First GOP Debate Thursday: Let the Media Marginalization Begin!

The L.A. Times laments that this Thursday's planned Fox News/South Carolina Republican Party GOP candidate debate is only attracting Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty among the "top tier" candidates (whoever that is in this time many months before any votes have been cast.) The others who are in: "former Sen. Rick Santorum, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, restaurant executive Herman Cain and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson."

The good news for the libertarian minded is this should give Ron Paul and Gary Johnson a chance to shine brighter on what one hopes is a national stage that will get big attention.

Unless, of course, the press decide that it doesn't matter if we talk about what these guys say because no one is interested in them, because we never really talk about them to arose any interest, because….you see how this works.

**Fixed from inaccurately stating the debate was Friday.

**And I had not yet read that Matt Welch blogged the same story right under me.

Comments

[shep the herd & his brass band]

was Trump invited?

[Mike M.]

The good news for the libertarian minded is this should give Ron Paul and Gary Johnson a chance to shine brighter on what one hopes is a national stage that will get big attention.

Don't kid yourself: nobody cares about this debate. My guess is 95% of the country doesn't even know it's taking place. The freaking primaries don't start for another eight months!

[sloopyinca]

It'd have more impact if there were two stories (back to back) on H&R about th...

[Tony]

Maybe we should have public funding of campaigns instead of letting media corporations decide who they want to allow into the room.

[Ray Pew]

Yayyyyy!!!! Make me pay for voices I have no interest in supporting. Brilliant!!!

[Tony]

Okay then don't bitch when private companies in the business of selling political news don't invite your guy to the party.

[Joe M]

Are you kidding? Bitching is one of the most American things you can do. Doesn't mean I think it should be illegal for the shitty L.A. Times to run its shitty stories, but I'm damn well gonna bitch about it all I want.

[Ray Pew]

Okay then don't bitch when private companies in the business of selling political news don't invite your guy to the party.

I can bitch while knowing that I wasn't also pilfered to promote a candidate I don't support. I couldn't have this minimal satisfaction under a tax payer subsidized system, which doesn't even guarantee that "my" candidate would be present.

[PIRS]

Do you really think that "public funding" = no strings attached?

[Fire Tiger]

Yes, by all means, let the currently elected officials decide who they want to run againt.

[Hazel Meade]

Given that the FEC already acts as an arm of the two-party establishment, what makes you think that any public-campaign-financing agency would be any different?

It's not liek they are going to just hand out money to ANY candidate. There would have to be some kind of "legitimacy" test, to see if they represented a real party, or a real constituency. And the legitimacy test would end up being tweaked to keep out third party candidates.

That's why third party candidates have such a hard time getting listed on the ballot. The FEC controls the determining criteria, and the two major parties control the FEC.

[Alan Vanneman]

"Unless, of course, the press decide that it doesn't matter if we talk about what these guys say because no one is interested in them, because we never really talk about them to arose any interest, because....you see how this works."

Well, at least we know the day the debate will be held on. That's definitely a step in the right direction, eh? One step at a time is a good rule.

[The Gobbler]

From Today's Best of the Web:

Libertarians Against Joy

What a sourpuss Reason's Radley Balko is. "Osama Won" declares the headline of his post at the libertarian magazine's website. He argues that the 9/11 attacks "fundamentally altered who we are," a claim that has been a clich? for at least 9? years, and he gives a long list of particulars.
Some of them we even agree with, such as airport-security overkill. But we notice two conspicuous omissions from Balko's list: the death and destruction wrought by terrorist attacks themselves, and the legitimate fear of terrorism. It's an example of how ideology can promote a blinkered worldview.

This bit, though, is the worst part:
There was something unsettling about watching giddy crowds bounce around beach balls and climb telephone polls last night, as if they were in the lawn seats at a rock festival. Solemn and somber appreciation that an evil man is gone seemed like the more appropriate reaction.

What's the point of having libertarians if they're going to boss us around and tell us how we're supposed to feel? Liberals do a more than adequate job of that.

http://online.wsj.com/article/.....TopOpinion

[Lost_In_Translation]

America, Fuck Yeah! Death to the infidels (oops, i mean terrorists)

[Trig Palin]

Reason alum move on.
Taranto to the Wall Street Journal
Balko to the Huffington Post

Draw your own conclusions.
(and somebody tell Taranto that Balko is just a civil libertarian, not the Republican pot-smoking roadless Somali anarchist kind)

[Hazel Meade]

I think celebrations are reasonable, because Bin Laden's death wasn't just the end of Bin Laden.

People were celebrating because the end of Bin Laden means the end of the War on Terror, and this whole shitty decade.

Yeah, I know, it's premature to say it's "over", but I do feel that the public's patience and interest in all our middle eastern adventures is going to rapidly wear thin with Bin Laden out of the picture. It's time to wind this shit down.

[shrike]

Well, Santorum is certifiably insane and Herm Cain is a retired pizza flipper without an original thought in his life - and T-Paw is the dipshit you make fun of while in high school.

So Johnson and Paul should look very good.

[PIRS]

Herman Cain ran a major pizza company. Rather different than being a "pizza flipper". This would be like calling the CEO of McDonalds a "burger flipper". Cain was CEO of Godfather's Pizza.

[shrike]

But Romney ran Bain which is far more impressive than Godfathers Pizza. Plus Romney was governor of a major state.

Cain has nothing going for him even in this shabby field.

[Libertymike]

Well, at least Cain, unlike Romney, does not claim to have hit a home run while being born on third base.

[sloopyinca]

And Cain's company actually did make things, even if they were pizzas. Bain did nothing but shift money around. Romney doesn't want to get into that argument.

[shrike]

And people keep telling me this is a libertarian site.

And you GOPers really don't exist!

[Skip]

Shrike, let me break it down for you:

Democratic politicians hate libertarians. Even principled anti-war ones like Dennis Kucinich don't consider themselves libertarians in any way.

Republican politicians are at least willing to consider themselves a little libertarian.

[Mike in PA]

...if they think it will get them votes or help them fund raise...

[Hazel Meade]

All Johnson has to do is sit there and act like a sane normal person while the others creep everyone out.

[Ray Pew]

Paul better be prepared for the inevitable question concerning his non-interventionist stance and the recent killing of bin Laden. To the Right, bin Laden's death is vindication for the War on Terror and they will be coiled to pounce on Paul for his blasphemy.

[Lost_In_Translation]

How, he never said that he was opposed to going after Bin Laden...and we didn't even have to invade PAKISTAN to do it.

[jtuf]

My grad school mentor taught me a saying, "If you want certainty, collect only 1 data point. If you want a errorless linear regression line, collect only 2 data points." In other words, being overly sure of a conclusion is a sign that you don't have much data.

[mad libertarian guy]

Or that the data has been manipulated to conform to a particular hypothesis (see Change, Climate).

[me/dwc]

You know, I expect and have learned to accept marginalization from the main stream. What concerns me more is the marginalization by people (the "in crowd","beltway" types of liberty advocates, without mentioning names. The ones who write articles praising, say, Huckabee for his libertarian views.) who should be going out of their way to support the most prominent and only nationally known proponent of individual liberty and from whom we are already getting the usual left handed compliments and tsk, tsking about electability and "concerns" about "pragmatism" and the rest of the horseshit . All of which will most certainly ramp up in the next couple of years. With friends like that - well, you know.

[Robert]

Whgy don't you name names and give examples? And don't we all engage in some type of marginaliz'n? It's called making choices.

I don't know what the Huckabee articles reference refers to, maybe I'll find out just by scrolling down, but...I bet if you let the avg. concerned person pick 20 policy Qs and lined up Huckabee relative to them, he'd be on the libertarian side more often than the authoritarian side of those Qs that had clear libertarian & authoritarian sides. Of course you could say that's a reflection of what the avg. concerned person's concerns are as opposed to "ours".

[Hazel Meade]

Who thinks Huckabee is libertarian?

Isn't he basically a welfare-state Christian? he just wants to hand out bibles with the food stamps.

[Corporate Drone]

to arose any interest by any other name would smell just as cromulent.

*throws a dictionary at author*

[Hazel Meade]

On the plus side, Ron Paul being in the debate will make Gary Johnson look like a sane reasonable centrist.

[squarooticus]

Is this going to be available on the tubes somewhere? Cable is for old people. 🙂