I agree. He cut the budget in each of his 8 years as governor. No other candidate can make that claim.

Hello freedomforall,
I concur. There is more to worry about on those fronts from every other candidate in the race thus far.
O.A.

Hello jbrenner,
It is always good to hear from you. It is a principled decision. I have high regard for standing on principle. If only more people would do so. I feel as if we are making some inroads with some of the electorate these days. Perhaps some (though probably not yet enough) of the ignorant masses are finally coming out of their stupor.
It would please immensely to feel more confident and optimistic about the future again.
Regards,
O.A.

"stupid and insane"
That's the Republican voters mantra.

Yep - so much for the ABO crowd!

Hello Timelord,
So right. "The biggest problem is media access."
We must keep pushing and supporting opposition voices to the two major parties until the media can no longer deny their voices opportunity to be heard as widely. The two party system lock must be broken, or at least one of the parties must be brought back to Constitutional principles and restraint. It is this statist establishment leaning of both major parties that must be "crushed and obliterated!"
Respectfully,
O.A.

"As Gulchers know, the LP doesn't fit at all into the left/right, progressive/conservative political model. In reality progressives would agree with at least 40% of our platform and conservatives would agree with at least 40% of our platform, but instead of progressives supporting the LP because they approve of gay marriage, complete legalization of drugs, non-intervention in foreign affairs, no federal abortion ban, and no corporate welfare, they focus on our support of bakeries turning away any customer they choose, 2A, property rights, right-to-work and no civilian welfare. Then the conservatives play the same game."

Well said. It's very easy to focus on the differences, but very difficult to focus on similarities, but it is in the similarities where we find political allies.

Yes, it's all a MellUvaMess. When a good man like Johnson can garner only 2% of the vote, we're done for. The LP keeps struggling along, but the bucks are not coming in. Sad, but it's all about the money, so it's said!

Hello Texian,
It is only fair. The progressive socialists have been infiltrating the Democrats for so long they no longer resemble even the party of JFK.
Respectfully,
O.A.

The Ron Paul people packed the ballots with candidates for Precinct Committee Officers in my county a few years ago. With the majority they gained in the county, they completely turned out the moderates who had been running the Party for years according to instructions from on high. Now we actually have a voice and have made the local party a bottom-up organization. But the moderates who were turned out are still mad as hell. In the last quarterly meeting, with 76 total in attendance, 25 walked out in the middle, took their marbles and went home.
Politics goes to those who show up. But it ain't easy, and there's little thanks for it.

Libertarian friends of mine took over the Republican party in a small Connecticut city. Unfortunately every seat held by R in that town was because of minority representation rules. They never, or nearly never, influenced policy. After a few years the old-guard Republicans regained control and remain as ineffective as ever.

Harry Browne, a hero of mine who I met twice, has been around so long that he's dead. ALS, as I recall.

I used to be an enthusiastic Ron Paul supporter, but he might be as crazy as Ben Carson. He at least used to be a creationist, young earther, evolution denier. In his favor, though, that was never part of his politics and he was spot on with Libertarian principles almost all the time - much more so than Rand. He demonstrated over decades that his religious beliefs were his own and didn't dictate his politics. Maybe I just talked myself into staying a fan.

"Crumble" is the future, yes.

It really doesn't matter what the establishment types do because they will support an establishment candidate. As for Cruz, most would jump behind him if he were the candidate with the exception of some hard right constitutional types who refuse to believe that Cruz is eligible to be president. Also, you have clowns like McCain who would rather vote for a Socialist or even a Communist over Cruz.

In the end however, if the Republican party is going to continue to be "stupid" in their attacks on Conservatives, it will be they who will be the owners of their defeat by the Dems. As they say, "Stupid is as stupid does" and McCain is the glaring example of Stupidity!!!!

Cruz will be fine as long as he keeps his cool and let's things play out. That includes with Trump.

Libertarians and Objectivists if they are smart enough, will find the right path that will give us the candidate the country needs for moving the country off of the disastrous course we are currently on. If they cannot, then they will suffer the same fate as the Establishment types. Lost election perhaps a new and reinvigorated party!

Hello, hello, hello... ... ... Nope, nobody out there... :)

Hello Herb7734,
A reasonable prognostication based on precedent.
Regards,
O.A.

Hello richrobinson,
I hear you. I will weigh the amount of statism in each candidate and make the best choice possible when it comes right down to it. The establishment types already have two strikes against them in my book.
Regards,
O.A.

No matter who the R's choose, the ABO crowd will screw it up again.

Hello fosterj717,
Your comments are worth much. Good analysis.
Respectfully,
O.A.

Hello cern4881,
I have listened to Gary Johnson many times over the years and he does make a lot of sense on a lot of issues. If the MSM which is so obviously in the pockets of the "two" party candidates would give third party options the time of day perhaps his odds would improve. A lot of young people do support him, so perhaps the younger generations will make positive change as they feel the burdens past statists have unfairly saddled them with.
Respectfully,
O.A.

I like the parties you list, but I'd send all the politicians mentioned "to the moon."
All the national politicians have proven they are incompetent to represent the best interests of free people. They need to be retired, by force if required.

Your break out makes sense!

Now you are talking about Republican voters.

The Libertarian Party just got a little more viable, via a party switch today by a Nevada state legislator.
http://www.independentpoliticalreport...

Hello Rex_Little,
Indeed. I remember Goldwater, though I was quite young then and McGovern (8 years later?). It is an interesting history lesson to be considered and incorporated into one's political science philosophy. Rand supported Goldwater, but we never had a president Goldwater did we? :) Still, one must choose their own poison, since there never seems to be a perfect candidate for us.
Respectfully.
O.A.

Yes, the statists have been using fear to prevent rational thinking (and voting) for a long time.

I long ago decided that I would never vote for the lesser of two evils. I will only pull the lever for a candidate that I actually want to win. Being afraid of helping a D or R is a losing game. When people whine to me about some politician I can say, "why did you vote for him?" Nobody is ever happy with that question. On the other hand they will hear "I didn't" no matter which elected criminal he's accusing me of supporting.

Historically LP candidates take slightly more votes from R than D, but not by much. The thought of being a spoiler and swinging an election fills me with great joy and I would admit that even to the editorial boards of the NYT and WSJ. It means that we have influence and that enough people support our policies to make a difference. It's our path to the center ring rather than sitting at the kids' table (love mixing metaphors).

[[... would rather settle for a traditional establishment Democrat than risk getting a Republican]] Really? Why? Carefully consider what would be different if Mitt Romney had won. We'd still be at war with exactly the same people we're at war with now, Mitt was a cheerleader for the collectivist takeover of health care in MA so we'd probably have Romneycare instead of Obamacare. Romney is no friend of gun owners. He likely would have continued with the Bush and Obama penchant for EO's and signing statements. No doubt he'd have taken very nearly the same path with regard to energy policy. There would still be plenty of Solyndras, it would just be Romney's crowd instead of Obama's. Romney would SURELY be less corrupt and arrogant. Mrs. Heinz-Romney would definitely not have destroyed school lunches like Shelly Obama did (but "Ketchup is a vegetable" would be a constitutional amendment). For better or worse we would probably have a more coherent policy about sticking our noses into other countries' business. (I'm in favor of an immediate and complete withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan (and Turkey) but I think Obama's wishy washy flip-flopping do-nothing-but-make-speeches-at-them policies have enabled the real Islam to come to the surface, and other destructive groups, too. Uncertainty at the core directly empowers increased chaos at the fringe. I've been a lifetime watcher of the edges of things, the edge in every sense, physical objects, virtual objects (like computer code), and conceptual objects (conceptual objects, ha!, oxymoron alert), things like political parties or any organized group of biological objects).

Imagine a sphere of liquid spinning within a vessel of less dense liquid. Everything will be quite stable and the boundaries of the denser sphere will be just a little fuzzy but still well defined. Another feature is that, because of friction, the liquid at the center will be spinning faster than at the edges. Now imagine slipping a thin shaft into the center through one of the poles and releasing a latch and a small square pops out of the side of the shaft. That will introduce terrific turbulence into the rapidly spinning center and it will ripple quickly out to the edge. When it reaches the boundary a large part of the outer layer will be perturbed and you'll witness a chaotic dispersal of that material. The Obama administration is the tiny square that introduced destructive, chaotic turbulence into the powerful center and a lot of the chaos and violence that sprung up at the boundaries of humanity was the direct result.

Granted it's been happening since before Obama but on a much smaller scale. I've heard it said that Kennedy was the first president who was subjected to inspection of his personal life by the media. He was assassinated when I was 8 mos. old so I don't have first hand knowledge. The rapid progression of communications technology since then has made scrutiny by the masses more and more intense. It seems to me that the current mode of promoting a presidential candidate by trying to systematically rip apart your opponents on every issue, both political and personal, started in earnest with the G. W. Bush vs Al Gore election and devolved from there very rapidly. I think the Clinton administration was the direct cause. Millions of people saw Bill and Hillary as pathological liars, chronic cheaters, surrounded by political cronies, viciously attacking their enemies, viciously attacking former friends, corrupt to the core, power seeking regardless of the methods required, and possessed with a reprehensible moral code. Then millions of other people saw Bill Clinton as a charismatic, country bumpkin messiah who only wanted to save us all (from ourselves) and all the bad news about them was just a conspiracy by internet wackos, radio hosts, and unhinged Republicans who were making it all up. Those were the same people who looked directly at a certain blue dress and heard first hand what went on under the desk in the oval office and closed their eyes, plugged their ears and said, "La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la!"

Aside from instant runoff voting my greatest desire would be to have a line on the ballot for None of the Above. I would want 55% of the population to vote the party line for NOTA. I want a Constitutional amendment that when NOTA wins it's illegal for the endorsed D and R who just lost to run again. Maybe even put them in prison or an induced coma, as long as there's no chance we'll hear a peep out of them until the next election is held.

I wish that every 6 months we had the opportunity to vote the speaker of the house and the senate president out of those positions. I wish election day was every year on Nov 11, 4 days before federal income tax forms are due. What better way to honor our veterans? What better way to ensure that everyone has the day off for voting? I wish letters address to US Congressman and Senators were postage free and I wish it was a felony for them not to be opened and read within 48 hours of hitting the congressional post office. Related, I wish schools would resume teaching grammar, spelling and punctuation so those letters would be intelligible.

None of the 3 remaining Democratic candidates want a smaller less intrusive government. Why would you vote for any of them over a Republican?

" moderate libertarian candidate " I sincerely hope never to encounter such a candidate! A Libertarian candidate should be libertarian. It's very hard to find candidates who are 100%, and there are even a few legitimate disagreements within the LP, but he as least has to be close!

A Libertarian is justified in agreeing to incremental improvements in law and policy, that's how we got where we are, after all. But his goal, or his fondest wish, should be the full Libertarian position.

Every time you vote for the lesser of two evils you are in fact voting for more evil.

In every presidential election, people are told that they are “wasting their vote” if they vote for the Libertarian candidate.

As one who has voted for every Libertarian presidential candidate since 1972, I think the exact opposite is true. By voting for my principles, my votes over the years have had far more impact than if I had allowed the two “establishment” parties to dictate my choices.

Consider this: no matter how you have voted for President in the past, your vote has never made a difference in the outcome. Nor will it do so in the future. Even if you live in a “swing state” that could go either way, your lone vote will not spell the difference between victory and defeat for either establishment party candidate.

So if you can’t change the election outcome, why vote at all? The answer is that by voting Libertarian, you will be adding to the vote totals of the only party that consistently supports individual freedom. And those vote totals matter – the establishment parties pay close attention when a significant number of voters break with the two-party system, and they will often modify their stands on certain issues to protect their base and prevent further defections.

On the other hand, if you vote for the “lesser of two evils,” you are saying in effect, “I support the political status quo. I have faith in the two-party system, and I’m not interested in supporting candidates from other parties, even if they have fresh ideas that I agree with. I don’t like either of the two establishment party candidates, but I will vote for Establishment Party Candidate X because he is not quite as bad as Establishment Party Candidate Y.” This truly is a waste of your vote, and does nothing to advance the cause of freedom.

i could better understand voting for a third party IF the effort was put into developing that third party into a viable choice. at one point i thought the 'tea party' would come through and develope... obviously not. libertarians have always been around but in my eyes have done nothing to perpetuate the party. there needs to be a movement of sorts in the 'off season' to rally voters behind their cause. and until there is a concerted effort among third party candidates and or voters to do so..... we will be stuck in this two party system until that happens, my vote goes to the conservative who best reflects my political beliefs and morals. ANY conservative or republican is going to be better than what we have or what we will get because some voters insist on going third party change happens one step at a time. and if one thinks a third party will take an election by storm and make it all better again, then they are sadly mistaken and this country will continue its spiral into nothingness. in my view ANY conservative is going to be better than a progressive liberal..... they may indeed be more of the same, but the spiral will be slowed down enough to make whatever third party grow into something viable.
voting third party does what? satisfy what? and prove what? in the meantime we sit in this blog and complain about how this country is going down the tubes? how our freedoms are being eroded one by one? God forbid any of us pick a conservative that closely matches our views and work to get them elected. we are much to stubborn for the likes of that.....