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Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

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Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

WeWantMore said:
The Libertarian Party is supposed to stand for limited government and the like, how does holding up a candidate like Murkowski, who's never met a bailout or handout she didn't like, help them advance those goals?
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The idea is that by selling out, they can get a stronger grasp on the American political landscape if they syphon off a large percentage of votes in a major federal election (really, anything over 10% would be huge for them). That way, the old argument that voting Libertarian (or any other third party) is "wasting your vote" could be laid to rest.

I agree, it's stupid and it won't work. They're just having a political pipe dream.
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

I think in some states there's also an advantage to achieving over a certain % of the vote in an election. Maybe it guarantees ballot access the next time around? I know that's a factor in New York (admittedly an F'ed up political process with multiple party lines) but the Greens were whining about that too when they embraced that fraud Little Ralphie Nader in the 2000 elections.
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Rover said:
I think in some states there's also an advantage to achieving over a certain % of the vote in an election. Maybe it guarantees ballot access the next time around? I know that's a factor in New York (admittedly an F'ed up political process with multiple party lines) but the Greens were whining about that too when they embraced that fraud Little Ralphie Nader in the 2000 elections.
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Also debate access, IINM.

This would be a pretty Machiavellian example, though. As somebody else said, it's not just that Murkowski isn't in any way a Libertarian, it's that Miller defeated her because of an issue on which she is opposite the Libertarian philosophy. It would be like the PA Liberal Party nominating Rick Santorum to establish "ballot presence."
 
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Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Kepler said:
Also debate access, IINM.

This would be a pretty Machiavellian example, though. As somebody else said, it's not just that Murkowski isn't in any way a Libertarian, it's that Miller defeated her because of an issue on which she is opposite the Libertarian philosophy. It would be like the PA Liberal Party nominating Rick Santorum to establish "ballot presence."
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Pretty much. I actually kind of agree with the alleged principles of the Libertarian Party on a basic level, but the party itself attracts a lot of unrealistic minarchist crazies who want to do stuff like privatize roads and completely shut down public education. Then they go and do stuff like this, and consider throwing away their supposed principles for the sake of poll numbers. Both of these issues make it easy to steer well clear of associating oneself with them.
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

FadeToBlack&Gold said:
Pretty much. I actually kind of agree with the alleged principles of the Libertarian Party on a basic level, but the party itself attracts a lot of unrealistic minarchist crazies who want to do stuff like privatize roads and completely shut down public education. Then they go and do stuff like this, and consider throwing away their supposed principles for the sake of poll numbers. Both of these issues make it easy to steer well clear of associating oneself with them.
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There was a coup of sorts in the national Libertarian party a few years back, where the fire-breathing old timers were shelved as honorably emeritus. It was all very People's Front of Judea vs Judean People's Front, but when the dust settled the pragmatists ruled the roost. Maybe the same thing is going on at the state level now.

I think it's a mistake. They're the only party with fiscal conservative bona fides, and the Crazytown policy prescriptions are how that theory plays out into actual policy, rather than the hypocrisy of the GOP. They ought to be the party of choice for the third or so of Tea Partiers who don't read the Constitution in the original Aramaic.
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Kepler said:
There was a coup of sorts in the national Libertarian party a few years back, where the fire-breathing old timers were shelved as honorably emeritus. It was all very People's Front of Judea vs Judean People's Front, but when the dust settled the pragmatists ruled the roost. Maybe the same thing is going on at the state level now.

I think it's a mistake. They're the only party with fiscal conservative bona fides, and the Crazytown policy prescriptions are how that theory plays out into actual policy, rather than the hypocrisy of the GOP. They ought to be the party of choice for the third or so of Tea Partiers who don't read the Constitution in the original Aramaic.
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I think one of the biggest problems they have is that you are ostracized if you don't fall in line with every part of their belief system. You can be with them on 99% of the items, but if you agreed with going into Iraq (for example) they don't want you.
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

MinnFan said:
I think one of the biggest problems they have is that you are ostracized if you don't fall in line with every part of their belief system. You can be with them on 99% of the items, but if you agreed with going into Iraq (for example) they don't want you.
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Depends on who the "they" is. There is a "Big Tent Libertarianism" where people are heterodox. They have had a ginormous internal split between pro-lifers and pro-choicers that they've managed to keep civil for decades.
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Keep in mind that Bob Barr was their Presidential candidate in '08, so this isn't exactly new. Though, to his credit, Barr did renounce most of the things he voted for in the 90s before running.
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Kepler said:
Depends on who the "they" is. There is a "Big Tent Libertarianism" where people are heterodox. They have had a ginormous internal split between pro-lifers and pro-choicers that they've managed to keep civil for decades.
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If squashing pro-life voices means being civil, then you're correct.
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Bob Gray said:
If squashing pro-life voices means being civil, then you're correct.
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I would think that the Libertarian Party would be the one place where there would be a Pro Life/Choice rift becasue they would all agree that the issue should be decided by the States instead of the Feds.
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

MinnFan said:
I would think that the Libertarian Party would be the one place where there would be a Pro Life/Choice rift becasue they would all agree that the issue should be decided by the States instead of the Feds.
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My bad. Still waking up and misread Libertarian for Liberalism. Certainly I'd think the Libertarians would at least be open to varying views on a social issue like that.
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Interesting day for Joe Miller. Tweets that Murkowski is partaking in the world's oldest profession by flirting with the Libertarians, then rips on the NRSC for sending in a lawyer, accuses them of helping Murkowski "pull an Al Franken."
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

MinnFan said:
I would think that the Libertarian Party would be the one place where there would be a Pro Life/Choice rift becasue they would all agree that the issue should be decided by the States instead of the Feds.
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I don't know the internal workings of the Libertarian party, but I'd be really surprised if they view abortion through the lens of federalism. I'm not sure what the different levels of government would have to do with it.

I imagine they think that government has no business interfering with personal matters (like pregnancy). Which means it boils down to if/when an unborn child is considered a person. If no, then the government has no right getting involved. If yes, then the gov't cannot stand by passively while those rights are ignored.

Meaning the divide among Libertarians isn't any different than the divide among other groups of people.

$.02
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Stuff like this cracks me up.

Depending on how the absentee-ballot counting goes, the next U.S. senator from Alaska could well be Joe Miller, an antispending conservative backed by the Tea Party Express.

He attacked incumbent Republican Lisa Murkowski mercilessly on the issue of government spending. If he gets to Washington, he says, he will be tough on federal spending, really tough -- a balanced-budget amendment, a line-item veto, no new entitlements, a soft freeze on federal spending, a phaseout of Social Security and Medicare for younger workers, a halt to earmarks.

Miller is so serious about reining in federal spending that he runs a national-debt clock on the home page of his website.

Assuming he gets to Washington, we will have an early gauge of how serious he is about this issue -- because if you're going to attack federal spending, there's no better place to start than his home state of Alaska.

Forget cutting off funds to the United Nations. You can do that later. Let's start off cutting the river of federal cash flowing to Alaska.

For all that talk of frugality and self-reliance, Alaska is happily awash in federal largesse.

On a per-capita basis, Alaska is by far the largest recipient of federal money. It gets almost $6 back for every $1 its people pay in taxes. Federal tax dollars support a third of the state's jobs. It leads the nation in earmarks -- a fancy name for pork barrel spending -- at $506 per capita. The state's Republican politicians may deride President Obama's stimulus spending, but Alaska happily led the nation in the amount per resident of stimulus money accepted -- $3,145. (Florida, much bigger and much less well-off, got $914.)
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http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/101686308.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU

I wonder what Palin's answer to that is?
 
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Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

What I want to see is an amendment put forward by the Congress that says no State can take in more than it pays in. That's fair, right? That should cut the budget considerably.
 
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