Further Adventures in ThirdPartyLand
David Weigel | December 10, 2007, 4:52pm
Ron Paul's campaign has
rebuffed the Libertarian Party's resolution and denied, again, that he'll run in the fall if he loses the GOP nomination.
Paul spokesman Jesse Benton said it would not happen. "Ron has no intention to run third party whatsoever," he said.
But there's progress in the most-underreported third party bid of the season. Former Rep. Cynthia McKinney—her of cop-punching and huge, scary entourage fame—made a stop in Iowa to promote her Green Party presidential bid.
"In most places my audience have been small on the Green side and large on the independent thinking side," McKinney said. She also noted that the Ron Paul movement is "wonderful for the Greens, because people are thinking independently."
"We're on the wrong track on just about every issue that concerns our way of life," says McKinney, putting the war at the top of the list.
If Paul passes on a third-party run, McKinney will bid for pieces of his coalition. I have no idea how successful she'd be, but you couldn't find two more antipodal personalities outside of a Justice League-Injustice Gang match-up.
Mad Max | December 10, 2007, 7:28pm | #
Enough with the jokes re Edward's Mom.
Let me take a crack at "the question" [in ALL CAPS]:
I have no idea who will get the Republican nomination. Like some famous guy supposedly said, it's hard to make predictions, especially about the future.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/121684.html
In 1956, JFK couldn't even get the Vice-Presidential nomination, much less the Presidential. Did that mean his efforts were fruitless? He came back in 1960.
In 1928, the Socialist candidate lost. The Socialist candidates lost all their Presidential elections. Did that mean their efforts were worthless? The duopoly parties (Dems and Reps) adopted a whole lot of the Socialist platform.
George Wallace lost in 1968 and again in 1972. Yet he got enough supporters to show that there were vote to be had among his supporters by the major parties - a lesson the GOP took to heart.
Ross Perot lost in 1992, but the voters he attracted - who liked his message of balanced budgets - may have had influence on some of the (limited) budget-balancing policies of future years.
Ron Paul's opponents lost around ten of his political campaigns - does that mean the major parties should never have bothered fielding candidates against him?
And then there's Goldwater's loss in 1964, McGovern's loss in 1972, and Reagan's loss in 1976. Too bad that the followers of these candidates disappeared after those elections and had no further influence on public policy.
Politics is all about offering voters choices.
“Ron Paul- Cynthia McKinney - Aaron Russo
“What do they have in common?
“IRRELEVANCE!”
I think Dr. Paul is relevant –that’s why I like to discuss him in this forum.
What’s your excuse?
Mad Max | December 10, 2007, 10:15pm | #
It's turning into the Mad Tea Party over here! Anyway . . .
“Mad Max
“Surely a good Catholic like you will afford me enough respect to answer a sincere question.”
Patience, Ed (if it’s you who posted that). I shouldn’t even be posting here at all right now – I’m studying for a test. Sheesh – I turn my attention away from the thread for a few minutes and you start experiencing withdrawal symptoms.
I thought I already answered “the question” (or THE QUESTION), and I don’t know which additional question you want me to answer, so let me take one of your comments at random:
“But Ron Paul is so unlibertarian on so many issues--gay adoption, building a fence along the border, abolishing birthright citizenship, making up God references in the Constitution”
All right, let’s see. Taking these issues one by one:
gay adoptions -
As a good Catholic, I was certainly not impressed when Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts forced the Catholic Church to stop putting children up for adoption,
http://tinyurl.com/h6dbp
I suppose the attitude of some gay activists was, “if we can’t adopt kids through a Catholic agency, nobody can!” As for the welfare of the children concerned – ah, everyone knows that “for the children” is a meaningless slogan, right?
border fence -
Everyone on H&R (whether they agree with it or not) knows the rationale for Dr. Paul’s immigration stance – you can’t combine a huge welfare state with open borders and expect everything to be hunky-dory.
birthright citizenship –
Let’s be clear – the good Doctor wants to keep birthright citizenship for the children of citizens, and let Congress decide on the citizenship status of the children of aliens. Insofar as that applies to the children of illegal aliens, I think the Dr. is right. Even if you disagree, Dr. Paul is seeking this Constitutional change through the only acceptable method – an amendment to the Constitution, requiring three-fourths of the states to approve. That’s 38 states. He’s not trying to sneak this into the Constitution through executive order, Act of Congress, or Supreme Court opinion.
God in the Constitution:
If you add together all the references to God in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, you get five references. The fifth reference is specifically to Christ – the phrase “year of our Lord” in Article VII. Then there’s Article I, Section 7, which gives the President “ten days (Sundays excepted) to veto a bill.
Some say that the phrase ‘year of our Lord” is merely a throwaway line – but Article VII clearly calculates the year based on the “year of our Lord’ and the year of ‘the Independence of the United States of America’ – is the reference to American independence also a throwaway line?
Among modern secularists, the convention is to say “Common Era” (CE) or “Before Common Era” (BCE) rather than the customary “year of Our Lord.”
“The changes -- showing up at museums, in academic circles and in school textbooks -- have been touted as more sensitive to people of faiths outside of Christianity.”
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20060527/ai_n16436633
Those theocratic Founders – insensitive to non-Christians!
