by Randall Stufflebeam and Audrey Queckboerner
MidWest Regional Chairman and Indiana State Party Chairman
http://www.constitutionparty.com/news.php?aid=1363:
Recently a question was asked of our Party why we were not endorsing Ron Paul for his 2012 Presidential bid. The following is our response written by the State Chairman of the Constitution Party of Indiana, Audrey Queckboerner and our Midwest Regional Chairman, Randy Stufflebeam:
Point One – No amount of help from the Constitution Party will result in the Republican nomination of Ron Paul for president.
I’m unsure how familiar you are with what the Republican Party did to Ron Paul and his supporters in the last primary season. I (Audrey) was not one who was watching from the outside through the glass, but I was personally on the inside as a state delegate for Ron Paul and saw first hand how the Republican Party used every tactic possible to keep Ron from being their nominee. They changed their own state party rules three days before the convention so that we could not nominate from the floor. They disregarded Roberts Rules of Order and were very rude to us. (The complete story of our experience can be found on my page under my notes section). This happened in 14 other states and that doesn’t include the Nevada state convention which they completely shut down by turning off the lights and locking the doors before the convention even began or Missouri where they denied delegates their credentials because they discovered they were on Ron Paul meetup sites and supported his nomination. They stopped at nothing to stop his nomination. Even at the National Convention when Boehner asked if there were any other nominees besides McCain you could clearly hear 2 or 3 delegates call out Ron Paul’s name and Boehner blatantly disregarded the nominations from the floor, banged his gavel and announced McCain as the winner. This is what they had planned all along.
Now what makes you think they will not pull out all the stops once again to stop his nomination? I can tell you right now that the Indiana State Party rules have never been changed back, so delegates are still unable to nominate national delegates in their caucuses.
Even if the Constitution Party went all out to endorse and totally support Ron Paul, the fact remains he is running as a Republican. As demonstrated above, it is those who control the Republican Party who will keep Ron Paul from being nominated.
In 2008, many (probably most) in the Constitution Party endorsed and supported Ron Paul with their time and money. Remember that Ron Paul is running as a Republican and it was the corrupt Republican Party that denied him the nomination and they will be even better equipped to stop him this time around. Although, Ron Paul gave a bland endorsement of Chuck Baldwin for President, it didn’t matter because everyone had spent all their money and time on Ron Paul and had nothing left for Chuck Baldwin. Take Illinois for instance. They have to get 25,000 uncontestable signatures to get on the ballot. They were promised money to help them get ballot access for Chuck Baldwin’s candidacy. However, because of the support of Ron Paul, there was no money in the coffers to help, and Ron Paul sure didn’t release any of the money that Constitution Party members had donated to his campaign. He didn’t even do anything to encourage his supporters to spend their time and money to get Baldwin on state ballots.
Even if the Constitution Party endorsed Ron Paul for President and dumped its entire treasury into Ron Paul’s Campaign and managed to persuade every one of its supporters to throw all their efforts and finances, forgoing ever other candidacy and focused everything on getting the nomination of Ron Paul, at the end of the day, the corrupt Republican Party would still reject Ron Paul.
Point Two – The need for an alternative when Republicans fail to nominate Ron Paul
Wouldn’t you agree that if Ron Paul doesn’t get the nomination there should be a place for all his supporters to go? What happens if the Republicans elect someone who is the antithesis to Ron Paul? Where are Paul’s supporters to go?
If the Constitution Party spends all its time and effort to nominate Ron Paul and he doesn’t win, then what? Just like in 2008, we’ll have nothing left to provide an alternative. In terms of ship building, we wouldn’t even be able to provide a raft for people to go to because we will have failed to get ballot access in crucial states and will have lost ballot access in states where the CP is ballot qualified because we will have not provided a presidential candidate. If there is to be a legitimate alternative to the Republican nominee in the Constitution Party, we have to be putting every resource at our disposal into that effort. Waiting to see if Ron Paul receives the nomination in 2012 would be equally devastating because there are some states that don’t even hold their caucuses until August. By then, it would be too late and the opportunity to get an alternate party candidate will have been lost.
The Constitution Party must be about building a great ship for people to jump to when they discover that corruption has once again reigned supreme in the Republican Party.
Point Three – Ballot Access and a Great Candidate of our own
Unlike the two major parties, third parties have a far greater and in most cases daunting challenge in getting ballot access. Republicans and Democrats take ballot access for granted because it is so easy for them to achieve. In Indiana, it takes over 34,000 signatures to get on the ballot. If we supported Ron Paul and did not concentrate on getting signatures for the Constitution Party, it would be impossible to do so later. In fact, in order to get signatures, we have to declare a presidential candidate. As a Republican, it would be impossible for Ron Paul to sign on as the Constitution Party’s Presidential candidate in Indiana. It would be ludicrous for us to say we are supporting Ron Paul and trying to get another Presidential candidate on the ballot. Of course this conversation would be unnecessary if Ron Paul decided to run as a Constitution Party candidate, but he has made it quite clear he has no intention of running as a Constitution Party or a Libertarian Party candidate.
Further, it is our intention to run a candidate who is every bit as good as Ron Paul or even “constitutionally” better.
Point Four – The Constitution Party is not merely a ideological advocacy group.
The Constitution Party is a Partisan Political Party that NOMINATES candidates for election. Endorsing a candidate for president of another party would seriously damage the credibility of the Constitution Party. So why would we be a political party if all we are going to do is act like a PAC, endorsing candidates from every other party because we can’t find one of our own?
Point Five – Breaking the Two-Party-Duopoly
By supporting Ron Paul, we would be asking our supporters to vote in the Republican Primaries and “declare” themselves as Republicans, or in some states, they would have to register Republican, thereby asking people to betray their political convictions for the sake of expediency. The Constitution Party is NOT about building other parties.
The Constitution Party believes it is time to break the two-party-duopoly. With 52% of the Republicans saying they are willing to vote for third Party candidates and over 45% of the Republicans saying that they are dissatisfied with the presidential choices that have been put forward so far, it’s going to be even more difficult in 2012 than it was in 2008 to elect a principled nominee such as Dr. Paul.
The Republican Party has done much to destroy this nation and cares nothing about Constitutional Government. Ron Paul would do better to understand that and run in a party that supports his Constitutional views.
“If the Constitution Party spends all its time and effort to nominate Ron Paul and he doesn’t win, then what? Just like in 2008, we’ll have nothing left to provide an alternative.”
Get real. You wouldn’t win either way, and a marquee candidate such as Ron Paul would raise your profile.
Maybe if the LP appoints an anti-abortion, anti-immigration candidate they would.
If the CP has supported a libertarian in Ron Paul, why not just support the LP presidential candidate since, that candidate should have ballot access in some 45 plus states.
@59… I agree. Economic issues transcend everything else right now and the LP and the CP mostly agree on those (aside from the free trade/fair trade stuff) and time is running out. I happen to think it may already be too late but that’s another matter.
One could say that both the CP & LP are children of the Republican Party. There has been a sibling rivalry of sorts. Perhaps, it’s time to grow up and put some of our differences aside. Our parent (the Republican Party) has cancer and is senile and dying. Let’s not fight over the inheritance. Let’s work together to make sure that there IS AN INHERITANCE LEFT! It’s time to save the Republic! This should transcend other matters. What difference does it make if we have a few more years of current politics as usual, there will be NOTHING LEFT to fight over!
Seems like a reasonable argument
Oops! I don’t owe you royalties, do I?
Have your accountant call my accountant 😛
Hey! That’s MY standard response to Capozzi, Paulie 😉
LOL.
I guess when you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
P, yes, I recall. Odds that Matt Harris believes this: “Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals.”
VERY high.
Matt Harris (former LPWV chair) told me he was responsible for getting that started.
51 p, I suspect you mean that *some* RP supporters are doing activist things, perhaps even at a fevered pace. Whether your anecdotal encounters and experiences leads to AN effective path forward, I dunno, it might. The LP shadowing Paulistas might work to some extent, too. There is, however, that “let’s pelt Sean Hannity with snowballs” element there, too, so I’d be a bit careful with that approach.
RP has become a rock star, albeit a bit underground, say, a Lou Reed figure more than a Jagger or Plant. Whether Lou will tell his CBGB faithful to come back tomorrow night to see the New York Dolls…might work. Leafletting the Reed fans as they exit might work, too.
Rock stars have their place, but then they fade away…
Robert,
We were talking about a shadow campaign at Ron Paul meetups.
You steered the conversation, completely without provocation, into discussing “fringy stuff.”
After I pointed this out, you make another reply arguing about fringy stuff.
Even after you said it is not worth arguing about and we have more important short term concerns.
Perhaps you thought that our extremism would turn off the Ron Paul supporters. But I addressed that above; it was not our extremism, but our perceived lack of resolve, that they tended to see as our weakness last election.
To that, I should add our lack of activism. These Ron Paul folks do stuff – pass out literature, knock on doors, wave signs, put stickers and banners up, make calls. They don’t understand people who say they are committed to liberty but don’t do these things.
To them, the LP is not fringy, edgy or extreme – it’s tepid, weak, compromised, afraid of its shadow, lethargic, and not genuine.
If you wish, you can keep trying to bring this discussion around to the fringy stuff that you say you believe is a distraction (and I agree it is).
I’ll keep trying to bring it back to strategy for advancing the cause of liberty incrementally.
47 P: So why waste time talking about it (fringy stuff)?
49 tk: But the thing is, I can’t recall a single Libertarian election campaign that has ever centered itself around that “fringy stuff.”
me: Great points. Yes, generally when the rubber hits the road, L candidates lose their fringe ideas, temporarily. But I maintain my sense that the fringy ideas remain firmly implanted in the consciousness of many/most Ls, esp. LP Ls. Positions are tortuously developed to avoid the tripwire of “principle” while trying to hone positions that sound semi-plausible.
I trace the inception of this back to “Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals.”
With “all” in mind, the L attempts to fashion a coherent program, and assess other pols with this in mind. The exception would be constitutionalists, who trace all government back to their interpretation of the Constitution.
I actually admire this desire to maintain a principled stance. Sometimes, however, it gets tortured. The constitutionalist, for ex., fights the income tax because the 16th Amendment was “improperly ratified.” So, the soundbite comes out, “I favor abolishing the income tax, and replacing it with nothing,” something RP says, for ex.
In the dorm room, I LOVE the sentiment. Directionally, I like the economics. Politically, I don’t think that idea moves much from the fringes to the edges. Disguising the construct in a soundbite does not make it broadly palatable. Intuitively and mathematically, this idea is a non-starter, at least in the short term. Playing chicken ain’t likely to make headway in this environment UNLESS one buys the TK thesis that collapse is around the corner, and such rhetoric is designed for a post-Apocalyptic world. (Collapse could happen, btw, although I’m unconvinced that such posturing will lead the survivors to adopt anarchism or something close as a working theory.)
So, I would maintain that “replace the income tax with nothing” may not SOUND as fringy as “robocops on private streets,” it’s still fringy. RP is well practiced at making fringy ideas somewhat palatable, but even there he’s not taken all that seriously in the mainstream. Many occasionally say, “I like some of what he says, but he’s too extreme,” and so, he is.
Perception IS reality.
For many Ls, the perception is “Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights….” For the vast majority, the perception is likely something like: “Governments are instituted, and we recognize that they sometimes do violate rights, often for the greater good.” For many, they might also say “But governments are violating way too many rights right now, and the situation has become deeply dysfunctional. We need a new direction, away from government rights violation, toward more liberty.”
The perception of many Ls is, IMO, a form of denial. From that foundation of sand comes a shaky edifice that few are inclined to buy into.
RC@46,
Yes, I understand your aversion to “fringy” stuff.
But the thing is, I can’t recall a single Libertarian election campaign that has ever centered itself around that “fringy stuff.”
Wait, I take that back — a few years ago, a guy ran for state rep in California on an “I’m an anarchist, don’t vote for me, as a matter of fact, don’t vote” platform.
Apart from that, the closest ones I can recall are:
– Alan Weiss running for a utility district seat on a platform of eliminating the district (he won).
– Me running for city council in Springfield, Missouri, on a platform that included eliminating an over-subsidized, under-utilized bus service and replacing its handicapped persons “call-a-ride” service with taxi vouchers at a huge cost savings. I didn’t win — but I got 20% in a three-way race and Springfield has since elected two Libertarians (one of whom was one of my campaign volunteers) to its city council and appointed at least one other to a city board.
So anyway, I can’t help thinking that you worry a lot about a phenomenon that is, for all practical purposes, non-existent.
It’s amazing how a thread can stray into bizaar areas or should I say “streets” (lol) ! Anyone wonder why the RP put up such roadblocks to Ron Paul ? I’ve been trying to tell you for months now!
Bill Hicks on Politics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXpdJLJqG9U&feature=related
{Why do} “300 million Americans have {only} 2 choices for president? Can you imagine having 2 colors to pick for your car? Red or Blue. No silver, or black w/ chrome rims. No racing yellow or hunter green. Nope – 2 colors, red or blue. The 2 party system has failed us. Our corrupt corporate propaganda media has failed us. You cannot give 300 million people 2 choices & expect change. They feign fighting on TV while they sleep together at night. We need a 3rd, 4th, 5th choice to fairly represent us” -shwantz2 on youtube
“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can throw the rascals out at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.” – Carroll Quigley-(Bill Clinton said Quigley was his mentor during 1993 Inaugural Address), speaking of the (CFR) Globalists’ American political strategy since the early twentieth century.
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Robert, here’s the thing:
1) We both agree that fringy dorm room chatter makes for poor politics.
2) We agree “just give me s’more liberty, please. And then a bit more tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…creeping as it does from day to day.” Sure, I may want to go further than you would, but I am not under any illusions that it is about to happen. So why waste time talking about it?
3) “It’s kinda, sorta fun to envision — down to the smallest detail — what “a L society” might look like,” Well, sure, it’s fun, but we were talking strategy – specifically, a “shadow campaign” to sell a Libertarian as a Plan B candidate at Ron Paul meetups (since we are in a CP thread, it is conceivable they could have a candidate do something like that as well). Then, completely unprovoked, you steered the discussion towards robocops and private streets, when
4) We were talking about how to get “s’more liberty, please. And then a bit more tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…creeping as it does from day to day.”
5) You took it into the area of “torturing ourselves whilst getting all twisted up in our knickers” which as you say “seems, well, contra-indicated” (or as I said, unproductive).
6) I’ve been at a number of different Ron Paul meetups around the country. Sure, there were some arguments over issues like abortion and immigration, with different people in the group taking different sides. But they did not take up a lot of time because we all realized we had more in common than we had dividing us, and there was work to do.
7) To the extent that people expressed problems with the LP, it was not about “private nukes; heroin vending machines in the school cafeteria; etc.”….it was about Barr’s past as a drug warrior (among other things), suspicions that he still works for the CIA, suspicions that he has not really changed and is a “government plant,” contentions that the LP was not solidly enough antiwar and was too close to “neocon” positions on Israel, middle east wars and related issues, etc. In other words, the problems that most people I ran into at Ron Paul meetups expressed with the LP – out of the ones who bothered to express any opinion on the LP – fell more into the realm of being concerned that the LP is not pure enough, rather than being concerned that it is too pure.
45 tk, “robocops” is just one of my many examples of (admittedly absurd sounding, for effect!) L political thought; I’ve used others like private nukes; heroin vending machines in the school cafeteria; etc. It’s all in fun. Lighten up!
Torturing ourselves whilst getting all twisted up in our knickers seems, well, contra-indicated.
It’s my contention — perhaps unproductive on my part, per P — that fringy dorm room chatter makes for poor politics. It’s kinda, sorta fun to envision — down to the smallest detail — what “a L society” might look like, but me: just give me s’more liberty, please. And then a bit more tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…creeping as it does from day to day.
RC@39,
OK, when you said private streets were a “non-starter,” I thought you meant “they won’t fly,” not “they are not the best foot forward for a political movement.”
One of the reasons I thought that was that I am unaware of any political movement in history which has ever led off with private streets as its raison d’etre.
I apologize for assuming that you were referencing the real world.
Sorry, bad memory 🙁
40 p: Right. So then what if the questioner asks you a followup – “so does that mean we let the man die or not?
me: I said earlier @ 28, “No, obviously not.”
Tracing this back some more:
Whether the opportunity costs of going to a RP Meetup in Missoula crowds out working the major media with a really strong message, I’m not so sure.
Strikes me that any candidate should be first able to answer the question, “Why should I vote for you?”
If the answer is, “If you like RP, you’ll love me because I’m more ‘radical’,” doesn’t seem like a very good answer.
Next, he/she should be able to answer, “What is your vision for America?” Robocops patrolling private streets seems like a non-starter to me, compelling as that may be for some (very few).
Somehow, I think that a Libertarian candidate can sell themselves as a “Plan B” in case Republicans do not nominate Ron Paul and Ron Paul does not want to run as anything other than Republican, to Ron Paul supporters, without going off on too many “robocop” tangents.
Actually, you may never have to go that far.
I was curious how we got on this tangent, in this thread of all places, and traced it back to this:
“Next, he/she should be able to answer, “What is your vision for America?” Robocops patrolling private streets seems like a non-starter to me, compelling as that may be for me (very few).”
It seems to me that there are any number of ways of answering “what is your vision of America” without even remotely hinting at robocops or private streets. Remember that the vast majority of viewers, readers, listeners or attendees aren’t familiar with libertarian theories and have no idea about minarchist/anarchist disputes. A word such as “all” here or there may reek of anarchy to you, but most people will not draw any such conclusions from it, or most likely even notice it.
It seems that you’ve smuggled in a minarchy/anarchy debate where none existed. I don’t think that is a very productive thing to do. Do you really think it is impossible to come up with constructive suggestions of how to answer “what is your vision of America” without getting into highly theoretical questions about desired end-states that are far removed from our reality, and which we may or may not ever get close to?
There have been times in history when virtually all roads were privately built, including fairly recently. Today, most roads are privately built within neighborhoods without government financing, but taken over after the neighborhoods are built. An increasing number of highways are privately operated, and city streets in places like Hong Kong.
Again, I’m not just saying relying solely on charity. See https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2011/09/open-thread-for-september-2011/#comment-605009 and follow the links (unfortunately they do not all work anymore).
I don’t suggest we replace them with nothing. I’ve been linking the something that I would replace them with several times now.
If I don’t have time to explain that, maybe I can explain that I am not being elected almighty dictator and that there will be many other people pushing to expand government that I will have to share power and compromise with.
Then perhaps I could invite people to have a conversation about my ideas someplace where there is more time/space to discuss them in detail if they so choose, And I may remind them that the road towards cutting government is long, with many obstacles along the way, and that my immediate focus is on the first few steps, not the last few….but that anyone who wants to discuss what may lie further down the road is welcome to go to… (insert here, and I don’t mean go to hell).
Right. So then what if the questioner asks you a followup – “so does that mean we let the man die or not?”
See links above. Maybe you can distill them to a good pull quote, maybe not.
Same here, as you know. However, that does not mean that we ignore history and the lessons it teaches us – good and bad. If something has already been tried and worked, or tried and failed, we should take that into account rather than speculating what might happen as if it has never been tried before.
38 tk, is there a hew and cry for privatizing ALL streets in St. Louis? A few exceptions doesn’t mean that the electorate thinks that’s a good idea, city-wide or country-wide.
A few may well think that more streets should be privatized. Whether that’s the basis for a real, effective political movement, count me skeptical.
RC@37,
Although it designates me by initial, I can’t figure out how your comment is responsive to what I wrote.
I was merely pointing out that “robocops patrolling private streets” is not a “non-starter” for many people, including but not limited to residents of “private streets” in some cities.
P and tk, look, I’m pro-private roads. I grew up very close to the end of the first restricted access highway, Vanderbilt Motor Parkway, connecting NYC to eastern Long Island. Vanderbilt built this 60-mile toll road in the 20s, first as essentially his driveway, later opened to others for a fee. A nice exception. Exceptions, however, don’t prove rules. (If they do, please educate me.) Virtually all roads are publicly financed if not technically built.
In the context of a campaign, an L could spend time doing tutorials about private roads and making the case that charitable medical care can and should take the place of government provision of public and semi-public goods. One can even challenge the idea of public goods.
I don’t find that to be an effective approach. It requires a level of patience that few voters have. One must attempt to demystify myths, and rebuild a new conventional wisdom. Making the leap from “some roads are private” to “all roads SHOULD BE private, since taxation is ‘theft,'” is a political black hole, IMO. Similarly, the case that “medical care used to be almost all private” to “charity will take care of the indigent, abolish Medicare and Medicaid and replace them with nothing” is bracing, and again requires the listener to hear and understand a long-winded justification.
My suggestion: “I look forward to the day when most if not all social challenges are handled peacefully and privately,” satisfies my theoretical asymptotic anarchist side. I don’t feel the need to “hold high the banner,” beautiful as it may be. Others may not find my approach satisfying.
Then again, “let them eat cake” didn’t work, either! Let them get their own medical care and roads seems almost as contemptuous to me, even if it’s actually NOT contemptuous.
Finally, P, many Ls often use the term “go back to” or its equivalent. This tends to position Ls as reactionaries. Restore the Constitution, often without qualification. Man, oh, man, is this stepping in it, when we know that this evokes for many Jim Crow, no child labor laws, etc. I prefer a more forward-looking approach.
3.14
DL
That should be on open thread, not here
How many libertarian pinheads can dance on the head of a pin? You people crack me up.
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About 70% of the streets are privately built, but I don’t know how many actually are privately operated.
RC@21,
“Robocops patrolling private streets seems like a non-starter to me, compelling as that may be for some (very few).”
Any time I go to my wife’s workplace, I have to pass by the St. Louis “private streets” featured in Reason magazine circa 30 years ago.
They’re still there, they’re still private, and they seem to be functional oases of peace and prosperity in the sea of dysfunctional, decaying, crime-ridden “public streets” that surround them (a nine-year-old was recently shot during a robbery in one of the “public” areas” a few blocks north).
back in the good ole’ days, when all was well,
Who said that? We can learn from good things that were done in the past as well as bad.
Never mind that if your skin was the “wrong” color, you couldn’t even get in the hospital!
One of the early activities of the AMA was shutting down non-“white” medical practices that were thriving at that time.
Again, see Ruwart ch. 5-6 and possibly some of the links is Long’s article hat I posted on the open thread…although some of those links have expired.
27 p, agree, not a bad answer. It’s still a construct, though…back in the good ole’ days, when all was well, this wasn’t an issue. (Never mind that if your skin was the “wrong” color, you couldn’t even get in the hospital!)
My moderate, centrist, non-reactionary answer might be: “No, obviously not. It’s one thing to talk about a true safety net, another to talk about an all-intrusive, corrupt, top-down government s0-called solution to all social ills. I look forward to the day when most if not all social challenges are handled peacefully and privately. We’re not there yet, but my campaign is all about turning this ship around before Washington spends us ALL into the poor house.”
Yes, Saint Murray, I know…that’s “namby pamby.” 😉
Ron Paul’s answer in the debate was good IMO. He pointed out that when he practiced medicine in the early 60s there was charity medicine and people were not turned away or allowed to die.
For a more detailed answer see the Roderick Long piece I put on this month’s open thread (comment 60-something iirc) and Ruwart’s Healing Our World online free version Chapters 5 and 6.
25 p, it’s my practice to NOT be defensive, but there may be some of that at play. Mostly, I prefer to offer another way to look at the situation (a big, intrusive state) and suggest alternative means toward peace. The absolutism of “all” doesn’t process for me, and I can’t imagine how it could.
Just look at the question in the GOP debates about letting the man in critical condition die. If the “principled” L view is, heck, yeah, let ‘im die, I’d say we have an ideology needing in desperate need of a tune up. Living by the absolutist sword leads to dying by it. Something is very off about that answer. The plumb line construct INVITES the question!
We may well not ultimately be our brother’s keeper, but letting him die is an epic fail.
That is what I read. It was before my time (that is, I was alive, but I was eight years old, new to the US and most likely never heard of Clark then).
It seems that you are reading it with a defensive mind set from having been hammered over the years for not being a plumb line Rothbardian anymore.
We may oppose all such interference, but we have a long way to go and many steps to take to get there. People who would not go quite as far are welcome along the way. Whether we can ever get that far remains to be seen. There will be many obstacles along the way. When you are at the foot of Mt. Everest and ill prepared, it is folly to spend your time arguing which dance you should do when you reach the top. When you are on the platform waiting for the train to Auschwitz, whether you will open a shoe store in Brooklyn or a deli in Queens after the war is not your immediate concern.
more…
operative word is “all.” The die is cast with absolutism at its core.
22 p, Clark was able to take a leave of absence, if I recall, as he was somewhat affluent. David likely paid for the flights. Hundreds…are you sure?
Robocops has everything to do with it. That’s the implication of these sorta-nice-sounding words: “Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals.”
With that as an “organizing principle,” we go off the rails into a Robocop place. It simply (generally covertly) manifests as opposition to GJ and other moderate Ls whenever we suggest anything remotely practical.
Really making a dent through major media takes saturation. And getting major media – IE major networks and big city markets – is a lot harder than getting local and small/medium town media.
Retail politics can pay off. It may seem small time, but it adds up, and there’s a multiplier effect. Clark’s hundreds of college speeches may have had more to do with his vote totals than Koch’s millions of dollars, although we can’t know that for sure.
I saw Ron Paul grassroots supporters make a lot of good videos. I don’t think most of those cost much of anything.
Certainly candidates should be able to answer “why should I vote for you” and vision of America questions. And I don’t know what robocops have to do with anything.
As for Barr shadowing Paul….badly would be an understatement if that is what he was trying to do.
20 p, you may be right. Travel IS expensive, since travel takes time AND money. Good videos take money, too. Dreck videos can be done on the cheap, but then you have…dreck.
In some ways, I’d say Barr sorta tried (badly) to shadow the Paul campaign. Harris may, too. Johnson may.
Me too-ing doesn’t feel like much of a strategy to me…it sounds like a potentially good idea, though.
Whether the opportunity costs of going to a RP Meetup in Missoula crowds out working the major media with a really strong message, I’m not so sure.
Strikes me that any candidate should be first able to answer the question, “Why should I vote for you?”
If the answer is, “If you like RP, you’ll love me because I’m more ‘radical’,” doesn’t seem like a very good answer.
Next, he/she should be able to answer, “What is your vision for America?” Robocops patrolling private streets seems like a non-starter to me, compelling as that may be for some (very few).
Note that I’m on record as wanting a Paul/Johnson ticket. Short of that, mining RP meetups and San Bernadino Community College events in September may or may not be the optimal tactic.
OK, what would a “shadow” campaign look like? Please factor in that most L campaigns have essentially no budget….
Travel to meet local Ron Paul supporters around the country does not necessarily have to be expensive. Badnarik was getting around the country by raising the money at each stop to get to his next stop. Internet campaigning can be done on virtually zero budget; it depends mostly on creativity with things like making videos.
LTEs into college papers, free weekly papers and medium and small market dailies are very easy to get published. I have had very few turned in that were not published. Interviews with these same type of outlets are not hard to finagle at all. Ditto for local talk radio and TV. Newslink makes it easy to find and submit LTEs and contact these media outlets.
AFR Viewpoints: September 19, 2011
“How Ron Paul Could Win the Presidency, ” Film Debut of SPOiLER
The Daily Bell’s Exclusive Interview of Nelson Hultberg
Sunday, September 18, 2011 — with Anthony Wile
[Nelson Hultberg is a freelance writer in Dallas, Texas and the Director of Americans for a Free Republic.]
Daily Bell: How did you feel about the premier of James Jaeger’s and Matrixx Production’s latest film, SPOiLER: How a Third Political Party Could Win?
Nelson Hultberg: I think it is a stunning effort. It goes to the heart of why the American political scene is so corrupted
I think that is RJ Harris’ gameplan.
16 a, OK, what would a “shadow” campaign look like? Please factor in that most L campaigns have essentially no budget….
“12 Jake Witmer // Sep 18, 2011 at 10:12 pm
It’s highly intelligent for libertarians to run a shadow campaign alongside Ron Paul, in the likely event he will not get the nomination.”
I’ve been saying this since 2007 and NOBODY has done it. This is a HUGE mistake, and it looks right now like we are going to be stuck with pathetic list of choices for minor party and independent candidates just like we had in 2008.
If some candidate were to successfully implement a strategy that I’ve thought of to capture the Ron Paul r3VOLution they could ride that wave to a big vote total in November. I’m not saying that they’d win the election, I’m saying that they could realistically get a few million votes which is good by minor party and independent candidate standards and would be better than anything that the Libertarian Party has ever done before.
If Ron has no interest in individual freedom that goes deep enough for him to be interested in channeling his momentum to another party…
You measure the depth of one’s commitment by whether they support a third party?
Perhaps Ron Paul’s commitment to liberty is so deep that he avoids wasting his energies on a third party?
Maybe he believes that liberty is too important a goal to place in any one party’s basket. Instead, he seeks to build a broader movement.
Yes, we must build our respective parties. Support for Ron Paul in the Republican primaries is akin to going down the proverbial rabbit hole. It is the very essence of the concept of dissipation…
Ron Paul should take an active interest in the Libertarian Party’s nomination process, and in the CP’s nomination process. He should endorse candidates long before either of their election cycles. This is because he is a professional politician who is not totally unaware and delusional about what it takes to appeal to unphilosophical and marginally philosophical voters. In that regard, he can teach the LP, CP, and GP a lot.
If Ron has no interest in individual freedom that goes deep enough for him to be interested in channeling his momentum to another party, then that makes his approach seriously suspect in the eyes of all intelligent strategists. If he has people whispering into his ear, giving him bad advice, he needs to instantly call a stop to that, and take the minor political risk, prior to the May convention.
What the article above describes, and what I’ve described above, constitutes a more gracefully-decaying strategy than what we now possess. Gracefully-decaying strategies allow you to measure success in increments, short of the optimal goal. The optimal goal may be winning the election, but there should be thousands of sub-goals below that, which allow us to gauge what is working and what is not working, immediately, and prior to any election. Such a gracefully-decaying strategy, and willingness to work together would also win nationwide media attention.
In Alabama, the LP and CP have a friendly relationship. Their chairman understands this, and where one has ballot access, they are willing to nominate candidates of the other. This is optimal, especially in areas of overlap.
Neither side can claim correctness on one major area of disagreement. Thus, this area (abortion) should be totally avoided by both the pro-choice and anti-choice sides of the argument. No position should be taken on this subject without a disclaimer that it’s the candidate’s personal opinion, and no political action of either kind will be taken on it. The WTP congress was smart enough to take this course of action, and it worked very well for all involved.
If freedom is important to us, we owe it to our future of freedom to work together, to insist that our states begin to nullify the Federal Government. To this end, I encourage those who are interested in third-party politics to get involved with the Transpartisan Alliance –a conglomeration of parties working together on an issue by issue basis.
I’ll also mention this: the 9-11 Truth Movement is now bigger than the LP and CP combined, yet neither party is running a candidate that explicitly endorses a new investigation. WHY NOT? The new movie from “Architects and Engineers for 9-11 Truth” titled “Explosive Evidence” literally blows holes in the “9-11 Commission Report.” Shouldn’t we offer an outlet for such anti-government frustrations, even if they are not consistent?
These are just suggestions. Many more ideas are valuable. We must learn to put aside our differences, so that we can live. Will this result in a somewhat watered-down candidate? Maybe, maybe not, depending on how it’s pursued. Perhaps the LP and CP can agree to run for State legislature ONLY, and to not compete where one party has a candidate, encouraging all candidates to sign a “pledge of cooperation” in order to increase the OVERALL number of State legislative candidates.
Remember: without control of the State legislatures, State Nullification cannot happen. In any conception of a libertarian or constitutionalist revolution, no significant progress can be made without State Nullification. State Nullification is THE electoral goal of libertarian constitutionalism. Therefore, the LP and CP should pledge to work together to run for State Legislative offices, and to run their candidates in neighboring districts when there’s a conflict, and as well, to possibly run an equal number of candidates in all States that have vacancies on the ballot in half the districts.
Delusional Libertarians and CP candidates now seeking congress, senate, or governor should all be encouraged to ditch the delusional plans, run for the State Legislature, and win.
It’s highly intelligent for libertarians to run a shadow campaign alongside Ron Paul, in the likely event he will not get the nomination. It’s highly intelligent for Ron Paul to endorse either the LP or CP for the nomination. It’s highly intelligent for the LP to run competent, libertarian candidates who eschew theocracy, and target the left as well as the right. It’s also highly intelligent for the entire freedom movement to acquaint themselves with a historical perspective on what it’s like to lose a republican form of government, to totalitarianism.
I highly recommend the book “The Ominous Parallels” by Leonard Peikoff to this end.
A gracefully-decaying strategy should be arrived at, among all parties that are concerned with losing individual freedom in the USA.
This means that Ron Paul himself should call meetings with his staff and the LP’s leadership, and the CP’s leadership. The meetings should be announced long in advance. RP’s delegate petitioning should overlap with LP & CP & GP petitioning, and in States without a law prohibiting it, all should be circulated simultaneously with any I&R petitions to decrease the cost to all parties.
Those who understand the message should be hired and “plugged into the campaign” as locally-aware assets to the campaign.
In short: we should be doing now what we should have been doing since 2001: taking freedom seriously, and pursuing it as if our lives depended on it.
…Because they literally do.
arn auto check: phone booth
Good ole non California, national CP:
Partisan decisions made by three ole white men in a red telephone both off the beaten path ………… just like always.
For the last decade and a half, I have *personal experience* found nothing but top down fascism and one topic obsession / focus in both the (so called) Tax Payers Party and the later (so called) Constitution Party.
I doubt most people understand these kind of details about how political parties operate. Many Ron Paul supporters are new to politics of any kind, as well.
On a past thread it was pointed out that those were proxy votes controlled by one person who was physically there. I don’t remember for sure whether that was Mr. Seidenberg, but I seem to recall that it may have been.
I don’t know how CP exec comm meetings work. If it is like Libertarian National Committee meetings, there are portions of the meeting that are open to the public and portions which are open only to the members of the committee and anyone they specifically invite into the executive session.
Gary Odem,
I backed Dr. Ron Paul in 1988. In 2008, I like 80% of the American Independent Party of California backed Dr. Alan Keyes for President
at the April, 2008 Kansas City Convention of the Constitution Party. At the first vote of the
California delegation to Kansas City in April,
2008, 80 % back Dr. Alan Keyes, most of the remained back Dr. Chuck Baldwin, with one vote each for Dr. Jerome Corsi and Dr. Don Grundmann (Grundmann voted for himself).
I agree with Gary Odom on one of his points
the National Convention of Constitution Party
is the place to “endorse ” candidtates,” or not endorse them. It is not up to the National Committee.
Look what the CP executive committee did to
it 2004 pick for President choice. viz., Michael
Peroutka, They locked him out of the executive
committee meeting. Dr. Baldwin turned on Peroutka.
Is there a dimes worse of difference between what the Executive Committee of the CP did to Michael Peroutka following Tampa and what the
Nevada GOP did to Dr. Ron Paul!? (interrobang).
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman,
American Independent Party of California
The real point and the only point is that a national political party only endorses through its nomination. Period. For example, our national committee, on May 1st of this year, voted to urge Virgil Goode to seek its nomination. It seems to me that LP did with Ron Paul in 2008, I believe. I know that in 1975 the AIP did the same with George Wallace. That is NOT an endorsement.
The supreme authority of any party, that I am aware of, is its National Convention. A National Committeee only has ministerial functions. For it to “endorse” anyone would be a gross transgression on the prerogative of the National Convention. It is a simple enough concept.
Why don’t people understand this? Of course, maybe they do. Let’s hope so.
A well-reasoned position, for a party seeking to establish its brand and elect people to office under its banner. As a libertarian I disagree with the CP on many points but this is a smart road for you guys to take.
Ron Paul is also a smart man and I suspect he doesn’t really think he’s going to win the GOP nomination this time either, for most of the same reasons he didn’t win last time. He’s running, as he did last time out, to further spread his message, and build a movement that exists outside of any party structure, and he’s been doing a great job of that.
However, the “intent” is entirely laudable. Mind you, Ron Paul would fit right in with the Constitution Party.
Here is one of those positions Paul now wishes to deny, this one on letting teenagers have contraceptives that work. Note that ‘who paid for the Norplant’ is not mentioned as an issue.
Ron Paul on Teen Birth Control
from the “Ron Paul Survival Report” (which, by the way, establishes internally that it was directly connected to the Congressman, not just using his name).
“The Norplant Solution
“What do you do if an entire generation of young people, their consciences stripped of Western standards of morality, begin to imitate the rabbit population in their mating habits? In Baltimore, Maryland, the city fathers decided to make Norplant birth control available. That means that these people can hop from partner to partner without increasing the risk of pregnancy. What about the moral crisis? Norplant of course, does not address that and by making sex cost-free, it will actually increase the youth’s desire for sex.
“Norplant is treating a symptom, not the disease. The program is presently voluntarily, but I worry it will soon become compulsory for economic reasons. After all, $750 for the cost of an implant is cheaper than the prenatal care of an infant. A principal of a large Baltimore High School explained that this was not a big deal and ‘just another service’.
“Baltimore has long been a progressive leader in the area of sex education, and for the distribution of birth control pills and condoms. I guess that didn’t work too well in an amoral community. The dilemma they now face is that if all the girls have Norplant, there will be no incentive whatsoever to comply with the wishes of the social planners to use condoms. Universal use of birth control will encourage promiscuous sex and increase the incidence of AIDS. “
Only one point they got wrong:
“Further, it is our intention to run a candidate who is every bit as good as Ron Paul or even “constitutionally” better.”
Considering their internal faction wars and their own misinterpretation of the Constitution in religious terms, that’s not only highly unlikely, but very humorous.
I read the headline and started to get all worked up, but this is a thoughtful and well-written
article,. I’m posting it on my FB page.
They got this one right.