It was a tough year at the ballot box for a principled supporter of liberty. Here's how I voted. Leave a comment and tell us how you voted. by Walt Thiessen
(libertarian)
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
When I looked at my ballot this year, I felt a weird feeling. For the first time since I can remember, there was a Libertarian candidate up for every seat on my ballot. That was the good news. The bad news is that I could only bring myself to vote for one out of three of them. To make matters worse, I personally know two of the three Libertarians. (I've never met Bob Barr.)
Who did I vote for on the Presidential line? I wrote in Ron Paul. I don't even care if my vote isn't "officially" counted. Mine was the ultimate protest vote. Not only did I vote for a candidate I believe in, I made it clear that none of the other candidates were good enough to be considered for an "official" vote.
For U.S. Senate, I had a choice between Democrat Mark Warner, former VA governor (who based on his record undoubtedly will do all the things Democrats are known to do), Republican Jim Gilmore, another former VA governor who led the effort to take away the power to pick the Republican candidate from the voters and put it into the pockets of the party hacks this year; "Gail For Rail" Parker who runs perennially on the idea that a government financed boondoggle to build light commuter and interstate rail through Virginia and the nation will solve all our energy problems, and Libertarian Bill Redpath, the same Bill Redpath who is the national party chairman. Redpath was the only one of the four I could even consider voting for, but here's why I didn't vote for him:
He brought Bob Barr into the party and helped him stake his claim to the LP's nomination.
He promised to remove "the pledge" from the LP and has already succeeded in removing it from the party's membership cards.
He favors a flat tax (not the misnamed "Fair Tax") to replace the income tax. He doesn't even specify how much of a tax it would be, although it's likely it would be well over 20%. While I want to see the income tax disappear, I think it's irresponsible to claim to favor liberty and simultaneously fight for a new flat tax on incomes that would enable big government to continue to be big. Not only is it unconstitutional, it's also immoral. (Here come the Fair Taxers and other flat taxers to tell me I'm full of it.) Worse, it's unnecessary. While the Federal Reserve exists, there's really no need to have an income tax, since the Federal government is more than capable of raising all the money it needs from creating new money by issuing more debt! I'm not in in favor of the Fed...to the contrary, I oppose its existence. But advocating a flat tax while the Fed still exists is simply monstrous.
He also thinks that the "Cato Plan" is the way to solve the Social Security problem, which is to let taxpayers keep half of what they would pay into Social Security in a private account while turning the other half over to the government to "pay transition costs and to fund disability and survivors' benefits." Talk about selling out. Just when does he think the "transition" would end?
I told Bill more than two years ago that if he succeeded in his effort to get "the pledge" removed, I'd leave the party and many others probably would do the same. I haven't renewed my membership this year, and I have no intention of doing so. The combination of his anti-pledge stance, his pro-flat-tax stance, his sell-out stance on Social Security, and his pro-Barr activities as party chair prevent me from supporting him for U.S. Senate. I wrote in None Of The Above instead.
For Congress, I had the choice of Republican Rob Wittman, who won the seat in a special election two years ago; Democrat Bill Day, a local state senator who touts his business experience and votes in a conservatively Democratic way in the state house; and Libertarian Nathan Larson, another local resident and member of the local LP whose entire campaign consisted of getting on the ballot (no small feat) but little else. Nathan is a nice, quiet guy who has no political smarts, but his stances on the issues are generally good (although his choice of which issues to push don't really concentrate on the LP's most attractive offerings). He doesn't have a prayer of winning, but I voted for Larson anyway. I did give a thought to voting for Wittman, since he stood his ground and voted against the bailout both times. I applaud him for that. However, I can't be a one-issue voter. Wittman's support for the War on Terror across a range of related issues is just more than I can stomach.
There was also a local initiative to pass a food and beverage tax to support local schools, which I voted decisively against. Just what we need...another tax.
All-in-all, it was a very weird year to be a voter with principles in my precinct. How about yours?
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I also wrote in Ron Paul, but I'm lucky that in California he is now an official write in candidate so they (supposedly) will count it.
I also wrote in a guy I'd never heard of who was on the list of write in candidates against Berman in Ca 28, given that this guy, not having been in Congress, couldn't have voted for the bailout as Berman did. I told Berman I'd vote against him if he voted for it, and while it took some homework to figure out how to do that, I followed through.
Just out of curiousity as someone who came to this through the GOP via Ron Paul, and isn't up on all the history, what is "the pledge"?
I wrote in Ron Paul as well and in California he is an official write in candidate, so while he doesn't have a chance in hell of winning, my protest vote is still valid and will be counted. It felt good!
I'm in Oregon and also wrote in Ron Paul. I guess it's counted here as "write in" was on the ballot.
There's an interesting "initiative" here concerning allowing a majority of the people that vote on a particular initiative to pass it into law. (mostly regarding taxes and spending)
The issue here is that these particular initiatives usually come out at weird times. (May, December, ie:) Most voters are not even aware of the voting. The public employees vote as a bloc to pass these expenditures and want the issue to pass when only 10 or 20% of the voters voted.
Present law here states at least 50% of registered voters must have voted. This is the third time in just a few years this initiative has been brought to bear. They are persistant.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-11-04 13:15:31
spinnikerca: The "pledge" is a membership pledge that all Libertarian Party members agree to when they join the party.It says, "I hereby certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals."
I should qualify one thing I wrote. I wrote that Redpath had removed the pledge from the membership card. He actually removed the "Statement of Principles" which reads: "We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose." Redpath is against both of these, claiming that they have interfered with growing the party. He has never provided any evidence to back his claim.
Wanted Barr and the FairTax (correctly named), ask Kiplinger's and Investor's Business Daily. Went with McCain (reluctantly) for supreme ct. appt. issue. Will definitely vote and work Huckabee in 2012.
Wrote-in Walt Thiessen for President with none other than Master C as his running mate.
Nt really. I just voted for the write-in without writing-in anything because the machine will not recognize the characters anyway. So I could have written Walt with Master C and it would have been the same as Ron Paul or myself or anybody else for that matter.
Ballot proposals were more important to me:
Medicinal Marijuana: YES
Lifting ban on Stem Cell Research YES;
Some tax raising initiative for some crap that I did not care for in my county: NO.
Posted By: David F. Nolan
Date: 2008-11-04 15:44:45
I voted for Barr & Root, despite the incredibly crappy campaign run by Verney & Cory. While Barr is far from perfect, he clearly differentiated himself from B.O. and McLame, so there was no question in my mind that a vote for Barr sends the right message to everyone who will heed it.
David: They really ran a poor campaign, didn't they? That was Barr's major mistake and it proved to be a fatal one. I would have thought with his experience, and his connections, and knowledge, he could have picked better people to lead his campaign.
trd, I voted for Walt Thiessen in 1996 when he ran in the 5th Congressional District in Connecticut!
I voted Libertarian for President in 1996, 2000, and 2004, but our state screwed up with the Libertarian petitions this year and didn't allow us to write in Bob Barr either. I had personally gathered 76 signatures for Barr, submitted 74 of them, 60 of which were valid, and was disappointed when we didn't make it on the ballot even though we actually had 7500 valid signatures.
So I voted for Ralph Nader, because he's against the bailout, against the Patriot Act and warrantless wiretaps, against throwing nonviolent drug users in jail, against corporate welfare, he supports opening up the political process, and for a couple of other reasons.
I had no Libertarians to choose from on the other races, so I voted for the Republican candidates, none of whom were incumbents, because I agreed with their ideas the most. I hope Libertarians do well this year across the country.
I was very happy that John McCain didn't win, yet I didn't vote for Obama either as I don't trust either one of them.
I deciced to vote for somebody that I truely believe ran an honest campaign, so wrote in Ron Paul. Here in California it is counted and I've never felt this good before about my vote. Thank you Ron Paul.
I've discussed how I intended to vote in a previous column:
http://www.nolanchart.com/article5216.htm
(BTW, why not make it possible to include working links in comments?)
As I said in that column, Cynthia McKinney, the Green Party candidate, seemed to be the best "protest" vote. I found out later that Noam Chomsky also intended to vote for McKinney, so I guess "great minds think alike".
I was disappointed that a couple races here had no "protest" candidate that I could vote for, with only a Constitution Party candidate running against the Republicans and Democrats. (I ended up writing in a Green Party candidate from another race.)
To sommers: write-ins are indeed counted here in Oregon. (I know someone working counting ballots.)
I didn't know Walt was a candidate in 1996. I am not familiar with Conneticut. Are you planning to run again Walt? It is probably even tougher now with the more state and federal regulations and beaurocracy, not to mention new campaign finance reform laws thanks to your 'friend' McCain.
Maybe one day I will run for office myself. If Obama can do it comming out of nowhere wtih an unknown background maybe I can do it too.
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