LPKY Presidential Debate #5 will be the first debate among candidates seeking the Libertarian 2020 Presidential nomination to include Justin Amash.
Candidates: Vermin Supreme, Jo Jorgensen, Justin Amash, Jacob Hornberger, Jim Gray
Facebook live-streaming:
https://www.facebook.com/LPKentucky/videos/242777906970645/
YouTube link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYFlrDIeOz8
Saturday, May 9, 2020 at 8 PM – 10 PM EDT
Also this Saturday, the party’s national committee will continue last Saturday’s zoom meeting. That meeting passed motions to, as Tom Knapp summarized:
Invoke the “impossibility” clause in its convention contract with the JW Marriott in Austin Texas; and
Postpone the 2020 Libertarian National Convention to a place to be determined, and an opening date no later than July 15; and
Adjourn their e-meeting to next Saturday to consider options for that move.
The motion passed last weekend specified that the “place” would have to be physical, and passed by a narrow margin. LNC chair Nick Sarwark more recently posted:
Dear Colleagues,
It is my ruling as Chair, and supported by the opinion of the Libertarian
National Committee’s special counsel, Oliver Hall, that “place” in the
bylaws can mean a virtual convention in the situation where it is
impossible for the vast majority of the selected delegates in the party to
travel to a physical location.As such, a virtual convention held on Memorial Day weekend would be a
proper convention and compliant with the bylaws.Yours in liberty,
Nick
This has elicited a number of very strong replies in subsequent postings to the LNC list.
Meeting info:
When: May 9, 2020 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Topic: LNC MeetingRegister in advance for this webinar:https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_XwBGJY2ES6WUn7jNqTkfoQ
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing
information about joining the webinar.
A number of LNC members have expressed the desire to hear from representatives of potential physical venues regarding their bids.
The Bylaws and convention rules committee will also be meeting on Sunday, continuing last Sunday’s meeting.
perhaps.
I am startled by how easily my parents, both of whom I would clearly put on the conservative, NOT authoritarian boat, became enthusiastic Trump supporters.
The reality is…however you want to design the venn diagram between authoritarians and conservatives, NEITHER overlap with libertarians at all.
As when conservatism first began in Europe, those two are increasingly the same thing again.
In that case we agree 🙂
“I don’t feel foolish. Good discussion…”
agreed. mostly a joke. shoulda put a smile face there.
I haven’t, but I make a conscious and constant effort to guard against confirmation bias. I acknowledge it doesn’t always work, just like my efforts to be civil, magnanimous and open minded.
Not very big numbers, even for LP. This may be confirmation bias, but it confirms my thinking that he made the right decision.
Hopefully you can see it now.
paulie,
I read a book about 6 months ago called The Authoritarian Dynamic by Karen Stenner. This was written in the late 1990’s, and her research does make a clear distinction between authoritarians and conservatives…and libertarians, actually.
But her main spectrum in the book puts authoritarians on one end and libertarians on the other.
The distinction she makes between conservatives and authoritarians is that conservatives are predisposed to uniformity across time in a particular place…whereas authoritarians are predisposed to uniformity across a place in a certain time.
Authoritarians are worse, but NEITHER are compatible with libertarians.
I recommend the book. Even though about 20% of it is advanced statistics that went over my head.
I don’t feel foolish. Good discussion, and maybe we contributed in some small way to the barometer of party temperature which made him make the correct decision for 2020.
Certainly not this year. He made the right decision.
Partially, yes, but only because the US was founded in large part on the ideas of classical liberalism. As the drug war, war on terror, and Great Society/”war on poverty” become more entrenched and fewer and fewer people remember a US before they became as entrenched as they have, conservatism is predictably returning to its European authoritarian roots. If you look at the origins of conservatism they were authoritarian.
Trump is not some aberration; he represents the direction Republicans and conservatives were headed in anyway, and I think will continue to head in after him.
Yep.
Bingo! Couldn’t agree more.
Democratic politicians are not the best target. Young people, new or soon to be citizens, folks who feel shut out of the voting process or taken for granted – much better.
The party was founded on the non-aggression principle. It hasn’t descended into it. If it has descended into anything, it’s been into cargo cult faux-pragmatism.
Even better.
Only on some issues, and only rhetorically. Spending and debt went up way faster under Reagan than Carter or Clinton. It can’t be blamed solely on Democrats in congress as his submitted budgets were even higher than the ones eventually passed. His dramatic ratcheting up of the drug war caused the police-prison-industrial complex to swell. His massive S & L bailout was corporate welfare writ large. He dabbled in protectionism. Meese tried to wage a war on porn. He didn’t end legal abortion, but would have if he could. One area where he wasn’t all that bad was immigration, but that would never fly in the Republican Party now.
Nor was he all that libertarian as governor; Jerry Brown actually cleaned up his fiscal mess after him, relatively speaking.
He did pay some lip service to libertarian economic ideas, but he was bullshitting. The only extent to which he meant it was some partial privatization of profit while socializing costs and risks.
Reaganism, supposedly, was the three legged stool of foreign policy beligerance/massive military-industrial spending growth, social reactionary culture war and free market capitalism. Of those, the first two are explicitly anti-libertarian, indeed more so than the Democrats; the last is dishonest, oxymoronic, and verbal cover for big government-big business cronyism greased with a social spending safety net which Republicans oppose only when it helps people who don’t generally vote for them. Trumpism is the new doctrine of the NSGOP and has only turned things worse there.
That’s blatantly false. It’s a combination of dishonest rhetoric, wishful thinking and self-delusion. Mostly on their part, but some of the wishful thinking is on yours, and whoever else repeats this falsehood.
paulie,
I think there is a distinction between conservatives and authoritarians.
Conservatives are those of the “Never Trump” inclination. Amash is one of them. I consider them earnest and honorable, but still not suited for libertarianism.
Agreed that many of Trump’s biggest fans are not at all religious.
More broadly, it’s authoritarianism. Many of Trump’s biggest fans are not all that religious, although many are. He sure isn’t himself. But between their thirst for migrant-bashing and border enforcement, their bootlicking flying of police blue line flags …the biggest issues animating the right are authoritarian. As I explained above, it’s what they were always really about, despite pretending otherwise.
Most, but not all.
LOL. Infiltrating? They haven’t changed the Republican Party. It’s become worse, or at least more honest, in its authoritarianism. For some of them, maybe the Republican Party changed them. For some their libertarianism was skin deep to start with. There may be a few still deluding themselves, but if so, they are too hopelessly deluded to ever expect anything else from them but endless delusion about their party.
“The conservative temperament is such, even to the very limited extent that libertarian Republicans actually exist, that they are the last people on earth to change anything, including their party or their voting habits.
The sooner the LP comes to understand that they are not the biggest target, but the biggest impediment to doing anything to target the much more actually available voters on our left flank, the sooner the LP will have much greater potential to actually grow rather than keep hitting head against wall over and over. “Libertarian Republicans” = that wall.”
+1000 votes
“Trump’s unhinged BS will be far, far more unhinged in 4 years.
also +1000 votes
Stacey Abrams would actually make sense. His biggest problem will be turnout, not swing voters.
Trump’s unhinged BS will be far, far more unhinged in 4 years.
Agreed.
This is the fundamental mistake the LP keeps making. They are NOT the target should we want to get bigger. For one thing, they barely exist. The “Republican Liberty Caucus” is smaller than the LP. Of the Ron Paul supporters who are still Republicans, many are not libertarian at all; in fact many are rabid Trumpster fires. Many other Ron Paul supporters from 8-12 years ago are not Republicans now. A lot of decidedly non-libertarian Republicans claim to be libertarian, except when it comes time to vote, whether as rank and file voters or as elected officials. The conservative temperament is such, even to the very limited extent that libertarian Republicans actually exist, that they are the last people on earth to change anything, including their party or their voting habits.
The sooner the LP comes to understand that they are not the biggest target, but the biggest impediment to doing anything to target the much more actually available voters on our left flank, the sooner the LP will have much greater potential to actually grow rather than keep hitting head against wall over and over. “Libertarian Republicans” = that wall.
Indeed, the Party has been saved.
Amash withdrew “I will not be a candidate.”
He is a good guy, and can do many good things for our party,and hopefully will, but running for our Presidential nomination was not one of them.
Oops, never mind, he’s not running.
whoa.
I guess we all just look foolish with all the time we wasted on this on.
Trump is a shit show on hiring. I think Biden can hire staff more competently and follow their suggestions better than Trump. Senate is most likely to stay Republican, and divided government is better for us, so from that POV Biden is less bad. Another term of Trump would be very bad; his corrupt, autocratic tendencies will dig in and do more damage. His one upmanship is dangerous on the world stage. I think he can do a lot more damage in a second term than in a first. Biden would spend most of his trying to do undo whatever Trump did, so I don’t see it as as much of a problem.
Those could well happen no matter who’s the president. I rate them as more likely with Trump because he mismanages things so horribly and then doubles down, making it all about how great he thinks or wants people to think he’s doing. But world events could lead to those things regardless of US presidents.
Looks like he’s dropped out. 🙁
Bummer.
We are definitely fucked. Lord help us……….
PF,
We all are engage in confirmation bias, unless you have freed yourself of the human condition! I suspect not, but good on you if you have!
The FB one I’m in have over 6k. There are many others. The Twitter one is over 7K. Then there’s a bunch of state ones as well.
Stating that he’s “quasi-declared” sounds jaded to me. He’s explained the “exploratory committee” as a show of respect. He will likely transition to a full-blown committee in the coming days, but it’s all a distinction with no real differences that I can see.
“With whom? Republicans, even so called “liberty Republicans,” are solidly behind Trump. Any bordertarians who for whatever reason can’t stomach Trump – an exceedingly small group – have Blankenship.”
+1.
As Dalmia pointed out in the Reason magazine article, Amash seems focused on the process end of the immigration debate, unopposed to the wall in principle.
I’m just not sure what sort of room that leaves him to build a solid base.
Maybe he can do it. Let’s say it again: the guy is sometimes remarkably articulate. Better than Ron Paul, if you asked me.
But I think his latent conservatism is gonna cost him votes here. I think his message is gonna get muddle enough to drive away both sides of the immigration debate Trump has created.
Do they do experiments up in the spaceship? 🙂
I think easily 30-40% in each category.
That’ll be even more the case now. Same on the other end.
The top 6 presidential candidates that year – Reagan, Carter, Anderson, Clark, Commoner and Hall – all lived to at least 90; Carter and Clark are still alive. Of their VPs, Bush lived to 94, Mondale is still alive at 92, Anderson’s VP Lucey lived to 96, and Commoner’s VP LaDonna Harris is still alive and has less than a year left to make it to 90. David Koch, however, didn’t make it to that age – he died at 79. Hall’s VP Angela Davis is still alive, but has a ways to go, being only 76 now.
The three top vote getters in the Republican primary – Reagan, Bush, and Anderson – all lived to over 90; from the top 3 Democrats, Carter and Brown are still alive, but Brown is 82 now. Ted Kennedy made it to 77.
“The way I describe it is that there are NAP sympathizers, myself included. NAP Fundamentalism is a political dogma in which each and every policy point is based on a rigid application of the NAP.”
Count me among the NAP sympathizers as well.
As none other than Ron Paul once said when he was asked if he was an anarchist, “To me, all anarchy means is you PREFER that people deal with each other on a voluntary basis. What’s wrong with that?”
Note the demurral about turning the NAP into policy, instead the catastrophic idea of a rigid application thereof.
I thought they met on the 13th? What will we know?
I’ll be fair, but those type of activities may be severely curtailed through the election. Yet another reason to be not be wildly optimistic.
I respect him too, and will support him – albeit not very enthusiastically – if he’s the nominee. But he’s not my choice for the nomination by any means.
Not as an end all be all.
With whom? Republicans, even so called “liberty Republicans,” are solidly behind Trump. Any bordertarians who for whatever reason can’t stomach Trump – an exceedingly small group – have Blankenship.
“And since then it’s been the place for libertarians who want to elect someone now to work, donate, register, and vote. They’re a minority in the GOP, but they outnumber those in the LP by at least an order of magnitude.”
I think not. The GOP has gotten less and less libertarian ever since Reagan left. Now that Trump joined and Amash left, I’d say there aren’t any libertarians left.
So, to review, I’d say it has been an epic failure by “libertarians” within the GOP to make it more libertarian, and an epic failure by the Libertarian Party to achieve success by courting conservatives and paleos with a right-leaning message.
It seems to me pretty much any confluence between libertarians and conservatives turns to sh*t on a shingle.
“If you just mean that, in politics and ethics, you don’t need God as a hypothesis.”
I can agree with this, with one caveat: I’m not sure how likely it is to find religious individuals who can effectively divorce their religious beliefs from their policy stances. They’re probably out there (in liberal denominations like the UU), but I’d guess they are relatively rare, and to the extent that our political messaging leans right, the more likely it is that the religious that flow into the LP and the libertarian movement are gonna mangle the message into some level of reactionary religiosity. Maybe not as virulent as the GOP, but noxious enough to leave us stuck with the label, “Republicans who want to smoke pot.”
“…but if you mean there’s a conflict between obeying the NAP and being religious, I don’t.”
I don’t think there is a conflict between the two. But, then again, I think the NAP is a nice personal sentiment, but next to useless in the political arena…and in that arena, generally used by the most privileged as a cudgel to keep their privileged position. Not unlikely the sprinter who starts a 100 meter race with a 20-meter head start blathering about the rules of a hypothetically fair race.
“A few people have tried to broaden the message to Democrats – Mike Gravel, for example – but the primacy of economics (back in the ’70s *the* issue was capitalism vs Communism) is really too big a hurdle.”
That’s an interesting point. Maybe it was the threat of communism and not the LP founders political dispositions per se that forced libertarianism and the LP to drift right. Then again, the party should have recovered from that lean by now, if it was strictly caused by the communist threat.
Furthermore, perhaps we should put 2 and 2 together and realize the inability to clear that hurdle is exactly why the party continues to fail…instead of looking at Democrats and progressives as hopelessly lost, and conservatives as our natural allies?
“Hey, the NAP isn’t just a political dogma; it’s a way of life. I believe in it, and I think we all do, even you.”
Let me re-phrase: The NAP is just a way of life, because in the political arena, its ONLY dogma.
Now I agree!
I saw more for Johnson and Browne. Then again they didn’t just start running in April or May of the presidential election year.
Yes, and I think you are demonstrating it.
I would hope so, given how recently he quasi-declared. What are the numbers?
GD,
The way I describe it is that there are NAP sympathizers, myself included. NAP Fundamentalism is a political dogma in which each and every policy point is based on a rigid application of the NAP. JA may couch his pro-life position as a NAP violation, but he probably has always believed that a fetus is entitled to full legal protections.
(3) greater appeal to the LP’s obvious target should it want to get bigger (libertarian Republicans) .”
AD – “lol, no. Epic failure. The heart and soul of conservatism isn’t libertarianism, its reactionary religiosity.”
As you probably know, Reagan disagreed. And ever since his time, Reagansim has been the official GOP ideology. And since then it’s been the place for libertarians who want to elect someone now to work, donate, register, and vote. They’re a minority in the GOP, but they outnumber those in the LP by at least an order of magnitude.
“The heart of libertarianism is secular progressivism.”
Depends what you mean by ‘secular’. If you just mean that, in politics and ethics, you don’t need God as a hypothesis, I’d agree; but if you mean there’s a conflict between obeying the NAP and being religious, I don’t.
“Someone with better knowledge of LP history can help me out here, but weren’t all the founders of the LP ex-Republicans?”
Well, yes; Nolan et al founded the LP in 1971, because they realized the absurdity of ‘electing someone now’ when that “someone” was a Richard Nixon. Donald Trump is as good an example as Nixon for the futility of that strategy.
“I have periodically wondered if things would have worked out differently if those founders had insisted on finding a couple, few ex-Democrats to help balance the messaging that was going to come out of the nascent movement. ”
A few people have tried to broaden the message to Democrats – Mike Gravel, for example – but the primacy of economics (back in the ’70s *the* issue was capitalism vs Communism) is really too big a hurdle. The most libertarian Democrat I can think of is Jared Polis; if he tried to go after the LP nomination, I think he’d be as unacceptable as Sen. Gravel was.
“Maybe that would have prevented the descent into NAPist dogma”
Hey, the NAP isn’t just a political dogma; it’s a way of life. I believe in it, and I think we all do, even you.
Even Amash: the very reason he won’t follow the party line on abortion is because he thinks abortion violates the NAP.
“(3) greater appeal to the LP’s obvious target should it want to get bigger (libertarian Republicans) .”
lol, no. Epic failure.
The heart and soul of conservatism isn’t libertarianism, its reactionary religiosity.
The heart of libertarianism is secular progressivism.
“You’ve never heard of them? They’ve been infiltrating since John Hospers hijacked the nomination (followed by Roger McBride 4 years later). Even David Nolan worked in the GOP (on the Goldwater campaign).”
Someone with better knowledge of LP history can help me out here, but weren’t all the founders of the LP ex-Republicans?
I have periodically wondered if things would have worked out differently if those founders had insisted on finding a couple, few ex-Democrats to help balance the messaging that was going to come out of the nascent movement. Maybe that would have prevented the descent into NAPist dogma.
I don’t think Biden will pick Abrams or Harris. I think he’ll let those rumors float out there to build goodwill from their fans, and then pick Klobuchar.
dl = “He’s a pariah figure amongst his fellow politicians. Is that your selling point?”
No, my selling point was that he’s a capable messenger who can handle himself. Though I do see being disliked by politicians of other parties as, if anything, a positive. It’s certainly not disqualifying.
dl – ” Whence this thing called the libertarian republican?”
You’ve never heard of them? They’ve been infiltrating since John Hospers hijacked the nomination (followed by Roger McBride 4 years later). Even David Nolan worked in the GOP (on the Goldwater campaign).
AD,
Heard an interesting argument: We actually should want the prez who is most inept during a crisis. Possibly less likely to do damage.
That’s not wrong.
If Biden wins, probably his VP or CoS will be the de facto president.
So while I usually root for the most competent/least bad, this time I dunno. Maybe I need to see who he’d choose as VP.
I am very interested to know who Biden’s VP pick will be (Please God, not Stacey Abrams or Kamala Harris) because I have a feeling they’ll be taking the reins at some point in the next four years. As lost as Biden is now, imagining him still president in 2024 gives me more anxiety than any of Trump’s unhinged BS. Honestly, it’s a bit cruel that establishment Dems pushed him so hard to be the Bernie alternative in the race. Let the guy retire while he still has some dignity.
He’s a pariah figure amongst his fellow politicians. Is that your selling point? How to lose and alienate political friends?
Obvious to whom? Whence this thing called the libertarian republican?
Yeah, that’s more or less Bastiat’s definition of the State
The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else
laid out in his essay “The State,” and articulated elsewhere in The Law and Economic Sophisms. That quote is often cited as a Randian trope about the unproductive living at the expense of the productive. But that is not what Basitat meant. He meant it in the same sense as the above quote. Corruption of the law does not breed an armistice in the pursuit of legal plunder(i.e, government interventionism and regulation). It breeds the opposite:
we wish to bargain for ourselves as other classes have bargained for themselves!”
individuals in low trust countries want more government intervention even though the government is corrupt is hardly an indictment of libertarianism. Indeed, it is a basic premise of libertarianism. It is, however, an indictment of the liberal democratic rule of law. Liberal democracy is not supposed to work like a Christian Faith Healing service. You know, if you failed to get healed, it’s because you didn’t have enough faith. And the preacher then explains the lack of faith by searching for a scapegoat. i.e, the devil.
Amash has (1) greater access to the newscycle, (2) more practice dealing with media and politicians, (3) greater appeal to the LP’s obvious target should it want to get bigger (libertarian Republicans) than any other candidate in the race.
fair enough. pretty well stated again.
my only disagreement is that I am not as alarmed at Biden’s performance. Its not the picture of level-headedness, no doubt…but is it much worse than Trump?
I guess I break the other way on that one: if its down to Trump/Biden, I’d very, very reluctantly root Biden.
AD,
I’m not “optimistic.” I’m quite pessimistic about the likely prospect of Trump or Biden. The fiscal hole that’s been dug is doing profound damage to the nation’s prospects. The saber-rattling with China is frightening. Either old dude with diminishing cognitive ability leading us out of this mess doesn’t give me the warm and fuzzies.
Frankly, I’m with Rogan and Weinstein that IF it really is just Trump/Biden, I’d very, very reluctantly root Trump. I say this only because at least Trump seems to have some functioning marbles up top. Silly me, I put competence above ideology. (I rooted Clinton in 16 for the same reason.)
To win the presidency, the single most important quality is communications ability. I’m gonna give JA an 8. Trump gets a very strange 9. Biden, today, is maybe a 5. Obama was a 9.5, but W was maybe a 7. JA’s got to get his messaging, positioning, and — importantly — charisma to elevate. Say he sits down with Rogan and Rubin, and people start to say, “Hey, just maybe he’s the guy.”
The degree of difficulty to breakthrough is a 10. It’s worth a shot, because the alternative could well be profoundly grim. I mean, bread lines, nuclear war, sorts of outcomes.
RC,
“Many of the non-knuckledragging people that I encounter who would vote for Trump will say things like: I don’t like him, but I hated Hillary SO much that he was the only choice for me. And almost NO ONE is enthusiastic about Sleepy Joe.”
You are right about that. Actually, one of the articles paulie posted had a hyperlink to a politico article that said exactly that: of the voters who hated both Trump and Clinton, Trump won a decided majority. Biden is winning a decided majority of that Hate Both group this time.
That is a key metric to watch, but I’m not sure how it helps Amash,
RC,
I hear ya. Your optimism could turn out to be right.
As it stands, I once again must agree with paulie: I think around 1%, and that is because I agree with what Nick G over at Reason said a couple weeks back. Namely, that the coronavirus and its myriad of limitations are gonna lock the decision into Trump or Biden.
“I’d add that there is a profound level of skepticism about government now.”
I agree. However, I don’t know if you recall, but Reason reported on some academic studies that came out either last year or the year before (and its something I posted about at this site) that demonstrated as skepticism about government actually causes people to desire a MORE powerful government.
In fact, in a interesting bit of irony, you’re actually taking a position the NAPster/radical/anarchist crowd has repeatedly taken that the aforementioned studies throw some serious cold water on: that poor government performance would cause people to consider lessarchism/anarchism. It doesn’t. It causes them to do the opposite.
https://reason.com/2019/03/09/everyone-agrees-government-is/
“A respectable and growing body of research shows that as societies move from relatively high to lower levels of trust, citizens counterintuitively call for greater and greater levels of government involvement in their lives. “Individuals in low-trust countries want more government intervention even though they know the government is corrupt,” summarize the authors of a 2010 Quarterly Journal of Economics paper.”
I don’t think so. My best guess would be around 1%, 0.5 on the low end. I’d pleasantly surprised above 1.5%.
I’m talking about trends, not absolutes. There are exceptions, I just don’t see enough for a breakthrough.
AD,
Of course the odds are against JA having legs in the general. He’s a long shot. Listening to PF, it sounds like he will have fewer votes than Bergland or Marrou! That tribalism is SO ingrained now that it’s all a binary question: pro- or anti-Trump.
I see lots and lots of grays. Maybe 15% knuckledraggers who’ll follow Trump wherever he goes. Maybe 15% who see Trump as Genghis Khan.
Many of the non-knuckledragging people that I encounter who would vote for Trump will say things like: I don’t like him, but I hated Hillary SO much that he was the only choice for me. And almost NO ONE is enthusiastic about Sleepy Joe.
I’d add that there is a profound level of skepticism about government now. Most I encounter don’t believe what we’re being told. Don’t wear a mask. Wear a mask. The “conspiracy theorists” seem to be gaining favor, and I’d say not without cause. So much of the pandemic simply doesn’t add up.
In this setup, I see opportunity.
RC,
Fair, well-argued post by you at 17:01.
on the other hand, as paulie notes, the real question is: will his campaign have legs in the general electorate?
interesting trivia about the nonagenarians from the 1980 election, paulie.
The Prags meet Sunday , we’ll know then
still more….
Further, a lot of “excitement” comes from rallies and events. Perhaps you’ve noticed, but those activities are locked down. Be fair!
more…
Reason is covering the shit out of JA. Yes, they are not genuflecting to him, but they obviously have a tremendous amount of respect for him, as any lessarchist would.
Those who “don’t care” about getting votes (Bumper and probably most NAP Fundamentalists) recoil from a strong lessarchist candidate who actually is qualified and can do the job better than his rivals. That would involve responsibility, which my sense is not something NAP Fundamentalists want. They prefer to howl at the moon and luxuriate in their “purity.”
That he’s not a no-borders absolutist may not play well with the Cosmos, his positioning makes him more viable, not less.
Of course, my concern is the country could take a profound step down with 4 more of Trump or a few years of an addled Biden. If there’s a remote chance to save us from Thunderdome ( 😉 ), it strikes me as worth taking a shot.
Early days, PF.
I’m seeing a LOT of excitement, actually. You are — I’m sure — aware of “confirmation bias.” Supporting groups on FB and Twitter have been growing exponentially.
It appears even Redlich is on Team Amash.
Most will either hold their nose and vote for Trump or Biden anyway or not vote at all. Some will write in. Does it give you any pause that a large sample of LP delegates polled didn’t select Amash til the 6th ballot in a narrow win and that both the Reasoners and Rockwellites are not so enthusiastic? As we discussed he’s not generating much enthusiasm among any other segments of the voting public either. Campaigns rely on volunteers and donors and that relies on excitement. Where’s the excitement?
The 1980 election featured a number of candidates who lived into their 90s. Reagan made it to 93, John Anderson to 95, and Carter is now the longest-lived individual to have been US president (pappy Bush died at age 94). Pappy Bush was also involved in that 1980 election as a primary runner up and VP. Bob Dole, another primary candidate that year, is now 96. Barry Commoner, the Citizens Party candidate that year, lived to 95. Gus Hall, the Communist candidate, lived to 90, dying shortly after his birthday. Stassen lived to 92.
AD: Its true that he might be holding back his more startling (to libertarians) ideas until after he gets the nomination.
Me: I don’t see it as “holding back.” He hasn’t hammered out his position papers yet, as there’s been no time to do so. Be fair!
He has said he’s OK with relief direct to citizens vs. the PPP, etc. This is already a NAP plumbline violation, but he sensibly notes that there WILL be some form of relief, so why not do so sensibly? He’s taken it on directly. He’s not hiding the ball.
It’s true that a few of the thousand NAP Fundamentalists are likely to sit on their hands. But the universe of True Believers is tiny. There are far more lessarchists and lessarchist adjacent who see that Trump and Biden are clearly unfit are far more numerous.
And in other election trivia, Harold Stassen ran in every presidential election from 1944 to 1992.
Also from the 1980 election, Jimmy Carter is still alive and still eligible, too. He’s 95.
Let’s revisit Mike Gravel… he’s actually older than both Dumb and Dumber!
Same age as Ed Clark. Can we nominate him again?
That’s a REALLY great idea! I still have a bunch of Clark buttons and even a tee shirt or two! It would probably set a record for elapsed time in between presidential runs. Let’s do it!
Me neither.
Yeah, except I think Ron Paul was better at that game than Amash is, or is likely to be anytime soon if ever.
right now I can’t see any of that happening, paulie. not in any sort of large numbers.
enough to get him 6 months of high profile pub, a commentariat position in the media and a sufficient stream of donors, his own Paul-style mailing list? quite possibly.
Same age as Ed Clark. Can we nominate him again?
And those ideas will move a lot of people to donate, volunteer and vote for him?
Its true that he might be holding back his more startling (to libertarians) ideas until after he gets the nomination.
PF,
Well, I think fit-ness and competence is the obvious differentiation. Can the candidate even do the job?
I can’t say there’s a crisp issue positioning at the moment, as he’s focusing on more obscure issues that Ls and few others care about. We’ll see how he presents issues to the general public, assuming he gets the nomination.
Issue positioning, I mean.
Let’s revisit Mike Gravel… he’s actually older than both Dumb and Dumber!
agreed, Jared.
the Gabbard idea is more of a p.r,/marketing thing. very little substance to it, (unless you want to call
“bi-partisan” substantive.) Even if it would be a visually compelling ticket.
Gabbard is great on foreign policy. I really appreciated that she made it a central focus of her campaign, and I admire her willingness to break with her party’s leadership. But she remains a dissident Democrat and barely even leans libertarian on domestic policy. I’m not sure that matters a whole lot for the position, but a VP should embrace and be able to defend and promote the presidential nominee’s agenda. I doubt Gabbard could do that for any Libertarian candidate in good conscience, including Amash. Though I admit that would be a very interesting and balanced ticket.
Messaging: Stop the madness.
Positioning: 40 y/o 5 term congressman with no rape allegations.
To be qualified to run for VP someone has to also be qualified to run for P, so to the extent that sore loser laws are now being held to apply to P candidates they would also be held against VP candidates.
ahh, so the sore loser laws do cover v.p. nominees?
anyway, he’s gotta figure out his messaging and positioning, thats for sure.
AD,
Gabbard is ineligible due to sore-loser laws, according to Dearn. I would LOVE that ticket.
“That would not even be a good joke. No one who knows anything about either Hillary or the LP delegates as a body would think either one would entertain that seriously. Any hopes he would have of campaigning as the candidate with greater mental acuity would then be dashed.”
yea, it was mostly in jest. But the point I was making is that nibbling on the edges by talking about process (as the Dalmia Reason article on immigration that you posted demonstrated), ain’t gonna cut it.
maybe a more serious suggestion would be Gabbard.
As mentioned above 500-1 on Ladbrokes. Not great odds, but they exist.
It’s definitely a problem for him. Tea partiers/republican conservatives see him as a traitor, as do Rockwellites if you want to consider them a separate category. Reason and LP folks alike are skeptical, as per articles quoted above. Progressives and neocons warmed up to him for doing the right thing on impeachment, but now worry he’ll hurt Biden. Voters to the left of Biden would be more apt to go for Hawkins if they can’t stomach Biden or not voting/leaving president blank/writing in. Anyone to the right of Trump has Blankenship. Those in the middle might consider Amash too extreme. Who does he appeal to?
True.
That would not even be a good joke. No one who knows anything about either Hillary or the LP delegates as a body would think either one would entertain that seriously. Any hopes he would have of campaigning as the candidate with greater mental acuity would then be dashed.
I’d agree with you 100%: there doesn’t seem to be much there, re: Amash’s base. To me. that’s the crux of his problem.
Donald Trump obliterated the constitutional conservative movement. Maybe marginalized or co-opted it is the better term.
Of course, one might argue that that latent authoritarianism was always there, ready to be exploited.
But bottom line is, now there is no there there. At least not enough to create a broad base of support in a national election.
I think RC’s argument is that the guy is so articulate and such a contrast in terms of age and mental stability, that he can fashion a base roughly similar to the J-W “Six-lane highway down the middle” of the political spectrum.
Don’t know if he is going to be able to pull that off. But whatever it is he could try to do, it will have to be big and transparent.
Maybe he could leak out that he is considering Hillary for a V.P. slot? That would be transparent enough!
True. Looks like he’s got a good start on that,LOL. But what exactly is his base? There doesn’t seem to be much there.
The Spectator article was illuminating about the Rockwell perspective.
But if I were Amash, the quicker I could get on the wrong side of those people, the better.
I didn’t say zero difference. Outweighed by other factors, yes.
PF,
You may be right: Candidate quality makes no difference.
I would contend that DJT was, in a VERY odd way, a quality candidate, in that he had –for enough voters — a compelling message and story.
There is zero funding. He couldn’t even get the funding necessary to be competitive in his house race as an independent.
lol… no. Amash is not even getting odds on any betting site.
Who has bent? Who have you made equivocate on the open borders position on this forum? What we do know is that when when you’re pressed on the similarities of your immigration restrictionism with the Rockwell crowd, you pack up your tent and leave.
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2018/01/lnc-vice-chair-arvin-vohra-once-again-stirs-controversy-calls-for-removal-with-age-of-consent-comments/#comment-1732709
2016 had that too, but then see above re factors in opposite direction. Trump seems fairly immune to attack; there’s just not much bad you can say about him that people don’t believe already and for those who like him discount, relish, or accept.
Biden may be less immune but then opposition to trump may be strong enough to make people equally immune to attacks on him. Best case scenario for trump is to persuade a lot of would be Biden voters to stay home. Few will bother to vote anyway and will have a range of options such as greens and write in. Amash won’t pick up as many of them as Johnson because he has more litmus barriers against him for those leaning towards Biden now. His best shot is with never trump republicans but there just aren’t very many of them in the real world and the ones that do still exist are shocked and disgusted enough by trump to vote Biden regardless of dirt or smears or write in or stay home. So, amash target audience is a sliver of a sliver.
PF,
Right. Both R and D oriented Super PACs are going to SAVAGE the other side with severe character assassinations. Can JA benefit from and exploit the coming bloodbath? Possibly.
Yeah. I know Democrats and Republicans both have them. I know there is not a whole lot of funding for Amash if he tries it.
PF,
C’mon, surely you know about Super PACs…
Trump will have a hard time hitting Biden there because there are way, way more accusers against Trump, including some accusing him of full blown penetration rape, not just brief unwanted fingering. Democrats can blow it off unless there is a pattern of multiple accusers along the lines of Reade or worse, not just smelling hair or shoulder massages. And maybe even then, since they want to get rid of Trump that badly. Amash could try to make it an issue, but he just won’t get nearly the attention level to make it stick. Hunter Biden may be Joe Biden’s problem more than #metoo, but maybe not, for similar reasons.
I disagree. Much of what the movement has done has been because of people originally brought into it by the party, even if they left it afterwards. The ability to swing general elections is important, and the public attention level is higher than during the primaries. Many of the think tanks, single issue organizations, journals, websites, even campaigns within establishment parties wouldn’t exist, or wouldn’t exist at nearly their level, if not for the ripple effects of the LP.
sadly must agree 100% with this assertion from the Spectator article (among others, but this was the most on point, IMO):
“But it’s also not a force for ideas — whatever success libertarian ideas have found in the last half-century hasn’t come about because of the LP.”
pf: Biden may be less sharp, but he’s also less hated.
me: Agreed. Although we’ll see how that shapes up, in light of the #metoo developments.
PF,
Yes, the Cosmos are far more lessarchistic than NAP Fundamentalist. And when you REALLY press them on “open borders,” they will bend some. Rockwellian “anarchists” are slightly veiled haters, so I can’t take them seriously.
A person cannot be politically viable as a Bryan Caplan open-border extremist. It simply doesn’t sell. Virtually no one believes that borders between nations (and different laws) should be the same as state borders. That’s a non-starter IF one wants to be taken seriously in the public square.
I love how JA supported direct relief vs the convoluted PPP, etc. He notes that the people will demand relief given these circumstances. Taking the NAP Fundamentalist view (e.g. Bumper) on Covid is political death. That leads to Bergland-type levels of support.
https://reason.com/2020/05/12/the-libertarian-party-critique-of-justin-amash/
good Dalmia Reason article on Amash’s immigration record that paulie posted. From the article:
“Still, when he was a Republican in Congress, he too often ended up on the pro-immigration side for narrow procedural reasons, not fundamental principled ones.Indeed, Amash repeatedly said he agreed with several restrictionist ends and disagreed merely with the means deployed to achieve them….But since this is within Trump’s executive authority, Amash hasn’t bothered to really protest; it’s as if only the legality of the president’s actions matter, not their morality.”
People’s choice of who they want as president isn’t scored in the same way as competitive debating. Being sharper can also mean being more unlikable, and sexism plays a role here: a woman can easily cross the line from sharp to shrill or shrewish for many (including many women), and Clinton lost out on the likability scale. Biden may be less sharp, but he’s also less hated.
They get it right on the money. Rockwellite “anarchists” are the ones who lose their minds. We all know the unfortunate example of my former friend Andy Jacobs, among others. Reason and cato, by contrast, are “lessarchists” who are much more reasonable on the issue.
PF,
KMW is, I think, but the Cosmotarians lose their minds on immigration. NG iirc at least is in favor of screenings. Overall, they fall into tautologies and really bad logical fallacies, or maybe just overstatements for effect.
reason.com is anarchist?
Biden can come off as senile at times, but then so could Reagan. After Trump, a lot of people may actually want a “sleepy” president who isn’t frantic and hyper and who represents something of a return to normalcy, one who doesn’t demand constant attention, outrage or cult of personality. His VP choice may be important signalwise, and also due to his age. This is not original analysis; I read it somewhere, I think maybe 538. I don’t remember the author or title, but it was based on poll analysis.
The “two governors” shtick opened up a lot of media doors. Johnson flubbed it, but Amash doesn’t get all those doors opened to begin with.
Indeed.
And let me say, the Democratic Party meetings I have gone to tell me they are OBSESSED with getting rid of Trump. I am shocked at how easily they have cast aside the credible assault allegations against Biden.
People who despise Trump would vote for a corpse right now, and we all know Trump will do NOTHING to change their minds. In fact, he will amplify the partisanship. He’s gonna put everyone just where he wants them: for or against him. He glories in that. Rolls around in it like a pig in slop.
pf,
Looks to me like JA is in a good place on immigration, from a lessarchist perspective, although not from a NAP Fundamentalist/crypto- or explicit-anarchist one.
I think that’s more on your part.
Her “top of game” translated as lying, manipulating, and corrupt to a lot of people, including many Democrats. Again, see the polls. Biden is viewed better by Democrats and independents than Clinton was.
Johnson was better known, better positioned in terms of not being as right-leaning, and for the reasons cited in the Center for Politics analysis, had a better field to play on. The “two governors” shtick opened up a lot of media doors. Johnson flubbed it, but Amash doesn’t get all those doors opened to begin with.
I’m looking at multiple data points, and more broadly at reality. There’s just not as much dissatisfaction with their nominees as there was in 2016 among either Democrats or Republicans.
You’re seeing a mirage, sorry to say. I’d like for him to do well also if he’s the nominee, but I don’t think he will. I won’t be as ambivalent as about Barr in 2008, but I won’t be as enthusiastic as I was about Browne either time or Johnson the first time. Probably more cautious, as I was about Badnarik (I was pleasantly surprised) and Johnson redux (I wasn’t).
Anthony 2020/05/14 at 11:35 am
Agreed. Let’s not also forget the LP’s divisive and potentially chaotic nomination process itself this time can play a role in how unified and enthusiastic (or not) the party can be coming out of that nomination. Then there’s the difficulties of campaigning in a pandemic, the shorter time frame due to more ballots being mailed in in October than normally, and it’s not a pretty picture. And how’s Amash enthusiasm in the L movement outside the party? You see the Reason article I quoted earlier this morning. Not very enthusiastic. The Rockwellites are, predictably, even less so:
https://spectator.us/justin-amash-study-vanity/
PF,
Possible confirmation bias. Watch Joe Biden today, and then watch Hillary in 2016. She was on top of her game. He is senile.
Watch JA today. Watch GJ in 2016. JA’s on top of his game. GJ was often dazed and meandering.
You seem to be backward looking at single data points. I’m seeing possibility and potential.
And lets not forget, in 2016, the Dems weren’t unified and single-minded in their obsession to get rid of Trump. They are now. Swaying Democrats and Democratic-leaners is gonna be exceedingly tough.
Now you’re gonna tell me you’re gonna sway them with a pro-life ex-tea party member who voted no on an anti-lynching bill, and someone who is an Independent In Name Only. That’s a tall order. Don’t know if merely being articulate is gonna be enough.
“Believe it. Sanders, Warren and other voters are not as opposed to Biden as they were to Clinton in 2016. There’s less of a feeling that the nomination was stolen or manipulated. Biden’s negatives are also lower among the general population and swing voters. Hillary Clinton was relentlessly attacked since she was first lady, and has an aloof manner that seems transparently dishonest to a lot of people, including many Democrats.’
Once again, I have to agree 100% with paulie here. 100%
“Johnson was better known going into 2016 than Amash is now. As the article explains ” Johnson is a former two-term governor of New Mexico who sought the GOP presidential nomination in 2012 before his Libertarian runs. That represents much more national exposure than Amash can currently boast.”
Bingo again.
“Amash doesn’t win until the 6th ballot, and then with only 55.6% of the vote. If that holds true, that signals Barr level dissatisfaction with his nomination, meaning relatively little engagement from LP volunteers in the general election campaign. It’s close enough that it could mean he doesn’t get the nomination at all.”
Bingo, part III.
Believe it. Sanders, Warren and other voters are not as opposed to Biden as they were to Clinton in 2016. There’s less of a feeling that the nomination was stolen or manipulated. Biden’s negatives are also lower among the general population and swing voters. Hillary Clinton was relentlessly attacked since she was first lady, and has an aloof manner that seems transparently dishonest to a lot of people, including many Democrats.
Johnson was better known going into 2016 than Amash is now. As the article explains ” Johnson is a former two-term governor of New Mexico who sought the GOP presidential nomination in 2012 before his Libertarian runs. That represents much more national exposure than Amash can currently boast.”
When taken in conjunction with all the other reasons it’s pretty clear.
And see the LPKY poll of national delegates:
https://www.facebook.com/LPKentucky/posts/10157938879661936
Amash doesn’t win until the 6th ballot, and then with only 55.6% of the vote. If that holds true, that signals Barr level dissatisfaction with his nomination, meaning relatively little engagement from LP volunteers in the general election campaign. It’s close enough that it could mean he doesn’t get the nomination at all.
https://reason.com/2020/05/14/justin-amashs-confusing-and-contradictory-immigration-record/
“Voters generally feel better about their major party nominees this year than they did in 2016,”
“The field of third party candidates this year doesn’t seem especially strong, ”
I seriously doubt that D voters feel better about Biden than Hillary. Amash is SO much better a candidate than GJ was, so #2 is just silly.
Analysis at http://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/why-2020s-third-party-share-should-be-lower-than-2016/ seems to be right on the money.
What was the question?
The answers are “Let the States decide” and “Chick-fil-A, obviously.” Anyone who disagrees *frankly* isn’t a #RealLibertarian.
Joe Bishop-Henchman EMAIL FROM NATIONAL CHAIR:
We are not going to be able to meet together in Austin on Memorial Day weekend at the 2020 Libertarian National Convention. Events outside our control have made that not possible, but we are still going to meet on Memorial Day weekend.
After a long Libertarian National Committee meeting on Saturday, the Libertarian National Committee has set the convention to open on May 22, 2020 with a proposed agenda of selecting our nominees for President and Vice President. This will allow all the delegates to have a voice in the nomination process and meet crucial ballot access goals and give our Presidential ticket the opportunity to get on the campaign trail bringing the message to the American people.
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Yesterday there were three updates, one each from the Credentials Committee, the Convention Committee, and the Chair. I’ll post each of these updates in full in the comments, but here is a summary of the information provided:
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Presidential and VP debates will be Thursday, May 21 at 8:30 PM ET. The top five candidates in each race who receive tokens from 10% of delegates will be able to participate. Tokens will be distributed virtually by email to delegates on Tuesday, May 19, with a due date of Thursday, May 21 at 5pm ET. Participants will be announced that evening.
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true, paulie.
it MIGHT get me to fall for it, just because I am obviously inclined to vote Libertarian.
would it work en masse? doubtful.
furthermore, its unlikely anyone truly pro-life would select a pro-choice running mate.
RC,
that would be an interesting attempt to see how it would play out in the media, no doubt. just skeptical if it would work.
PF,
Having a pro-choice VP signals: JA is not a pro-life zealot. Point is: If he were a zealot, no way would he run with a pro-choicer. It changes the optics, which is what politics is.
If he says he won’t have Life as a LITMUS TEST for S Ct nominees, that softens his pro-life positioning.
It lands him as a pro-life leaner. It opens up large numbers of voters.
VPs don’t make Supreme Court picks. I wouldn’t expect a lot of people to fall for that.
RC,
yes, I did say early on if I were Amash I would have been looking for an unabashedly pro-choice democrat as a running mate. That would definitely assuage some of my fear. That’s one way of demonstrating some level of a secular mentality given the 7-second attention span of American voters.
He’s already starting in the hole with those of a progressive, liberal disposition. And his smarts might be a liability, then, as he will try to explain his federalism or constitutionalism, rather than just saying, “NO WALL.”
But I grant you he is impressively articulate. Maybe he has the chops to box his way out of the conservative corner he is in.
AD,
Interesting theory on abortion really being about “sexual freedom.” Possibly, for some. Conservatives tend to be more uptight, I’d say. There may be some of that, but I suspect some just buy whatever their church tells them to believe.
If the party picks a pro-choice running mate, say Cuban (if he is) or Chaffee, I wonder if that takes away some of your fears, which I grant.
When abortion comes up, he could says something like:
Look, I am pro-life. My running mate is pro-choice. Obviously, abortion is a controversial issue. Our country is in a very precarious position right now, and while my and my running mate’s views on the subject are strongly held, the issue will ultimately be won by one side or the other changing the hearts and minds of most Americans on this issue.
I don’t anticipate the issue will be much of one during an Amash Administration. And I will not use single-issue litmus tests for S Ct nominations….
Or something…
For those of you with Facebook, Justin took an hour of his life for some questions from undecided convention delegates:
https://www.facebook.com/KryssiandJess/videos/2604809783122365/UzpfSTEwMjIzOTA5ODAxMDA0ODpWSzo1NzIwNTY1ODY3NzI0NDg/
Excellently summarized, RC.
So I restate my earlier assertion: we’re (likely) gonna have a pretty good test of what I will henceforth call the Paulie-Dlugos Theory of Libertarian Vote Maximization: Libertarianism is a naturally progressive and secular political philosophy, thus a political party based on that philosophy has more potential for gathering votes from the left than the right.
Amash is smarter and much more polished than GJ. JA dials back RP’s low-ceiling sanctimoniousness (good line by you, btw). But he’s still gonna be trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. However smart he is, I don’t think he’ll be able to do it.
As stilted as GJ’s delivery was, he was at the top of his game when he talked about the benefits of immigration and immigrants. Secular, progressive voters who do not fear immigrants…no matter what party they are in…respond to that.
As articulate as Amash is, he’s gonna lose droves of naturally libertarian votes when he says stuff like, “I’m okay in principle with more fencing, it just needs to be financed constitutionally.”
You’ve downplayed the abortion issue, suggesting there aren’t many single-issue voters there, but I argue a candidate’s position on abortion says more about them then just that particular medical procedure. Abortion is not about when life begins. That’s just smokescreen. Abortion is about human sexual freedom. The pro-life candidate is tagging themselves as a religious square, no offense intended. The pro-choice candidate is demonstrating a healthy, progressive attitude about human sexual freedom. That’s where Libertarian votes are, and no amount of threading the abortion constitutional needle or splitting the baby (pun intended) with regard to federal funding only will appeal to those naturally libertarian voters.
There are differences in the 2016 and 2020 elections that I think paulie has pointed out and that I mentioned too that doesn’t augur well for a 3rd party run.
But you’re right too: there are differences between the two elections that one could say augurs well for a 3rd party candidate: two aging, cretinous white males who both seem to have mental problems, and a complex, maybe unprecedented public health situation requiring smart leadership. One could make a case that the stage is set for Amash to do well. You’re making it.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m thinking that once again we’re gonna learn just how limiting a conservative message is when trying to appeal to potentially libertarian voters. I just hope if it goes down the way the P-D theory suggests, we learn that lesson once and for all.
PF,
Yes, positioning is VITALLY important. JA is a young, smart, tough C-man, a David vs a 2-headed, 150 y/o Goliath. Unlike GJ, he’s obviously done media training. Money is important, but — for me — there was nothing in the personas that Schultz or Bloomie presented that said: president. They are both boring, uncompelling.
As to the non-shifting polls, we’ll see. You still seem to just be extrapolating where I’m seeing possibilities.
As for timing, it seems late to me to, but many report that time seems to have slowed down in 2020.
He’s made the right moves. He’s mollified the “purist” and “institutionalist” elements in the LP and seems headed for the nomination. His media pickup has been strong, though I gave him a B/B- on Maher. His answer to CNN on the MI protests could NOT have been better — from a communications perspective. But, even “purists” (perhaps unconsciously) seem to have seen how skillfully he threaded the needle and maintained wiggle room. He doesn’t get pinned down into wacko positioning, and yet he comes across as forthright and principled.
RP1’s appeal was his resolute integrity that crosses over into sanctimoniousness, which is why the Revolution had a low ceiling. JA dials it back. GJ had a homespun relatability factor, but that made him seem weak and unsure of himself. JA is not quite so homespun, but maintains a strong relatable factor.
For me, on top of all that, JA is VERY smart and far more on top of his facts and, importantly, how he presents them.
Schultz and Bloomberg have the ability to self-finance, even to the tune of billion+ if so inclined. Amash does not.
A pandemic was always hanging out there as a possibility. The timing couldn’t have been predicted. The fact that it has barely shifted Trump’s approval ratings or Trump/Biden polls should tell you something.
Timing is important to good acting. Other than as a dry run, the timing is very bad right now.
Positioning…I’m not sure what the acting equivalent is. But it’s a real thing in politics.
Agreed. The goalposts have shifted.
“If he doesn’t have a VP lined up, this run is not especially serious. It’s more of a swan song.”
100% agreement,..or a dry run for 2024.
The only thing about the dry run theory is that you don’t get many bites at this apple. Its risky to just toss aside your first run at the White House as a flippant endeavor.
PF and AD,
6 months ago, would we have predicted that we’d all be in lockdown now? Schultz, Bloomberg, and Anderson were not strong candidates. A good candidate means something like a good actor auditioning for the right role. Keanu for Neo. Ed Norton’s a good actor, but I don’t think he’d make a good Neo.
If he doesn’t have a VP lined up, this run is not especially serious. It’s more of a swan song.
i don’t disagree with some of what you post there, (I find some of it right on the money) but some I do disagree with.
1) If indeed J-W were nominated primarily for their gubernatorial experience, then that’s a feature, not a bug. Not sure why so many Libertarians (not saying you specifically) think its more important how a candidate appears to US. WTF? The important thing is how our candidate appears to the voters. We should be presenting voters with qualified candidates who happen to be Libertarian, not Libertarians who may or may not be qualified.
2) “The radicals disliked Johnson because he was a moderate. The paleos objected because he was a social progressive. ”
I agree. But its been my contention for quite some time that paleos and radicals end up agreeing on a lot of things, but for different reasons. Its the radical messaging…genuine as it is…that draws in paleos from the GOP. The radicals and paleos were both up in arms over Johnson’s position on the Bake the Cake issue. But its the purist position on freedom of association that draws in the paleos, because they see a party apparently willing to die on the hill that condones homophobia.
I argue something else: We can draw in more secular, progressive ex-republicans if we simply say that hill is not one we as a political party is going to die on. We are going to make a PRACTICAL choice, because the arena of electoral politics is an arena of practical tactics, not pure theory.
The party will be stronger for it. Ex-republicans who are able to prioritize what’s important and what’s not, will be drawn to the party. The paleos can stay in the GOP, or maybe go Constitution.
3) “I doubt Weld would ever have made it had Johnson not begged for him…”
I agree, which don’t say too much about our delegates. Weld was the only qualified v.p. candidate available. That Johnson had to beg for him tells me we got a lot of idiot delegates. (leaving aside the qualification issue, you don’t saddle a presidential candidate with a v.p. nominee they don’t want).
4) “I also doubt Johnson/Weld would’ve made it over 3% if not for the establishment parties putting up two morally bankrupt and historically unlikable candidates.”
And none of the others would have gotten to .33%.
5) “Yes, the media would definitely go after Amash for his stance on HR35 if he started to gain traction. But he also explained his vote from a federalist and libertarian perspective”
He has two choices, he can apologize for the vote (which has its own set of problems since the vote was so recent), or he can start digging himself a hole he will never climb out of. Repairing to federalism is the exact wrong thing to do. He’ll get defined as a closet racist before his campaign even gets off the ground. There’s plenty of questionable material for left-leaning media outlets to dig up, going all the way back to the Ron Paul newsletters, if he chooses to start digging.
6) “I would say “disaffected Republicans”. Barr might have been a conservative, but it’s hard to pin that label on Johnson and Weld.”
That’s why I said disaffected republicans: you can’t pin the disaffected conservative label on Johnson or Weld. Running ex-republicans is not the problem. Running ex-conservatives is.
AD: “Sets them at odds with the party? They both won their nominating contests. It set them at odds with two groups: radicals and paleos.”
I meant the party broadly, not just the delegates. They were nominated for their gubernatorial experience more than anything. (Plus, Johnson’s brain wasn’t as fried in 2012.) I doubt Weld would ever have made it had Johnson not begged for him or there weren’t some looming prospect of funding that never materialized. The radicals disliked Johnson because he was a moderate. The paleos objected because he was a social progressive. Many others, including some pragmatists, didn’t care for him because his libertarianism was shaky at best and he was a gaffe machine.
“You mean you have no way of being proven wrong.”
You’re right. My guess has no way of being proven wrong, but that doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be a causal explanation for how well or poorly he’ll do if nominated. I also doubt Johnson/Weld would’ve made it over 3% if not for the establishment parties putting up two morally bankrupt and historically unlikable candidates.
“The left-leaning media hasn’t even taken out their big guns yet. Wait till they get their hands on Amash’s vote on the anti-lynching bill. My guess is he’ll try to articulate his way out of that one and his poll numbers will drop like a duck in winter. Then we’ll wonder once again why we seem to be a magnet for the alt-right lowlifes.”
Yes, the media would definitely go after Amash for his stance on HR35 if he started to gain traction. But he also explained his vote from a federalist and libertarian perspective: the bill is redundant, lynching is already illegal in all 50 States, and stacking criminal punishments from different levels of government is a real threat to civil liberties. I’d be very surprised if any alt-right hop off the Trump train to support an Arab American third-party candidate.
“Can we take the philosophical hit of running another disaffected conservative, however?”
I would say “disaffected Republicans”. Barr might have been a conservative, but it’s hard to pin that label on Johnson and Weld.
“I did not watch the LPKY debate, but I have no doubt he was shrill and petulant. The dogmatic usually are, this goes for any walk of life.”
I took three things away from Hornberger’s debate performance the other night: (1) He thinks Amash is a pseudo-libertarian, conservative-lite charlatan, (2) he did some questionable things in opposition to Harry Browne, and (3) he was initially skeptical of the LP because he assumed it wasn’t pure enough to meet his ideological standards.
if JA doesn’t have a pre-selected VP nominee, I gotta wonder what the hell he is doing.
I also don’t see the dynamics of the Trump referendum changing much. Remember, Schultz (Starbucks founder and a billionaire) dropped out because he saw no path, and Bloomberg eschewed the independent run (which one could call roughly analogous to a 3rd party run in a “referendum on the incumbent” election.)
Paulie: It doesn’t help that there is already much confusion with the likes of Neal Boortz and Glenn Beck sometimes calling themselves libertarians
I remember in the 1990s, many libertarians were orgasmicly ecstatic every time anyone in public said the word “libertarian.” They’d report the incident in their newsletters and at supper clubs: “I wrote a letter to the editor, and managed to get the word ‘libertarian’ printed.”
Just getting the public used to hearing the word “libertarian” — so they wouldn’t confused us with a Liberation Party or Librarian Party — was considered an important goal.
Well, goal achieved. Now the problem is too many of the wrong people using the word.
I don’t see the dynamics of an up/down referendum on Trump changing much in under 6 months. I doubt the VP selection will change much, unless perhaps it’s someone willing and able to spend ten figures.
PF,
I wonder if you are just doing a straight-line extrapolation? Here’s the deal today and the current trend can’t change. If so, that’s a mistake, I submit.
Now, if JA gets the nod but gets a no-name VP, the long shot gets MUCH longer…
Better than 500 to 1. Certainly far better if they could get past the primaries.
So are a lot of people. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those see one as much worse than the other, so they’re not available for any other candidate. The vast majority of the ones who see both as equally terrible aren’t open to voting at all. It is if anything even harder to change their minds about that.
Some people will notice we keep running (usually temporarily) disaffected Republicans over and over. The more times we do it the more the impression sticks. It doesn’t help that there is already much confusion with the likes of Neal Boortz and Glenn Beck sometimes calling themselves libertarians and with the frequent misconception that Rand Paul is with the LP. At some point calling ourselves a party separate and distinct from all others becomes a bad joke. If we haven’t already passed that point, this will help nail the coffin shut.
As for Perot, he was already fairly well known before he ran for president, and was a billionaire who was both willing and able to self-finance to a large extent. Bush wasn’t nearly as universally popular among Republicans as Trump is now. Clinton was a second string choice for the Democrats, after the top would be contenders decided to sit it out early on when Bush enjoyed a brief but sharp popularity spike during the war. Furthermore Clinton was plagued with scandal even then.
Amash would need someone willing and able to drop at least a billion to have the same sort of spending parity with Trump and Biden as Perot had with Bush and Clinton, and my read is that the soil he would have to till is not nearly as fertile this time as it was then.
“Some sort of LP will continue to exist, but I’d rather not. IMO enough is enough.”
well, the good news is that we live in the American Pop Culture, where news is old in about 2 weeks.
This is especially true for a 3rd party.
in 2024, no one is gonna care what was said by a 2020 3rd party candidate.
As I noted Anderson had been prominent in Republican presidential primaries earlier that year. If, say, Weld was still in office, and if he had done much better in Republican primaries earlier this year than he actually did, and if he was switching to the LP for the first rather than the third time, it may have been a closer comparison.
So that’s not good for Amash either. Well over 90% of Republicans and Republican leaners are solidly behind Trump, before the multi billion dollar Trump electoral and media machine even really starts demonizing Biden and whoever he picks for VP in earnest. Democrats and Democrat leaners are just as eager to get Trump out, whatever the weakness of their candidate. People who are turned off to electoral politics and voting are more disgusted by it than ever. There’s just not a lot of room to maneuver there.
“No chance. Those folks have always run, in every party, as far back as I can find. There are dozens if not hundreds of them still in theory running for the D and R nominations right now.”
Fair enough, you are right there.
Let me rephrase that to say we’ll have so many qualified candidates, the wingnuts will be roundly ignored.
PF,
Oh, yes, totally forgot about Anderson and never heard of Schmitz. Thanks.
Anderson kind of broke through, as I perceived it then. If JA gets into the Anderson to Perot zone, that’s a win. And, it’s 2020, so….
No chance. Those folks have always run, in every party, as far back as I can find. There are dozens if not hundreds of them still in theory running for the D and R nominations right now.
Some sort of LP will continue to exist, but I’d rather not. IMO enough is enough. I’d extent this to continuously running recent former and more often than not also future Republicans, though we disagree there.
Strom Thurmond was the sitting governor of South Carolina when he ran for president in 1948. He got 1,175,930 for 2.4% of the vote.
As I see it right now, the primary benefits of Amash winning the nomination are:
1) it might finally convince the catastrophically unqualified* to get their collective heads out of their asses and stop running for a nomination for the most powerful office on the planet with no advanced degree, no resume, no previous public sector experience, and sometimes no discernible success in life at all.
2) the relatively qualified* for the office from outside the party could be fairly certain…despite some evidence that the LP can go on absurd flights of fancy..that they have a leg up on those from group 1 above, which would make them more likely to defect.
Can we take the philosophical hit of running another disaffected conservative, however?
*qualified and unqualified as determined by the voting public in general, not by Libertarians per se.
I didn’t find him to be that way. All the candidates did pretty well from the parts I remember.
John Schmitz was a sitting congressman when the American Independent Party nominated him in 1972, following up on George Wallace in 1968. Schmitz got 1,100,868 votes for 1.42% of the total, per wikipedia. Wallace was in between stints as governor in 1968 – he passed the governorship on to his wife when he was term limited out in what was widely seen as a way for him to effectively get around term limits, as Lurleen Wallace was never particularly political before becoming governor. It can be argued that George Wallace was in all but name a sitting governor in the beginning of 1968, although Lurleen died before the general election.
John Anderson was a sitting congressman when he got 6.6% of the vote as an independent in 1980, but he had also been a prominent candidate in Republican presidential primaries earlier that same year.
That was not in the debate, as far as I know.
https://fox17online.com/2019/03/18/amash-talks-spending-border-wall-at-grand-rapids-town-hall/
“Amash also said he would potentially be in favor of additional security at the U.S.-Mexico border. He just isn’t OK with the executive branch being allowed to dictate how Congress spends money, adding that typically these types of emergency declarations are done in times where there isn’t time for Congress to deliberate.”
https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2019/03/rep-amash-trumps-border-wall-emergency-declaration-violates-the-constitution.html
“Amash said he’s for border security and would support further fencing or barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border so long as it came from Congress and the funds were offset by cuts elsewhere.”
That’s not exactly what he said. He was asked, iirc towards the end of the debate, I think by another candidate, about his vote in congress to federally outlaw abortion. His response was that the vote was justified on 14th amendment grounds but that he doesn’t expect congress to send him such a bill if he becomes president. What we noted here is that this sidesteps the president’s power of judicial appointment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Amash#Abortion
“Amash opposes abortion and federal funding for abortion.[63] He describes himself as “100 percent pro-life”[64] and in 2017 voted in favor of federal legislation to ban most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.[65]”
Agreed.
CAH,
It wasn’t in the debate. He has discussed his pro-life views several times, but so far no one has asked about his SCt picks yet, that I’ve found, at least.
As to the Wall, I found this so far:
https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2019/03/rep-amash-trumps-border-wall-emergency-declaration-violates-the-constitution.html
“Being lectured to by Bumper for the next 6 months accomplishes nothing that I can see.”
Well, the reality that he’s certain to be ignored does avoid the possibility that Amash does get some high profile attention and the “republicans who want to smoke pot” tag gets further ensconced.
I did not watch the LPKY debate, but I have no doubt he was shrill and petulant. The dogmatic usually are, this goes for any walk of life.
I listened to the debate and am confused. Where did he say he supported the border wall? And that if president he would federally outlaw abortion? I didn’t hear him say any ofthat but I was multi-tasking. Can anyone clear that up?
I thought he did well, very charming and deferential to the party.
I note that — if L nominates him — JA will be the first sitting federal officeholder or governor running for prez since, I believe, at least 1900, if not ever. George Wallace’s 68 run was kinda in office, as his wife succeeded him, and he won many states.
That’s a very different dynamic, I submit.
Vermin Supreme and Dan “Taxation Is Theft” Behrman!!! The Mad Hatters!! That’s THE ticket!
Imagine there’s no party
It’s easy if you try
No duopoly below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people voting for Amash
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And lessarchy will be as one…
pf,
And what were DJT’s odds a week after he descended the escalator? BHO’s a week after he announced in 07?
And, I’m sure you’ve noticed, the world is in utter turmoil this year. It’s 2020…anything is possible. Many, many things would have to break right, of course, for JA to break through.
Also, I am quite concerned about the viability of America these next 4 years, because both Trump and Biden are both capable of making civilization-ending moves. Beyond simply ideological resonance, if someone is able to right the ship, Amash has impressed me with his intellect and calm demeanor.
Being lectured to by Bumper for the next 6 months accomplishes nothing that I can see. I found him shrill and petulant in his LPKY performance.
Exotic at the TOP of a ticket would be very funny.
Is he pro-choice?
2020 U.S. presidential candidates and odds
All odds are courtesy of Ladbrokes, a UK sportsbook regulated by the British Gambling Commission for person gambling in Great Britain. (last updated Wednesday, May 5, 2020)
Donald Trump (R) -110
Joe Biden (D) +125
Justin Amash (LP) +50000 (500 to 1)
pf,
I put it at 10% Perot-like levels, 5% win. Not great odds, but given the prospect of Trump or Biden, it’s worth a shot.
The only other ticket that might make some noise is Supreme/Exotic.
well, holy hell, paulie nails it at 18:40 and I am gonna buy him a drink for that one!
I sort of agree with the sentiment behind Jared’s statement that Johnson had “weakly libertarian instincts.” I’d probably rephrase by calling it “roughly” libertarian. And frankly, that’s about all you need when you’re running for the presidency. Its definitely all I want out of a Libertarian candidate for president. The last thing we need is a know-it-all with zero practical experience and a thousand Rothbard books.
As an aside, I think what Johnson had over Chafee (neither of whom were dogmatics) was that he had experience in the real world of running a business. That’s all the libertarianism you’ll ever need. Chafee was a career politician.
“there is no libertarian justification–that I’m aware of–for coerced business transactions.”
(I assume you’re referring to the infamous Bake the Cake debate.)
libertarian Eugene Volokh makes one in a 2018 Reason debate:
https://reason.com/2018/09/16/proposition-bakers-should-not/
“Despite all the complaints about Johnson and Weld being washed up Republicans, it was Johnson’s core progressive sensibilities and Weld’s affection for establishment Democrats that set them at odds with the party.”
Sets them at odds with the party? They both won their nominating contests.
It set them at odds with two groups: radicals and paleos.
And as paulie points out, to the extent that it did, it was exactly what made him more appealing,
“Given that, his campaign experience, and the fact he is far more media-savvy and articulate than Johnson at explaining why he holds the views he does, if he gets nominated and doesn’t surpass 3.3% of the popular vote, then my money is on external circumstances beyond the campaign’s control. ”
You mean you have no way of being proven wrong.
In any case, Jared, I have standing offer now to bet Libertarians on whether or not Amash will do better than Johnson 2016. paulie wisely turned that bet down. You’re free to bet me.
I might end up being wrong, Bet me.
The left-leaning media hasn’t even taken out their big guns yet. Wait till they get their hands on Amash’s vote on the anti-lynching bill. My guess is he’ll try to articulate his way out of that one and his poll numbers will drop like a duck in winter. Then we’ll wonder once again why we seem to be a magnet for the alt-right lowlifes.
Easily 99%+
I’m about equally certain of it as that Howie Hawkins won’t get anywhere near Perot numbers.
I can imagine all sorts of unlikely things, but they still remain vanishingly unlikely.
pf: …won’t get him anywhere near Perot numbers in this climate.
me: Are you saying this view is 100% certain?
Can you at least imagine it could happen?
You started by saying no positioning then explained exactly what it was. Despite poor execution, it was exactly the left leaning aspect of Johnson which made him relatively more appealing much as it did with Ed Clark. That and better externals, the opposite of the case with Amash. Contrary to what most libertarians keep making the mistake of falling for by far the most available votes are on our left flank, not our right. We keep driving them away by chasing the fool’s gold of disaffected conservatives.
Paulie: assuming the proposal at “paulie Post author May 9, 2020 at 19:35″ is the final decision, where does that support your summary:
Quote: May 09, 2020 – 19:52
Virtual online POTUS/VP nomination election only May 22-23 date definite,
Physical convenion in Orlando July 8-12 and hybrid option up to delegates, contract will not be signed for Orlando until approved by virtual meeting delegates.
Physical convention in Orlando, if approved by virtual meeting delegates, will include LNC and Judicial Committee elections and all deliberative business like bylaws/platform.
End quote.
And evidently Sarwark is refusing to sign the contract until after the online convention, according to some anti-Orlando convention types? I’ll have to review and see if that is obvious on the LNC list.
All this in the name of what the “delegates” want. However, until people are credentialed they aren’t delegates, they are potential delegates. So it’s already bad enough they’re doing a May online convention.
paulie: “That may well be, but his ideological positioning combined with external circumstances is not as good, and I predict he won’t do as well.”
I didn’t think Johnson had any “ideological” positioning per se. He had more or less libertarian positions, but they seemed almost accidentally so. Maybe he has some weakly libertarian instincts, but he didn’t seem to be applying any set of principles to reach policy conclusions. Confront him with the idea that libertarianism is deeper than “social liberalism + fiscal conservatism”, and you’d likely be met with a baked, deer-in-the-headlights look. There is a libertarian justification for being radically or moderately pro-choice, radically or moderately pro-life, or a Blockian evictionist, but there is no libertarian justification–that I’m aware of–for coerced business transactions. Despite all the complaints about Johnson and Weld being washed up Republicans, it was Johnson’s core progressive sensibilities and Weld’s affection for establishment Democrats that set them at odds with the party.
Amash’s flavor of libertarianism is more conservative than my own, so I know it leans further right than 90% of IPR’s LP commentariat, but I also believe it’s indigenously libertarian, derived from a particular interpretation and application of our shared libertarian principles, and not the result of GOP ideological creep. Given that, his campaign experience, and the fact he is far more media-savvy and articulate than Johnson at explaining why he holds the views he does, if he gets nominated and doesn’t surpass 3.3% of the popular vote, then my money is on external circumstances beyond the campaign’s control. I can’t see the bulk of reachable voters being more averse to Amash’s conservative-styled libertarianism than to Johnson’s unsettling Aleppo gaffes, illegal immigration tantrums, and tongue-sticky-out faces. He is targeting serious independents, not just disaffected Democrats.
I seem to recall weld being sprung very late in the process, maybe even at the convention but perhaps a little earlier…not much. Amash has in fact said he has no problem in principle with the wall. He also defended his vote for a federal abortion ban on 14th amendment grounds, but said be expects congress won’t send him such a bill. That ignores Judicial appointments. Communication skills and VP appointment won’t get him anywhere near Perot numbers in this climate.
“What he’s saying is that he doesn’t expect that the president will decide the abortion issue.”
How can he plausibly say that, though? Everyone knows how SCOTUS judges are nominated.
That sounds like a anti-choice candidate putting forth a lame excuse for a position counter to the party platform and general sentiment hoping a party desperate enough for legitimacy buys it.
It might be enough to get him the nomination, but he better not appear on MSNBC with that line (and his stance on the issue in general). He’ll get skewered.
As far as his running mate goes…I’m more concerned that he doesn’t appear to have his own pre-selected candidate. maybe paulie can help me out here, but I though in the run up to 2016, the word was already out by this point that Johnson wanted Weld as his running mate. Shouldn’t Amash have asked someone by now?
AD,
We’ll see what he actually advocates on securing the border. I see no evidence that he’s all about building a wall. Remember, he’s a process guy (which is a strength and a weakness); he thinks spending should originate in the House, etc.
CAH,
What he’s saying is that he doesn’t expect that the president will decide the abortion issue. He says the only position that he expects to come up during an Amash Administration is the issue of federal funding of abortion, which is pretty much the L position, regardless of school, as far as I’ve seen.
PF: That may well be, but his ideological positioning combined with external circumstances is not as good, and I predict he won’t do as well.
Me: Here’s the way I look at it: There is no “perfect” candidate. A super articulate C-man who is L wants to run THIS CYCLE. Based on his communications skills, he has a better chance all else equal to previous L candidates to breakthrough into Perot 92-type polling levels. I said the same thing (pretty much) about GJ 16. Problem was: he’s not particularly articulate and was far too gaffe prone.
The tribalistic headwinds in 20 could push JA to the fringes. It’s become clear to me that he’s doing all he can to overcome those headwinds. I’m not making a prediction; I’m simply considering the possibilities.
The age issue, for ex., could make a difference. While people acknowledge 2 70 y/o’s is a problem, I don’t sense most get what a big problem it is…for the country. My meme campaign is my small attempt to heighten awareness on this. https://www.facebook.com/groups/233640111235131/
My fear is the LP won’t let JA have a real running mate, and they will select a no-namer. I consider that would make the idea of JA breaking through FAR more remote.
yep, its the ideological positioning that I think is gonna be his real problem with regard to vote maximization.
Trump obliterated the constitutional conservative movement.
Co-opted is a better word, probably.
Right now, the only way for an ex-republican to separate themselves from Trump would be to say, “no wall, period,” or something similar.
And that’s not even factoring in what paulie and I think was a low ceiling for a constitutional conservative variation of libertarianism (RP1, .47% in 1988) that me and paulie agree on.
Maybe I’m wrong. He has some good instincts, like arguing that this bailout money should have gone directly to the American people individually only, no corporate bailouts.
Maybe his assertion that Americans just want capable, non-cretinous, assault-free leadership that can bridge the partisan divide will strike a nerve.
But i think boxing him into a conservative corner is going to be relatively easy. And he won’t be able to wiggle his way out of it by tweeting about Ahmaud Arbery’s murder and localism/decentralization.
Just like the conservatarians who thought speaking up about the drug war was gonna give them a free pass on their conservative disposition. All along, they were still just “conservatives who want to smoke pot.”
I don’t want to chew him up either. If he actually intends to remain in the LP I would welcome him, and would welcome the opportunity to discuss issues if it becomes available. I don’t want him as a presidential candidate right now, but that’s a separate issue. I’m open to the possibility that he might be a good one in a future year. If he does become the nominee, which seems pretty likely, he won’t be the worst one we’ve had, but I don’t think he’ll do as well as some people here do (Capozzi). I think Dlugos, for once, is pretty realistic about what can be expected of Amash as a presidential candidate.
That may well be, but his ideological positioning combined with external circumstances is not as good, and I predict he won’t do as well.
I was only referring to actual property rights of people whose property is being taken for the wall, some of whom are suing. But since you bring it up, there’s also property rights of those who want immigrants as employees, renters, customers, etc. That’s a bigger question that I didn’t intend to get into as the subject under discussion was a physical barrier, not migration law more broadly.
Accepted. It was unlike you.
I must say CAH, I don’t generally mock people on a personal level, unless they are in the public eye, where I think “all is fair in love and war” applies. Politicians put themselves out there, and they can quit and disappear if they want.
If I did, I apologize.
you and I agree on those point Anthony.
And while I have your attention I want to confront you on something personally (though confront is a bit too strong). Don’t ask me where on Facebeast as I don’t remember but someplace you had mocked me for saying I was “all over the place” when I showed up at the gala in 2016. I expect you forgot that I was stuck for nearly 45 minutes in an elevator between floors in that huge block of concrete that had no openings for about 15 floors with no way of contacting anyone and the hotel security hanging up on us when we called for help (and I was the only female stuck with a bunch of guys I did not know) and had to be helped out by firefighters who nearly insisted on giving us a sedative we were so distraught. Instead I felt going to the gala more important. I do trust you forgot that in your uncharitble comment.
A wall is a non-starter. Full stop. Though he is a cutie pie, just like Johnson.
RC,
But don’t we have to factor in candidate messaging to that “better candidate” metric?
I mean, okay he’s surely more articulate than Johnson, but what if a more left-leaning inarticulate candidate like Johnson does better (in terms of number of votes), than an articulate right-leaning candidate like Amash? Who’s the “better” candidate?
I’m not sure what Amash said in the debate Saturday, but the article you posted indicates he is okay with a wall, as long as funding was offset by cuts elsewhere. I would absolutely agree with you that he is taking the RP1 constitutional conservative position there. And I absolutely believe he’s boxing himself into a corner where he’s ending up with .5% of the vote.
The Wall is associated with Trump, full stop. There’s no way to nuance an argument out of that that separates him from Trump while attracting democrats and democratic-leaners. An inarticulate Governor Johnson statement opposing The Wall would garner more votes than an articulate Amash statement opposing The Wall on constitutionally conservative grounds.
We’re gonna find out…again…just how limiting a strategy appealing to right-leaning constitutional conservatives is, IMHO.
CAH,
That’s not the worst sentiment in the world, but the problem is the current political environment. The next SCOTUS nomination might determine the fate of a constitutionalyl protected right to abortion.
That makes it different than when the forerunner to Amash’s Old Right libertarianism (Ron Paul) ran; reproductive rights were not in jeopardy like they are now.
This would really be a bad time to compromise on that issue. Both morally and politically.
If I am Biden, I’m just saving up video clips of every instance Amash mentions he’s pro-life, and if there is any concern on his campaign’s part that they are losing voters to Amash that would have been their’s, he can just trot out the assembly of video clips and tell voters with any pro-choice sentiment at all that they cannot trust this guy.
It would have been hard enough for a 3rd party candidate to run in the Covid era. I believe Amash is gonna make it very easy for Biden to box him in as a disaffected conservative.
As it stands, his doubling down on Forced Birth, his comments on a wall, his latent conservatism…in combination with the bad year for 3rd parties that I foresee….that totality is swaying me away from supporting him.
I have not listened to the Amash debate yet but if he is okay with the wall and wants the federal government to outlaw abortion, those are deal breakers for me. That last point may surprising to some who don’t pay attention to what I actually believe. Outlawing abortion would be the worst possible thing to happen to the pro-life movement (though I am no longer comfortable with that term as it seems to come with the baggage of wanting to outright outlaw abortion which I do not).
I would love to speak to Amash on abortion.It takes a while to come from a Republican pro-life position to what I believe is a Libertarian one.
I hope we don’t chew him up before he has time to grow.
AD and PF,
JA will be a better CANDIDATE than GJ. Much more articulate, much less prone to Aleppo and stick his tongue out. Even if voters become even more tribal and binary, I find JA to be much brighter and savvier, so I suspect he’ll run a better campaign.
I don’t see how you guys find there to be a “property right” to cross a border and set of laws unchecked any time, for any reason. I didn’t read the story to be that Amash views some border security as high on his priority list. He’s mostly employing a somewhat RP1 constitutionalist view, where laws need to bubble up from the Congress rather than down from the President.
Speaking of which, I’m a bit worn out from all this stuff too. Back to season 2 of Succession on HBO Go, I’ll catch up with more of this some time later…maybe today, maybe tomorrow, we’ll see.
Bylaws adjourned early. I think everyone is meetinged out after yesterday’s marathon. Some thoughts passed around but no motions other than to adjourn.
“They are, especially when you do it repeatedly.”
well, as far as ex-Republicans go, I am making a distinction between Johnson/Weld and Amash/Ron Paul that you are not, I think.
“They’d be correct…”
See, I think they’d be incorrect.
Its similar enough from the point of view of a third party. Especially if the difference in vote total is large enough.
More importantly, we don’t have the option of repeatedly running elections in a particular year with different Libertarian candidates, so all we have is the information from here in the real world. We’d be better off for comparison’s sake and the future strength of the party to just ASSUME we have laboratory conditions in electoral politics. I.E., run whatever Libertarian candidate you want to support, just make sure you get more votes.
“…pivoting right is nevertheless fool’s gold.”
yes, indeed you do agree with me there…yet, I argue in favor of continued federal funding of abortion services until such time that a better plan for extricating the federal government from health care is devised…and where does my friend go!?!?!
Because THAT position will surely smoke ’em out of the LP!
He has screeners who screen out who he won’t consider, and that includes anyone they don’t vet on abortion. After that, he may get to decide who he thinks is the best guy or gal.
Overall, yes. I’ll bet as he gets more picks they’ll get worse.
Agreed. He is sharp and knowledgeable. Not the first two words I think of to describe Trump.
Perot was John the Baptist to Trump’s JC, especially his anti-NAFTA anti-immigrant stance. Amash won’t do as well as Perot.
Agreed.
Agreed.
I doubt it.
They are, especially when you do it repeatedly.
They’d be correct, but pivoting right is nevertheless fool’s gold.
Hornberger.
No way that is the likeliest case. He won’t do as well as GJ 16, and may not do as well as GJ 12. He won’t come anywhere near either Perot run.
“Efficacy is only a part of the issue. It’s a combination of terrible symbolism, wholesale violation of property rights, and many other things besides.”
Bingo on the symbolism.
Wall = Trump by now.
“If he has any independent input at all, it’s probably based on who he likes as a person and has a good feel for, not anything having to do with judicial philosophy.”
That might be fair.
“If he has any independent input at all, it’s probably based on who he likes as a person and has a good feel for, not anything having to do with judicial philosophy.”
Agreed. That actually could be a benefit. A more dyed-in-the-wool conservative won’t make that mistake. Seriously , Trump could have done worse than Gorsuch. It might be that the more stridently conservative judges gives Trump the heebee jeebees. And he doesn’t like anyone telling him what to do.
Its a harsh reality that I might be more worried about who Amash would pick. He won’t screw it up.
AD,
Bumper = Hornberger.
Efficacy is only a part of the issue. It’s a combination of terrible symbolism, wholesale violation of property rights, and many other things besides.
Agreed.
I’d say leave it.
“He emphasized he was “exploring” out of respect to the LPers”
yes, and will continue exploring until after the nominating vote… interestingly, since he’s not officially declared AND won’t do so until after the LP nominates the POTUS candidate, he will not be listed on the LP page with other declared LP candidates
Total for me.
Trump selects who McConnell, Barr, Kushner or whoever suggests he should select. If he has any independent input at all, it’s probably based on who he likes as a person and has a good feel for, not anything having to do with judicial philosophy. He’ll pick solidly antiabortion justices because he needs Republicans to get elected and pass his agenda. That’s what they want from him in return, and he’ll give it to them.
Amash will probably also pick solidly antiabortion justices, for other reasons. Unlike Trump, however, he won’t get to do that. Trump may get another appointment even this term, and extremely likely to get one or more if he gets another.
Process for online balloting for the electronic portion of the national convention is on the agenda.
Listening to bylaws committee call. https://www.lp.org/national-bylaws-and-convention-rules-committee-meeting-may-10-2020-3-6pm-eastern/
Like LNC yesterday this is a continuation of last weekend’s meeting.
pretty close…lulz. If only Amash was against pot legalization, then the LP finally have the perfect candidate!
His statement in that article with regard to the unconstitutionality of the emergency wall funding is a good one. Rebutting the trope that immigrants perpetrate more crime is also good.
But saying that you’d be okay with a wall or more security fencing if its offset by cuts everywhere…well, there is a tiny, tiny segment of constitutional conservatives who take that position. Dyed-in-the-wool xenophobes are voting for Trump, and that sort of nuanced position on wall financing is going to scare away Biden-leaners.
His latent conservatism is gonna leave votes on the table.
Frankly, part of me would be okay with letting him run and see what happens. I think he’d do worse than Johnson. Worse enough that we’d know we can stop plumbing the depths of constitutional conservative votes…but my fear is that purist would paint a broad brush stroke that ALL ex-republicans are fools’ gold, and the hard right to right-leaners in the party would insist that the 2016 and 2020 elections aren’t similar enough to make a valid comparison.
RC, Who is bumper?
DWP,
He emphasized he was “exploring” out of respect to the LPers, given his late entry. It’s all a bit technical and I’m no election law expert, but IF he found massive resistance to his candidacy, it would have been easier to back away gracefully if he was only “exploring.”
Based on the polling I’ve seen, there seems to be widespread support for JA in the LP and LM.
Looks like he’s all in. Worst case, he closes out the term as the only L C-man. Best case, he gets the nod, becomes competitive like Perot 92, and then, who knows? Likeliest case, he gets the nomination and performs MUCH better than GJ.
AD,
Bumper wasn’t “wrong” about his conscience not allowing him to support JA. You can do that, too. I personally appreciate the man’s plain-spoke subtly. Even when I disagree, I can track his logic. I am very impressed, and I suspect he will get better at this as the month’s unfold.
https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2019/03/rep-amash-trumps-border-wall-emergency-declaration-violates-the-constitution.html
Roughly my position, although I’m not sure about the efficacy of additional barriers. You may recall I’m not for open/no borders for the foreseeable future.
Darryl,
That’s pretty much how I have seen it.
How much more of a commitment is he making to the party than Johnson or Weld? I’d say not much more, and almost certainly less than Johnson.
In one sense, he’s taking the same stance as Johnson did on the Bake the Cake issue: he’s gonna be a Forced Birther and in principle okay with the Wall, and we can take it or leave it.
“Caught the tail end. Notably, Amash defended his position that the federal government should outlaw abortion even in states which want it to be legal.”
That…plus saying that he is okay in principle with the wall… are pretty close to a dealbreakers for me. Just based on brute fact of that statement alone, along with the reality that you have to take that to mean he’d be no better than Trump on Roe, and probably worse, because he knows what he is doing and Trump is a buffoon who probably is okay with abortion anyway, so to the extent he understands what potential justices are saying, he would probably select a judge okay with upholding the Roe precedent.
I had to listen to one answer from Amash a couple of times, and he said he’d change his Committee from Exploratory only if he got the LP POTUS nomination.
Which essentially means: he’s thinking about running, and will run if he gets the nomination but otherwise won’t declare that he’s running.
You can listen to the question AND answer here:
https://youtu.be/mYFlrDIeOz8?t=5060
I don’t remember him getting into it last night, or maybe it was before I was listening, but he’s also said he has no problem in principle with Trump’s wall.
PF,
Here’s my ONLY pause on JA. But…he neglected to mention Supreme Court nominees. He WILL be asked that question. I hope he says he will have no issue-specific litmus tests, but we’ll see.
I will still support and vote for him EVEN IF he says it is a litmus test, only because while I think Roe lands on a reasonably solid solution, it was a massive overreach. Devolve the issue to the states is probably the optimal stance.
Missed the start of the LPKY debate (it’s taped so I’ll try to catch up) as LNC meeting was still going on. Caught the tail end. Notably, Amash defended his position that the federal government should outlaw abortion even in states which want it to be legal, but said he doesn’t expect congress to pass any such bill so he wouldn’t be in a position to sign it.
Virtual online POTUS/VP nomination election only May 22-23 date definite,
Physical convenion in Orlando July 8-12 and hybrid option up to delegates, contract will not be signed for Orlando until approved by virtual meeting delegates.
Physical convention in Orlando, if approved by virtual meeting delegates, will include LNC and Judicial Committee elections and all deliberative business like bylaws/platform.
The pre-convention LNC meeting for 8:00 PM Thursday May 21 has been canceled but may be reconstituted.
Presidential debates are scheduled for Friday evening, May 22.
Pro and con concerns have been expressed about when the contract will be signed and the possibility that the virtual convention delegates may veto the physical or physical/hybrid convention July 8-12 and Orlando choice.
Debate is on now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYFlrDIeOz8
Joe Bishop-Henchman Approval of the underlying motion, as amended:
Underlying motion
Adams No
Bishop-Henchman Yes
Goldstein Yes
Hagan Yes
Harlos Yes
Hewitt No
Lark Yes
Longstreth Yes
Mattson No
Merced Yes
Nekhaila Yes
O’Donnell Yes
Phillips Yes
Redpath Yes
Sarwark Yes
Smith No
Van Horn Yes
YES 13
NO 4
ABSTAIN 0
Joe Bishop-Henchman Motion to substitute LNC filling the vacancies using a preference poll of delegates:
Substitute to have LNC pick the nominees through preference poll by 6/8
Adams Yes
Bishop-Henchman No
Goldstein Abstain
Hagan No
Harlos Yes
Hewitt Yes
Lark Abstain
Longstreth No
Mattson Yes
Merced No
Nekhaila Yes
O’Donnell No
Phillips No
Redpath No
Sarwark Presiding
Smith Yes
Van Horn No
YES 6
NO 8
ABSTAIN 2
What are the chances that goes off without a hitch in 2 weeks.
Joe Bishop-Henchman Motion to move to draft of bifurcated convention in two sitttings:
Adopt JBH substitute
Adams Abstain
Bishop-Henchman Yes
Goldstein Yes
Hagan Yes
Harlos Yes
Hewitt No
Lark Yes
Longstreth Yes
Mattson No
Merced Yes
Nekhaila Yes
O’Donnell Yes
Phillips Yes
Redpath Yes
Sarwark Yes
Smith No
Van Horn Yes
YES 13
NO 3
ABSTAIN 1
Joe Bishop-Henchman (I believe this is final but I may have missed one of the amendments.)
WHEREAS, the worldwide coronavirus pandemic has resulted in unprecedented limitations on travel, large events, operation of hotels and restaurants; and
WHEREAS, prior expectations that stay-at-home orders and lockdown conditions would completely ease by Easter, or by the beginning of April, or by warmer weather, have proven to be unfounded;
WHEREAS, as of this time, the majority of states are under stay-at-home and quarantine orders of various degrees of severity, creating legal and practical constraints on the ability of hundreds of our delegates to attend an in-person convention;
WHEREAS, the uncontrolled spread of an aerosolized, contagious virus with no cure and no vaccine make planning for attendance, financial performance, operating with legal requirements, and travel plans, to be heavily clouded with uncertainty;
WHEREAS, the Libertarian National Committee has a duty to take in all the evidence of this situation and make a good faith decision in the best interests of the organization and its members, while adhering as closely as possible with federal law, state law, and our own Bylaws and Convention Rules;
THEREFORE:
1. The LNC concludes that it is impossible to conduct a Regular Convention in-person within the time frame set out by our Bylaws and Convention Rules; and
2. The LNC states that its goal is to adhere as closely as possible to our Bylaws and Convention Rules; and
3. The LNC establishes that the 2020 Regular Convention shall be conducted as follows:
FIRST SITTING: ONLINE BUSINESS (beginning May 22, 2020):
1. Call to Order
2. Credentials Committee report
3. Adoption of agenda
4. Nomination and balloting for Party candidates for President and Vice-President
5. Adjournment until second sitting
SECOND SITTING: July 8-12 in Orlando site
1. Call to Order
2. Credentials Committee report
3. Adoption of agenda
4. Ratification of actions taken at first sitting online of Regular Convention
5. Treasurer’s report
6. Audit Committee report
7. Bylaws & Rules Committee report
8. Fill vacancies of the Judicial Committee
9. Platform Committee report
10. Election of Party Officers and at-large members of the National Committee
11. Resolutions
12. Other business
13. Final adjournment of the 2020 Regular Convention
Joe Bishop-Henchman
Admin · 16 mins
We have voted to convene online in a first sitting beginning May 22 for the purpose of nominating and balloting for Party candidates for President and Vice-President, followed by a second sitting July 8-12 in Orlando to conduct remaining business.
I’ll paste the motion adopted, and the votes on various steps along the way, below in the comments.
Convention online to nominate P/VP beginning May 22 followed by in-person meeting for business July 9-12 Orlando
LPKY debate started on LPKY facebook page. The youtube link is still occupied by LNC at this time.
Now at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhXw-klavoU
JBH motion
WHEREAS, the worldwide coronavirus pandemic has resulted in unprecedented limitations on travel, large events, operation of hotels and restaurants; and
WHEREAS, prior expectations that stay-at-home orders and lockdown conditions would completely ease by Easter, or by the beginning of April, or by warmer weather, have proven to be unfounded;
WHEREAS, as of this time, the majority of states are under stay-at-home and quarantine orders of various degrees of severity, creating legal and practical constraints on the ability of hundreds of our delegates to attend an in-person convention;
WHEREAS, the uncontrolled spread of an aerosolized, contagious virus with no cure and no vaccine make planning for attendance, financial performance, operating with legal requirements, and travel plans, to be heavily clouded with uncertainty;
WHEREAS, the Libertarian National Committee has a duty to take in all the evidence of this situation and make a good faith decision in the best interests of the organization and its members, while adhering as closely as possible with federal law, state law, and our own Bylaws and Convention Rules;
THEREFORE:
1. The LNC concludes that it is impossible to conduct a Regular Convention in-person within the time frame set out by our Bylaws and Convention Rules; and
2. The LNC states that its goal is to adhere as closely as possible to our Bylaws and Convention Rules; and
3. The LNC establishes that the 2020 Regular Convention shall be conducted as follows:
FIRST SITTING: ONLINE BUSINESS (beginning May 22, 2020):
1. Call to Order
2. Credentials Committee report
3. Adoption of agenda
4. Nomination and balloting for Party candidates for President and Vice-President
5. Election of Party Officers and at-large members of the National Committee
6. Adjournment until second sitting
SECOND SITTING: beginning on a date set by the first sitting of the Convention
1. Call to Order
2. Credentials Committee report
3. Adoption of agenda
4. Ratification of actions taken at first sitting online of Regular Convention
5. Treasurer’s report
6. Audit Committee report
7. Bylaws & Rules Committee report
8. Platform Committee report
9. Resolutions
10. Other business
11. Final adjournment of the 2020 Regular Convention
Of course, the one in Orlando won’t take place anyway, I would imagine.
Back in session. Harlos moves to amend JBH substitute motion.
There’s a substitute motion. So not a done deal yet.
So now its tentatively scheduled for July 8-12 in Orlando?
New room: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0GB4SdnCic
Mattson passes, but JBH proposes a substitute (or some parliamentary route to get to something with the same effect).
Mattson moves substitute motion. Orlando July 8-12.
Ruling of the chair overturned.
Almost 6 hrs now…
Merced rules Sarwark motion is in order. Appealed.
Joe Bishop-Henchman
Admin · 1 min
Motion to reconsider the vote last week has passed, 10-5. It is now as if it never passed, and we are now debating what to do instead.
Motion to reconsider
Adams No
Bishop-Henchman Yes
Goldstein No
Hagan Yes
Harlos Abstain
Hewitt No
Lark Yes
Longstreth Yes
Mattson No
Merced Presiding
Nekhaila Yes
O’Donnell Yes
Phillips Yes
Redpath Yes
Sarwark Yes
Smith No
Van Horn Yes
YES 10
NO 5
ABSTAIN 1
Reconsideration passes. Sarwark moves for zoom convention on originally scheduled may dates. Point of order/objection by Harlos.
Now Harlos is trying to say Nick can’t hand the gavel off and debate. Parliamentarian disagrees.
Ruling of the chair is sustained, by a bare minimum.
Parliamentarian says reconsideration is in order.
Appeal by Harlos.
Finally got to votes. VanHorn motion to reconsider. Appeal.
And they’re back. Still no votes or motions yet.
Joseph Bishop-Henchman?WE ARE RISING FROM EXECUTIVE SESSION 4:28 PM. RECONVENING IN ZOOM 4:35 PM ET.
Well over 4 hrs. Still in executive session.
Between public comments, presentations and executive session almost 4 hours so far. No motions yet.
Orders come and go, you really can’t predict which places will have what orders in place a few weeks out. And it’s not just where the delegates are going to, but also where they are coming from which may have orders in place.
Are these cities being considered for a convention THIS year? If so, then for heaven’s sakes ONLY look at places in the 7 states that didn’t put draconian “rot in place” orders in effect!
Question: Why are we considering having a convention in New Orleans since it is ground zero – zero of the China Corona Virus? It is a city and state that has one of the highest rates of Corona Virus and Corona Virus deaths in the nation. Can someone who is smarter than me explain it.
Going into executive session soon.
Hayes quasi-presenting for Omaha because they did not show up.
Moved on to Orlando presentation.
New Orleans is next.
Still on Atlanta at this point. Youtube chatter is now mostly about the Mises cucks, little to do with the meeting. Moving on to the next presenters…
Presentations have started beginning with Atlanta.
New livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYKifkGNRNs
Orlando apparently also based on what was on the screen at one point.
Presentations from Atlanta, New Orleans, Omaha group has people but Hayes said they are not on yet.
Recess coming up. Then presenters for in person convention. Business after that, including a motion to reconsider last week’s decision to hold an in person convention by Elizabeth Van Horn.
Parliamentarian shuts down Sarwark’s attempt to call motion to reconsider.
Moellman survey: bifurcation is the most popular model; all online or all in person not as popular.
After an hour and fifteen minutes the public comments are over.
Almost an hour in and still on public comments.
Nick: “it will take as long as it takes”
Public comments extended, still going on.
Chat is disabled at the zoom link but active at the youtube link.
Also at 312-626-6799, meeting ID 83152553843
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn-7gBF5XT0 for those not on zoom
For anyone not keeping up with LNC list, the last day or two has been unusually contentious and dramatic.
http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/2020/date.html
Meeting has started. Will be called to order in 5 minutes if everything is on time. Public comments for about 20 minutes will be first.