To: Principled Libertarians
From: Mitch Berg, Uppity “Establishment” Tea Party Peasant
Re: Bamboozled
My Libertarian Friends,
I likely agree with you all on more than we disagree. Some of you like to focus on the disagreements, which makes for fun rhetoric, but whatever; I would call myself a constitutional limited government conservative. The battle to limit the power of government is a long, uphill slog – against the gleefully statist Democrats, and against a GOP establishment that has plenty of constituents that benefit from the Big State, as well as a crucially large Tea Party faction that is quite the opposite.
Whatever. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Anyway.
Now, one of you folks’s signature lines is that you’d rather be irrelevant at the polls than violate your principles.
And generally – and I say this with all due respect – Libertarians achieve that wish with flying colors. Their irrelevance at the polls is legendary; most LP candidates are doing well to poll in full single digits – to the left of the decimal point, anyway.
And the big “Ron Paul” takeover of the Minnesota GOP has had mixed results. Some districts – like my SD65 – saw excellent efforts by solid candidates that turned out lots of new GOP voters. Others – the 5th CD – turned out more like frat party gags gone awry, run by people who chuckle amongst themselves about the contempt they feel for the GOP and Republicans.
As a general rule, Libertarians (with the Big L) are happy to remain magnificently above the scrums of daily life, gazing down on all the silly worker ants and their door-knocking and sign-pounding, focusing on big thoughts and dreaming of the utopia we’ll all share (from our neutral corners) once you get those damn brainwashed sheeple to see the light.
All is in its place, right?
So for the Virginia Libertarian Party, it must have seemed like Free Pot and Raw Milk day; someone gave them actual money to run a campaign.
Of course, that “someone” was an Obama bundler.
And the Libertarian candidate for Governor came in with a little over six percent of the vote. And I’m going to hypothesize with little fear of contradiction that in and among the people who wouldn’t have voted anyway there was a preponderance of a couple of Republicans, maybe several, for every Democrat.
Which was precisely why an Obama bundler rounded up all the money, of course – for the same reason that Liberals With Deep Pockets ® donated to Tom Horner. To siphon votes.
Now, many of you believe there’s no difference between the two major parties. I reject that premise (while stipulating that the GOP has a ton of room for improvement, which is why I’m firmly in the Tea Party wing of the party, and have been since long before there was a Tea Party).
But whatever it is you believe about the difference (?) between the two major parties, I gotta ask you; what do you think about having your movement and its principles co-opted in all their above-it-all grandeur to help solidify the control of the most gleefully, overtly statist of the parties?
“It’s not my fault” might be true and is still an evasion.
Only Libertarians and Republicans in the comment section on this one, please; the kids have all sorts of other places on my blog to romp and play; comments re the Democrat point of view will likely be deleted without ceremony.
I don’t do that often – but I am today.
It’s my blog. Don’t like it? Talk to the hand.
Obviously what we need is “choice voting”. While this favors the left in local, urban elections, it favors the right in state and national elections.
Therefore, “choice voting” should only be allowed in state-wide and national elections.
There is nothing unfair or partisan about this. I can produce a ‘study’ by a ‘think tank’ or an ‘academic’ that says so, if necessary.
I’d give just about everybody in the discussion a copy of this book and a mirror.
A question of clarification here rather than a comment.
So is it your position that Libertarians should just be quiet if they can’t raise sufficient funds on their own, or are you arguing that large or small L, they sold out to their source of funding? Because they seem as entitled as any other group to promote their message any way they can (or wish).
I don’t see their source of funding as any different than the shenanigans next door in WI, for example, when Republicans ran as faux democrats. If anything, funding the libertarians seems more above board; no one was trying to deceive anyone else about their actual politics.
But perhaps I misunderstood your argument? Thanks for the clarification.
Who let the Dog in?
Liberats found a “loophole” to divide the electorate. Pure and simple.
A minor point of information, the amount donated by the “Obama bundler’ was only $11,000.
Is the argument here that amount seriously affected the win or loss of the Cooch, given the millions spent by conservatives? Just wondering if that is what is claimed or not (because it is a silly claim).
So is it your position that Libertarians should just be quiet if they can’t raise sufficient funds on their own
No.
Is the argument here that amount seriously affected the win or loss of the Cooch
It wasn’t the only major donation from lefties with deep pockets. Just a high-profile one.
Just like Horner in 2010.
Wet Dog thread-jack. Just say “no”.
I’d like to come back to this thread later when I have a little more time, assuming it hasn’t gone off chasing fleas.
“…most LP candidates are doing well to poll in full single digits – to the left of the decimal point, anyway.”
That’ll leave a mark.
Might I provide a plug for the Republican Liberty Caucus?
http://rlcmn.org/
In 2009, the GOP carried Virginia’s governor’s race by 17-18%. They lost the race this year by 3%. Therefore, there was a twenty-one percent swing in the electorate. You cannot blame this swing on;”Libertarians”, television advertising or claiming an election was winnable. Mr. Cuccinelli lost a clearly winnable race because of his extreme positions in the same manner as: Murdock, Akin, Angle, O’Donnell, and Buck. Cuccinelli lost because of his record while in office.
Emery,
Name Mr Cuccinelli’s top 3 “extreme” positions and explain what makes them extreme.
You can’t and you won’t because you are just parroting the MSM chanting points.
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Libertarians, both the big (L) and small (l) variety are making the same mistake-trying to grab for the brass ring without laying any of the groundwork.
(L)ibertarians should be working on getting local candidates in office, so they have a pool of seasoned and experienced candidates to run for progressively higher office.
(l)ibertarians who decide that the GOP is the best vehicle for them should be working on pulling the party to the right, but understand that it will be a years long effort.
The common mistake between the two is thinking that you can get your candidates into office in the next election cycle-they need to start thinking and planning for the next election cycle.
1) Supporting personhood amendments and Transvaginal Ultrasounds in order to further restrict abortion.
2) Gay bashing
3) Anti-Immigrant
4) President Obama was not born in Kenya.
5) The world is not 4,000 years old.
6) The creation story as described in the Bible is not literally true.
The race was close because most voters stayed home. Cuccinelli has a base of Obamacare hating birthers who would go out to vote no matter what. If a majority of Virginians had voted, Cuccinelli would have lost in a landslide. The fact that Cuccinelli’s fringe supporters couldn’t even win when over 60% of the voters stayed home, shows just how marginal his support is.
1) Supporting personhood amendments and Transvaginal Ultrasounds in order to further restrict abortion.
2) Gay bashing
3) Anti-Immigrant
4) President Obama was not born in Kenya.
5) The world is not 4,000 years old.
6) The creation story as described in the Bible is not literally true.
You are in la-la land, Emery. Where do you get this stuff?
What PM said. You’re babbling here.
You are confusing Tea Partiers – who don’t lead with social issues – with…
…what? Some caricature from the Colbert Report, I’d guess.
Dave,
(l)ibertarians who decide that the GOP is the best vehicle for them should be working on pulling the party to the right, but understand that it will be a years long effort.
That was my motivation for coming back to the GOP – and the understanding of the job ahead.
Big-L Libertarians – including the ones that took over the GOP two years ago – come to a chess match and try to play checkers. That sounds condescending – it’s not. But they expend a lot of sound and fury over “princples”, and completely ignore everything it’ll take over the course of not months, but decades, to see that principle enacted in process.
Transvaginal Ultrasounds
I thought that was a mid-90s Beck album.
“You are in la-la land, Emery. Where do you get this stuff?” Let me help you out here PM.
Cuccinelli is seen as a “Denialist” who dared to question and investigate Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann, a one-time professor at the University of VA, and a high priest in the Global Warmenist Faith. Mann issued a Fatwa on Cuccinelli and now he and his followers are claiming to have brought down Cuccinelli. These people are like Bible Thumper Christo-Fundies and any questioning of Climate Change or the ‘science’ they proclaim labels you a ‘denier’ who also believes or believes in:
1) Supporting personhood amendments and Transvaginal Ultrasounds in order to further restrict abortion.
2) Gay bashing
3) Anti-Immigrant
4) President Obama was not born in Kenya.
5) The world is not 4,000 years old.
6) The creation story as described in the Bible is not literally true.
As a member of the ‘faith’ you are not actually required to review and think about these charges for yourself. Like any good Fundie, you simply take the position your Pastor has told you to take.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/11/06/2899121/mann-cuccinelli-climate-denial-wedge-issue/
The Prog Warmenist Media is orgasmic that they beat this heretic even though McAuliffe a soul-less, no scruples, bag man who will likely shiv the Warmenists the moment he’s forced to go to Southwest VA Coal Country. The fact that so many Fed Gov’t employees/Democrats (PTR) vote in VA and offset the coal vote make it likely he won’t have to go to Roanoke.
Hope that helps.
Believe what you like. The Tea Party supported Mr. Cuccinelli and whatever baggage the candidate brought with him (“in for a penny, in for a pound”). McAuliffe was a weak candidate, National Review Online wrote a piece about this fact. http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/344972/no-really-democrats-nominated-mcauliffe-governor
Murdock, Akin, Angle, O’Donnell, Buck and now Cuccinelli lost, because their extreme positions did not resonate with the voters.