August 14, 2009

To Hell With Whole Foods

You’re not getting another dime out of us. Ask my lovely wife why.

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August 11, 2009

Who is William Kostric? MySpace Page Tells All

Who: The nutbucket with the gun outside Obama’s town hall.

What: Said nutbucket’s MySpace page:

http://www.myspace.com/keysersoce

Why you should go there: Because he says some rather unsettling things; e.g.:

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September 10, 2008

Latest Monkey Wrench: Bob Barr Asks Ron Paul to Be His VP

Barr asks Ron Paul to be his running mate

Libertarian presidential nominee Bob Barr, the former Georgia congressman, rejected comparisons to Cynthia McKinney on Wednesday and made a bid for Ron Paul’s undivided support.

Paul, who this year sought the GOP presidential nomination, told reporters at a Washington press conference that the two-party system is broken. He urged Americans to vote for one of the third-party candidates running, including McKinney, who is also a former member of Congress from Georgia. …

“Bob had a press conference…,” said campaign spokesman Andrew Davis. “He didn’t want to dilute his message by being on the same stage as people like Cynthia McKinney, who is completely opposite of what a Libertarian is.”

Green Party spokesman Scott McLarty called Barr’s statement “a disappointment.”

“The Green Party has been in alliance with the Libertarian Party on many issues, including election integrity and ballot access fairness,” McLarty said, adding that Barr “seemed petty and hostile to Cynthia McKinney in particular and the Green Party in general. …

Barr sent Paul a letter Tuesday asking him to be his vice presidential nominee. Barr already has a running mate, Wayne Root of Las Vegas. Root said in the letter he would step aside for Paul. …

If I live 100 years, I doubt I’ll see a weirder election cycle than this one.

No, wait — it could get weirder. What’s Ross Perot doing these days?

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August 22, 2008

To “evolve,” Bob Barr would have to learn to walk on his hind legs first.

The Washington Blade tells us that the supporters of failed Republican-turned-Libertarian candidate and hypocrite extraordinaire Bob Barr say he’s “evolved” on such gay-rights issues as marriage and immigration.

We’ve written about this before; one would have to be a complete idiot to believe that this “evolution” is genuine; there’s no question in our minds that “Barr was told he wouldn’t get the [Libertarian] nomination unless he changed his position on DOMA.”

Barr’s flip-flop is clearly opportunistic — and half-baked. For instance:

Would the hundreds of federal benefits of marriage only be given to gay couples who live in states that allow gay marriage, forcing gay people who live in states like Georgia to move to Massachusetts or California if they want their relationships treated equally under federal law?

Barr did say he supports allowing a gay American who legally weds a foreign partner to bring his or her partner into the U.S. as a legal family member. But whether the federal government would recognize the marriage if the second portion of DOMA is repealed is unclear.

“The response from the campaign staff is we won’t answer hypothetical questions,” said Barr’s campaign manager, Russell Verney, who also managed Ross Perot’s presidential campaign.

There’s nothing hypothetical about it to the more-than 60,000 binational couples waiting for federal marriage recognition so foreign-born partners can immigrate to the U.S. legally and permanently.

The part of DOMA Barr still supports — which says that states don’t have to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states — relates to the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause, which states “full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state.”

Gay rights advocates have argued that the clause means states should have to recognize same-sex marriages from other states. But Barrr argued that Congress has the authority to define exactly what comes under the clause.

“I don’t think it’s a question of gay marriage or non-gay marriage. The states, through a referendum or the court system, should decide their own definition [of marriage],” Barr said. “It is fundamental and appropriate for the people of each state to decide.”

You can’t say you support immigration rights for legally-wed couples and say you support “states’ rights” on marriage equality — immigration is a federal issue, period, and if all 50 states passed full marriage equality tomorrow, not one gay American would be able to sponsor his or her foreign-born partner for immigration, as long as the fed doesn’t recognize those marriages.

Now, Barr, if you support the UAFA (Uniting American Families Act) but not marriage equality on the federal level, that’s another story. It’s a wrongheaded, unfair position (and it’s the position taken by all politicians — including Barack Obama — who don’t want to piss off gay voters, but are still skeezy about full marriage equality), but it would make more sense.

Georgia resident Rob Calhoun nails the conflict:

Having to go state-by-state to get same-sex marriages legalized is a piecemeal way of governing.

“It sounds like that would be complicated,” [Calhoun] said. “The government needs to recognize all marriages across all states. But that’s what the right-wingers fear.”

But it is typical. The Radical Righties keep screaming about “states’ rights” — yet when a state does make a decision in our favor, they scream about “activist judges.”

Bob Barr hasn’t “evolved”; he’s just floating around in the same primordial ooze as ever, while trying to look like he’s standing erect.

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June 5, 2008

How Bob Barr Got the Libertarian Nod — and Undermined Barack Obama’s Chance With Gay Republicans

Remember my rant about the Stupid Libertarian Party giving Bob Barr the party’s nomination for president?

“More freedom,” my gay ass. As if Bob Barr even remotely resembles a “Libertarian.” Libertarians are supposed to be fiscal conservatives and social liberals — and Barr (who was, is, and always will be a Republican) WROTE the “Defense of Marriage Act”! (Yeah, the same Bob Barr about whom Frank Rich once wrote: “[The] principal House sponsor [of the federal anti-gay-marriage law, ‘The Defense of Marriage Act’], Bob Barr of Georgia, his district office confirms, has been married three times — which raises the question of why the act doesn’t contain a three-strikes-and-you’re-out provision.”

Seems the Libertarian Powers That Be took Bobby aside and told him he’d better get his position on same-sex marriage in line with the party’s, or he could forget about the nom. Writes Michelangelo Signorile:

On the Friday afternoon before last (May 23), Barr came on my radio program to talk about his run for the presidency. The Libertarian Party was convening that weekend in Denver, and he was hopeful that he would get the nomination.

We spent some time discussing DOMA, which he authored and sponsored in 1996 and which Bill Clinton signed into law. …

We went back and forth about DOMA, the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution, and how, in my view, his position just didn’t gel with libertarian principles. Nonetheless, he staunchly defended DOMA.

Then, two days later, in his acceptance speech after snagging the Libertarian Party nomination, Barr vowed that he would work to repeal DOMA!

What the hell happened? According to Brian Miller, a Libertarian Party member and a member of Outright Libertarians, an LGBT group, Barr was told he wouldn’t get the nomination unless he changed his position on DOMA. Outright Libertarians led the charge with the leadership to pressure Barr; Miller is a listener to my show and heard me comparing audio clips showing Barr’s turnaround, and called in last week to explain what happened behind the scenes at the convention.

So, the Lib Party wouldn’t nominate Mike Gravel, who was already as pro-gay rights as could be, but would nominate Barr, as long as he agreed to flip-flop.

While Barr’s status as super-hypocrite just increased exponentially, I don’t care much one way or the other what Bob Barr does (or who he does it to). The only thing that’s changed is my opinion of the Libertarian Party — which just dropped… again.

Oh, well, at least Barr isn’t going to run on a campaign of anti-gay hate again. That’s some good news. But, as Signorile suggests, Barr could “turn out to actually take some votes that might have gone to the Democratic nominee”:

I don’t see many Democrats voting for Barr over the Democratic nominee, but some gay Republicans and the like-minded who might have gone for Obama (and certainly many have said they have been impressed by Obama) over John McCain might now go to Barr, who is in many ways their dream candidate: He supports all the bedrock conservative principles and is now opposed to DOMA and any other federal antigay legislation. And let’s not forget that, according to exit polls, 23% of the gay, lesbian and bisexual vote in 2004 — assumed to be largely gay Republicans — voted for the Republican candidate, George W. Bush, following up on a similar percentage in 2000. Considering the closeness of both elections, their numbers would have made the difference in Florida and Ohio, had they voted for Al Gore or John Kerry.

Funny that (and I mean, “interesting,” not funny-ha-ha): In my last days of browsing Democratic Underground, I noticed a handful of devout Obama supporters rallying the troops to make monetary donations to Bob Barr’s campaign — the “logic” (if you can call half-assed wishful thinking “logic”) being that Barr will only siphon off Republican votes for John McCain, that never would have gone to Obama in the first place.

What these Obamanauts have failed to consider is exactly what Signorile is saying: Barr is a gay Republican’s dream candidate now — and those on-the-fence Log Cabinites who might very well have pulled the lever for Obama now have little, if any, reason to.

Perhaps the Libertarian Party isn’t so stupid as I thought. And perhaps Bob Barr — while remaining a hypocrite of the first order — isn’t so stupid either.

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May 25, 2008

Stupid Libertarian Party!

Damn it! As long as Mike Gravel was still in the race, I had somebody I could feel good about voting for:

Libertarian Party selects Bob Barr as 2008 presidential nominee

Former Congressman plans to take the White House as Libertarian candidate

Denver — The Libertarian Party has nominated former Congressman Bob Barr as its candidate for president for the 2008 election.

“I’m sure will we emerge here with the strongest ticket in the history of the Libertarian Party,” Barr stated in his victory speech shortly after being selected as the Party’s nominee. “I want everybody to remember that we only have 163 days to win this election. We cannot waste one single day.”

More than 650 Libertarian delegates met in Denver from May 22 till the 26 for the 2008 Libertarian National Convention. After six rounds of voting Sunday afternoon, Barr was selected as the Party’s presidential nominee.

“We’re proud to present to the American voters Bob Barr as our presidential nominee,” says Libertarian Party spokesperson Andrew Davis. “While Republicans and Democrats will fight for their own power in November, Libertarians will fight for Americans. Bob Barr is one of the strongest candidates in the Party’s 37-year history, and we look for him to have an enormous impact in the 2008 race. Republicans and Democrats have good reason to fear a candidate like Barr, who refuses to accept the ‘business-as-usual’ attitude of the current political establishment. Americans want and need another choice, and that choice is Bob Barr.”

The Libertarian Party is America’s third largest political party, founded in 1971 as an alternative to the two main political parties. You can find more information on the Libertarian Party by visiting www.LP.org. The Libertarian Party proudly stands for smaller government, lower taxes and more freedom.

For more information, or to arrange a media interview, please call Andrew Davis at (202) 333-0008 during normal business hours, or at (202) 731-0002 during any other time. For an interview with the Barr campaign, please contact Audrey Mullen at (703) 548-1160.

“More freedom,” my gay ass. As if Bob Barr even remotely resembles a “Libertarian.” Libertarians are supposed to be fiscal conservatives and social liberals — and Barr (who was, is, and always will be a Republican) WROTE the “Defense of Marriage Act”! (Yeah, the same Bob Barr about whom Frank Rich once wrote: “[The] principal House sponsor [of the federal anti-gay-marriage law, ‘The Defense of Marriage Act’], Bob Barr of Georgia, his district office confirms, has been married three times — which raises the question of why the act doesn’t contain a three-strikes-and-you’re-out provision.”

Hence: Stupid Libertarian Party!

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April 22, 2008

It Was My Party, and I’ll Cry If I Want To, or: How the Left Lost the Democratic Party, and the Democratic Party Lost Me

While scanning today’s headlines, two op/eds jumped out at me; seemingly unrelated, they say exactly the same thing: We — The Left — have lost control of the Democratic Party to the “liberal elites,” the rich, triangulating Third Way DLCers who talk a great talk, but have never walked the walk — and really don’t give a damn about your walk.

The first piece, by Dana Milbank at WaPo, profiles an impoverished Pennsylvania couple who are voting for Hillary Clinton today, and — despite the silly notion that they may not “even think [Barack Obama is] American,” and the extremely disturbing racism prevalent among a few other vocal locals) — their practical, economically-based reasons for refusing to vote for Obama, even if he gets the Democratic nomination (and this couple are Democrats).

The second piece is by Chris Hedges, about whom I’ve written before in these pages; Hedges is the author of one of my favorite and most dog-eared books, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America, which explains in clear, if excruciating, detail just how the Radical Religious Right has managed to embed itself into U.S. politics — and, most importantly, why religious fundamentalists of all stripes believe what they believe, and do what they do.

Make no mistake: Hedges is not the radical leftist secularist of the Right’s worst nightmares. The son of a minister and seminary graduate himself, Hedges is equally critical of atheists as he is of religionists; in his newest book, I Don’t Believe in Atheists, he makes it clear that his belief in God and conviction that sin is real, and the barometer of morality, is steadfast:

We have nothing to fear from those who do or do not believe in God; we have much to fear from those who do not believe in sin. The concept of sin is a stark acknowledgment that we can never be omnipotent, that we are bound and limited by human flaws and self-interest. The concept of sin is a check on the utopian dreams of a perfect world. It prevents us from believing in our own perfectibility or the illusion that the material advances of science and technology equal an intrinsic moral improvement in our species. To turn away from God is harmless. Saints have been trying to do it for centuries. To turn away from sin is catastrophic. …

We discard the wisdom of sin at our peril. …

The question is not whether God exists. It is whether we contemplate or are utterly indifferent to the transcendent, that which cannot be measured or quantified, that which lies beyond the reach of rational deduction.

Hedges’ credibility established, let’s turn our attention to the first op/ed that caught my eye today, by Dana Milbank:

In This Forgotten Town, Obama Can Forget About It

The Monongahela River Valley lost its steel mills in the ’80s and, a quarter-century later, this sad town in the heart of the Mon Valley still hasn’t recovered. Its downtown is a collage of crumbling buildings, and its once-proud landmark, the 102-year-old People’s Union Bank Building, has signs in the window: “Bank Repo Sale. Excellent Deal. Eight stories. Priced to sell!”

It is, in short, just the sort of place Barack Obama was talking about when he said he wasn’t getting the support of blue-collar workers of the industrial heartland because they “cling” to guns and religion out of economic bitterness. It is also the place Obama chose to visit on Monday night, on the eve of Tuesday’s primary — and the reception here explains why Obama, the national front-runner, is expected to lose Pennsylvania. …

The Norgrens, who backed Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, will vote for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday. And if Obama wins the nomination, these Democrats say they’ll vote for Republican John McCain, even though they want an end to the war in Iraq, where their soldier-son is about to start his third tour.

If Hillary Clinton wins Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary — and polls forecast that she will do just that — it will be because of white, working-class voters like the Norgrens. Yet the blue-collar voters poised to keep Clinton’s candidacy alive are also the reason she is losing the national race to Obama: Though still in charge here, they have lost control of the Democratic Party to the wealthy and better-educated. …

The average household in McKeesport earns less than $30,000 a year, barely half the U.S. average. Its population has shrunk and aged with the loss of the mills, and the average home here sells for a mere $45,000. …

The antipathy toward Obama isn’t necessarily logical. Outside the Giant Eagle … Edward Norgren listed his reasons: Clinton’s ad accusing Obama of taking oil-company money; Michelle Obama’s suggestion that she hadn’t been “proud” of her country; Obama’s provocative former preacher, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. And, of course, there was the “bitter” remark. …

Now, on to Chris Hedges:

The left has lost its nerve and its direction

The failure of the American left is a failure of nerve. It has been neutralized and rendered ineffectual as a political force because of its refusal to hold fast on core issues, from universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans, to the steadfast protection of workers’ rights, to an immediate withdrawal from the failed occupation of Iraq to a fight against a militarized economy that is hollowing the country out from the inside.

Let the politicians compromise. This is their job. It is not ours. If the left wants to regain influence in the nation’s political life, it must be willing to walk away from the Democratic Party, even if Barack Obama is the nominee, and back progressive, third-party candidates until the Democrats feel enough heat to adopt our agenda. We must be willing to say no. If not, we become slaves. …

The object of a movement is not to achieve political power at any price. It is to create pressure and mobilize citizens around core issues of justice. It is to force politicians and parties to respond to our demands. It is about rewarding, through support and votes, those who champion progressive ideals and punishing those who refuse. And the current Democratic Party, as any worker in a former manufacturing town in Pennsylvania can tell you, has betrayed us. …

The working class has every right to be, to steal a line from Obama, bitter with liberal elites. … Human beings are not, despite what the well-heeled Democratic and Republican apologists for the free market tell you, commodities. They are not goods. They grieve, and suffer and feel despair. They raise children and struggle to maintain communities. The growing class divide is not understood, despite the glibness of many in the media, by complicated sets of statistics or the absurd, utopian faith in unregulated globalization and complicated trade deals. It is understood in the eyes of a man or woman who is no longer making enough money to live with dignity and hope. …

The failure of the left is the failure of well-meaning people who kept compromising and compromising in the name of effectiveness and a few scraps of influence until they had neither. … The left has been transformed into anguished apologists for corporate greed. They have become hypocrites. …

Hope, St. Augustine wrote, has two beautiful daughters. They are anger and courage. Anger at the way things are and the courage to see they do not remain the way they are. We stand at the verge of a massive economic dislocation, one forcing millions of families from their homes and into severe financial distress, one that threatens to rend the fabric of our society. If we do not become angry, if we do not muster within us the courage to challenge the corporate state that is destroying our nation, we will have squandered our credibility and integrity at the moment we need it most.

The message is the same — the Democratic Party has forgotten its core values, and we, the left wing of the (formerly-)left wing, have let the party get away with it. Of course, they’ve got the money — but we have the votes. The party can spend all the money in the world trying to schmooze us, but at the end of the day, when it’s your job that’s disappeared, and your kid who goes to school without breakfast, you have to decide what your loyalty to the party has gotten you.

The answer lies within the Democratic Party itself, in both its official platform (for which DNC has deemed the top three “key Democratic Party ideals” as prosperity, peace, and progress), and, more telling, in its simple, clear mission statement, “The Democratic Vision“:

The Democratic Party is committed to keeping our nation safe and expanding opportunity for every American. That commitment is reflected in an agenda that emphasizes the security of our nation, strong economic growth, affordable health care for all Americans, retirement security, honest government, and civil rights.

What’s telling is that, in this statement, national security comes first — and is the first issue mentioned, again, at the beginning of the second sentence — and civil rights comes last, with the economy and vague, imprecise language about “expanding opportunity for every American” and “strong economic growth” jammed in between.

But you have to ask: What do those things mean? What do they mean, in practical terms, to you and your family?

If you take the time to read the full Democratic Party platform, you’ll see that “prosperity, peace, and progress” still take a backseat to more than 18 pages’ worth of discussion about defeating terrorism and strengthening our military.

As essential as it is to prevent another 9/11, the fact remains: If you’re hungry or homeless, you’re not going to give a damn about anything except food and shelter. That’s why the economy is the number-one issue on voters’ minds: We’re talking survival. And a whole lot of us aren’t surviving.

The latest Hightower Lowdown arrived in my mailbox yesterday; the entire issue is dedicated to spelling out, in many simple but terrifying tables, “What 8 years of BushCheney have done to our economy.” I won’t get into the whole thing here; it deserves to be read, and digested, in full. Suffice to say, if you’re not rich, you’re in trouble.

Nevertheless, you may be surprised to learn that economic fears are apparently not affecting votes:

With growing layoffs, tight credit and an ailing housing market, 67 percent say the economy is an extremely important issue, up from 46 percent in November. Gasoline prices follow close behind at 59 percent.

The war in Iraq — the dominant issue for several years — stands at 48 percent. …

Yet those who have become extremely concerned about the economy since last fall show no significant difference from everyone else in backing a presidential candidate. Both groups divide about evenly between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, and between McCain and the other Democrat, Hillary Rodham Clinton. …

People calling the economy extremely important lean toward the two Democratic presidential contenders, while those less concerned prefer McCain. The partisan divide helps explain that, as does income. Of those most worried about the economy, people earning under $50,000 a year prefer the two Democrats over McCain, middle-income earners are divided evenly, and McCain wins the most affluent.

Democrats divide between Obama and Clinton about the same whether or not they are extremely concerned about the economy.

While I’ve long believed (and still do) that a Hillary Clinton administration stands a far greater chance of restoring economic health in the U.S., it appears that voters see so little difference between A) the two Democratic candidates, and/or B) the two parties, that the most pressing issue — the economy — isn’t having much effect on voters who were going to vote Democratic (or Republican) anyway.

And that begs the question: Is there any longer a truly significant difference between the parties, on this or any other urgent issue on which the very survival of our people, and thus our nation, hinges?

Not that I’m advocating anyone vote Republican, mind you — that would be utter insanity. No; what I’m asking you to think about is just how far to the right the Democratic Party has shifted (on every issue, not just the economy), and, more importantly, what you are going to do about it.

Can the Democratic Party be fixed from within? That’s one option. But that’s what we’ve been trying to do all along, isn’t it? We’ve been holding our noses and voting a straight Democratic ticket, because we have no other choice — or so we’ve been told. And while we’ve been gritting our teeth and waiting for our party to return to the core values that made this country great, the big-money types keep dragging the party further and further to the right — and us along with it.

You know the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results every time.

I just can’t do the insanity thing anymore. Where I go from here, I don’t know. The Greens, God love ‘em, cling too stubbornly to the idea that they can run a presidential candidate every term before building the party from the local and state level up (like the Republicans did — quite successfully, if you’ve noticed). I’m not a Libertarian (although, honestly, if Mike Gravel wins the LP nomination, I will be voting Libertarian for the first time in my life). What about the Socialist Party? As noble as Socialist goals are, no, I’m not so idealistic as to believe society can be rebuilt from scratch.

All I know is that I never left the Democratic Party — the Democratic Party left me.

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March 27, 2008

Boy, was I wrong about Mike Gravel… and am I ever glad!

About that “flat tax” — it’s not a flat tax at all. (Never take the word of staunch supporters of a different candidate!)

Here’s Mike’s fair tax plan:

Progressive Taxes - A fair Tax Senator Gravel’s Progressive Fair Tax proposal calls for eliminating the IRS and the income tax and replacing it with a national sales tax on new products and services. To compensate for the tax on necessities, such as food, lodging, transportation and clothing, there would be a “rebate” to reimburse taxpayers. This would be paid in a monthly check from the government to all citizens. The focus on taxing new goods would also help tackle the global climate change problem. For more information go here and here More information on what FairTax is and how it works can be found here, here, and here.

I like that. I like that, a lot.

That leaves only his Social Security plan that I might take issue with — but the jury’s still out on SS until I understand exactly what he intends to do.

This is getting dangerous, folks — not to you, or to me, but to the Democratic candidates: Mike Gravel is viable.

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So, Mike Gravel is running as a Libertarian? Things are going to get interesting again!

I wanted to update you on my latest plans before news gets out. Today, I am announcing my plan to join the Libertarian Party, because the Democratic Party no longer represents my vision for our great country. I wanted my supporters to get this news first, because you have been the ones who have kept my campaign alive since I first declared my candidacy on April 17, 2006.

Mike Gravel
Gravel ‘08

Well, now, this changes things. Since I just found out about it — and since he doesn’t even have the Libertarian nomination yet — it’s far too early for me to make any immediate decisions.

I do, however, have a few thoughts:

1. If the Libertarian Party has half an ounce of sense, Mike Gravel will be its nominee, if on no other basis than Q factor + all those juicy crossover votes from Democrats who feel hung out to dry by being forced to choose between Obama and Clinton (and who are still pissed off that their first, or second, or even fifth choice dropped out before their state primary).

Now, hear tell there’s something like 15 other people competing for the Libertarian nod — which sounds like a lot of competition, until you realize you have absolutely no idea who any of these candidates are. (I certainly can’t name any without Googling, can you?)

In the early debates and who-knows-how-many interviews, Mike Gravel has done half the work for the Libs already. He won me over (after Kucinich, Gravel was neck-and-neck with Richardson as my number-two choice until Richardson made that lousy maricon remark).

2. Where the Libs will balk is on Gravel’s polar-opposite positions to some key issues, such as universal healthcare (Gravel supports it, the Libs don’t). In reality, Mike Gravel is the perfect Green Party candidate — but let’s face it, folks: the Greens just aren’t ready for prime time. (Hey, I’m a Greenie at heart, and even I can see that.) Moving into the Lib camp was a wise move for Gravel, financially and in terms of credibility.

3. The Obamacans are going to go insane. Yellow-dog Democrats won’t be too pleased, either, but the Obamacans are going to go absolutely insane when they realize how many votes from former Kucinich supporters, Edwards supporters, and newly-resurrected Gravel supporters will be siphoned off from their Heavenly Messiah Obama. And they will be siphoned off, big-time.

3. Of course Gravel won’t win the general election — and in truth, he will end up being a major spoiler to the “presumptive” nominee, Lord Barry Most High.

Will this result in President McCain? Frankly, I believe Candidate Obama will result in President McCain.

Of Obama and Clinton, I believe only Clinton stands a chance of beating McCain in the GE (and the latest Rasmussen poll agrees).

And I don’t believe Clinton is going to get the nomination.

4. I have problems with Gravel on two issues: the flat tax (in short, it really is unfair to the working poor) and Social Security (his plan for which sounds a little too close to privatization for my comfort — although on the surface I do rather like the idea of leaving surplus SSA funds to heirs, as long as he’s able to compensate for the loss).

Otherwise, I agree with Mike Gravel on every other issue. Everything. All of them.

5. One thing’s for sure: With Mike back in the race, it is not going to be politics as usual.

And thank God for that…

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May 29, 2003

What’s Par for the Libertarians…

Obey the law and keep Bush off the Illinois ballot, say state Libertarians

Illinois should obey its ballot access laws — and keep President George W. Bush off the 2004 ballot.

So said the Libertarian Party of Illinois, after Republicans revealed that they would not nominate their 2004 presidential candidate until seven days after the Illinois deadline for certifying candidates for the November ballot.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has requested that the Illinois State Board of Elections ignore the law, and place President Bush’s name on the ballot anyway.

“The Republican Party needs to abide by the same rule of law as everyone else,” said Illinois LP Executive Director Jeff Trigg. “You can be sure if the tables were turned — and it was the Libertarians nominating their presidential candidate seven days after the deadline — they wouldn’t lift a finger to help us stay on the ballot.”

The Republican Party will nominate its presidential candidate — almost certain to be incumbent George W. Bush, who faces no significant opposition and has already announced he will seek re-election — at its national convention on September 3, 2004. That’s 61 days before the November 2 general election.

However, Illinois state election law requires presidential candidates to be certified at least 67 days prior to the general election.

In response, the RNC has asked the State Board of Elections (SBE) to grant them an “exception” to the law. The board said it would consider the request at an upcoming meeting after getting a legal opinion from Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

But Libertarians said the State Board of Elections does not have the authority to grant exemptions — and thus arbitrarily decide which political parties must follow the law.

At a press conference in the State Capitol Press Room in Springfield on May 19, Trigg said the only way Bush can qualify for the ballot is if the Illinois General Assembly changes the law. …

Noting that Libertarian candidates have been kept off the ballot in the past because of restrictive ballot access laws, Trigg said the law should be enforced equally.

“Libertarians don’t believe President Bush should be kept off the Illinois ballot because of a technicality, any more than they believe their own candidates should suffer the same fate,” he said. “But the fact is that Libertarian and other candidates have been taken off the ballot on technicalities — and the Republican Party needs to abide by the same rule of law as everyone else.”

If the SBE does grant Bush an exemption to the law, it will merely prove that Illinois has a “double standard,” said Trigg. …

Libertarian Party
May 28, 2003

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