The Revolution has already Begun
columnist: John Crosley

Topic: Libertarianism
Vote for who you want to win!

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Strategy to win the White House that I think everyone can agree with and would actually work.

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by John Crosley
(Libertarian)
Monday, May 12, 2008

A comment on my last article by "1440 minutes" said "Chuck Baldwin is anything but a theocratic. If the libertarians nominate the wrong candidate, then I will vote for Chuck." My first thought was that who ever the Libertarian delegates elect we need to get behind, we can't split up our vote. Then, I realized that this is the exact same lame argument the Republicans use on conservative Libertarians in an attempt to try to get us to support John McCain. Just today, I read that Newt Gingrich told the Times that Bob Barr's candidacy "will make it marginally easier for Barack Obama to become president. That outcome threatens every libertarian value Barr professes to champion." Just as I won't vote for someone I don't want to win(John McCain) to stop another candidate I don't want to win(Barack Obama), I won't ask someone else to vote Libertarian just to give us better odds. To a point, I agree with "1440 minutes". If the Libertarian nominee is Mike Gravel, I could be swayed to throw my support behind Chuck Baldwin.

Between now and November the biggest hurdle for us to get over will be viability. Most Libertarians don't even believe we could possibly win the election. I genuinely believe we can. Whenever our candidate is asked what they wish to accomplish by running "third party", I want to hear them say that they are running to become the next President. The job for us supporters of the next Libertarian candidate is to reach as many Republicans, Democrats and Independents as we can with this simple message, vote for who you want to win.

To do this effectively we have to know who we are speaking to and what their biggest voting issues are. When speaking with Republicans, compare our platform and John McCain's stance to Ronald Reagan's platform. As long as they are not pro-war (yes, many still are), this should convince them that our candidate would be better than McCain. Then, simply ask them if they are tired of voting for the lesser of two evils. Follow that question up with, "wouldn't it feel good to vote for someone you actually want to win?" and you've won us another vote.

Now with Democrats it may be a little trickier because the media is already labeling any strong Libertarian nominee as a thorn in the Republicans side. The truth is, we have two very strong arguments to convince Democrats to vote with us in November. The first is change. We have been hearing so much about change from Democrats over the last year it has been nauseating. Nauseating because we know that the nominating a Democrat or a Republican simply constitutes more of the same. Albert Einstein once said "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Boy does that seem to hit the nail on the head. This opens the door to explain that true change is a change in the philosophy of what we want our government to be and that what our government has become is exactly the opposite of what our founding fathers intended. Our second and equally strong argument is foreign policy. Many Democrats are as adamantly against the war as we are but they don't realize that we have troops in 129 countries other than Iraq as well. Ask them why we are still in Korea or Germany. I will bet you that ninety percent of the time they will agree that this is ridiculous. Follow this up by asking why Obama wants to stay in these countries? You can't stop there, your work isn't over. Democrats want the Republicans to lose at all costs so you have to convey that you are just as sick and tired of George Bush as they are and that the last thing you would want is an extension of his policies. Then you can hit them with, "but wouldn't it feel good to vote for someone you actually want to win instead of the lesser of two evils?" "Isn't it time we change the way we vote?"

With Independents you simply have to see which way they lean, and then follow either the Republican or Democrat path. I find that people who call themselves Independents are usually fairly open to the Libertarian message.

To sum things up, vote for the candidate you want to win and encourage everyone you know to do the same. Doing this is our best chance of winning in November.

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2008 John Crosley, all rights reserved.
Published: Monday, May 12, 2008
Last modified: Tuesday, May 13, 2008

The views expressed in this article are those of John Crosley only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. John Crosley is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.

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