning the White House and preventing this and a Trump presidency means winning. Winning has never before been even a remote possibility. Now, it is.
This requires the same strategy, go Blue with action and words. Hammer the NeoCons with their wars, their murder of millions, and the fortunes they have reaped at the same time we show both major parties are corporate tools. ” – Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
****************************************
I agree with the above completely.
Johnson/Weld need to focus on the “personal liberty” side of the Nolan chart. Run on the “blue” side, run hard to take votes from Hillary.
Taking votes from Hillary is key. That will allow the voters who hate Trump to dump him and still stop Hillary.
We need to target regionally.
We should first target the following 10 states:
6 New England states: ME, NH, VT, MA, RI, CT
New Mexico
3 West Coast states: WA, OR, CA.
A quick “thank you” and a short and slightly desperate pitch for Bill Weld was Johnson’s acceptance speech.
“Slightly” desperate? Johnson sounded like a kid begging his parents for a new toy. “Please please please, can I have a Bill Weld? Pleeeeeeeeeeaaase? I’ll do anything! I’ll take out the garbage and mow the lawn every week for a year! Just please, please, please let me have a Bill Weld!”
2 notes:
1) Most of Gary’s pick-ups in the 2nd vote seemed to come from Feldman’s supporters
2) McAfee’s numbers from both ballots are exactly the same
This happened in Pennsylvania
The following is just one incident in a reaction against the Berglandista that eventually ousted then entirely from any positions of respect in the LP.
http://libertarianhistory.blogspot.com/2007/09/harry-browne-emerling-cloud-willis.html
=====LP of Pa. Board of Directors resolution passed 3:01pm 9/23/2001====
“Whereas, certain individuals associated with the Libertarian Party conspired to violate National Libertarian Party policy, libertarian principles, and normal standards of business ethics, and
Whereas, we have in the past supported, promoted and endorsed these individuals by our official actions and in our publications and appeals, and
Whereas, we have an obligation to keep our membership informed;
Therefore, we the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania withdraw any expressed or implied endorsement of any of these individuals or organizations or projects in which they are involved. The individuals are, in alphabetical order:
Sharon Ayres
David Bergland
Harry Browne
Michael (Emerling) Cloud
Jack Harris Dean
Perry Willis
Austin’s comments re the staging in 1996 vs. 2016 are interesting. One remembers the 1996 convention was a privately run enterprise led by notorious tightwads. Yet they worked closely with Perry Willis of the LP’s national staff and the LNC to provide a top-drawer staging for the convention and give CSPAN and other media beautiful visual backdrops for the candidates. Said tightwads made a nice profit too.
Now, we can begin talking about electing a Libertarian to the office of President. The award to Trump and Hillary was delicious. http://rebootinglibertarianism.blogspot.com/2016/05/hillary-and-trump-receive-national-lp.html
Maps: http://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=237716.0
Great to hear. Surprised Petersen did so well though, I honestly thought most of his support was from non LP members.
Here’s hoping Weld gets the VP slot as well. Though I’m not brave enough to bet on it(Wish I had on Johnson though, ack…)
I meant to include this link in my above comment:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?73406-1/libertarian-convention-acceptance-speeches
A quick “thank you” and a short and slightly desperate pitch for Bill Weld was Johnson’s acceptance speech. That was after 10 minutes of time killing by Sarwark while Johnson seemingly couldn’t be located.
Flashback to 1996… a lengthy and well-delivered speech by Harry Browne about an hour into this video. In a fully decorated convention ballroom with good signs, balloons, etc. Around 1 hour and 54 minutes or so, Browne poses for pictures with his wife, running mate and her family… recognizes other Libertarian leaders… the crowd chants “Harry! Harry!” and a little bit of confetti is dropped.
The party has lost the ability to stage this kind of stuff. There’s tons of national media at this thing, and Johnson doesn’t have a great soundbite for them… and there are few compelling visuals. At least, few positive ones.
Now that the optimistic and pessimistic views have been aired, go to your favorite political betting site and place your wager.
Meanwhile, the LP really needs to invest in some professional lighting equipment. The single bright light above GJ shining down on his face makes him look like a serial killer.
Fantastic! Given the choice of Hillary (yuck) or Trump (double yuck), the LP has a great chance to break 2% or maybe even 3% nationally.
Congratulations to the next President of the United States, Governor Gary Johnson.