C-SPAN will broadcast coverage of the national Libertarian Party convention live, for the most exciting parts. That includes Saturday evening (9 PM eastern through midnight, which should include debates among the presidential candidates), and Sunday 10:30 AM eastern, all day (which will include the presidential voting). Thanks to Austin Cassidy’s new Independent Political Report for this news.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Well they should be there for all of it and they should have been at the Constitution Party convention last month in Kansas. That was the first of our Conventions that they they missed. Shame on them for that.
I’m glad that they will cover the LP, but they owe Baldwin/Castle make-up coverage.
Gary,
Its the first convention they’ve missed? WOW.
I’m glad to see C-Span covering the convention.
Wayne Allyn Root will take over from there.
He is the best man for the job and I pick him to be the messinger.
Too bad CNN nor Fox News had the jewels to cover this event. Ofcourse it would not benefit them as Americans would discover Bob Barr and he would win millions of votes from their Duopoly.
Good for C-SPAN. This will be even more coverage of Senator Mike Gravel, who will win the nomination and have the best chance of winning the general election. If the LP nominates anyone else they are all foolish.
Then I guess they’re foolish, because I’ve heard a breakdown of Barr 40%, Ruwart 40%, and undecided 20%. Now the sampling is tiny, but it’s just one more thing. I haven’t heard ANY delegate say that they plan to support Gravel.
anyone who wants nationalized health care is not a libertarian. See Mike Gravel. Former Senator Gravel is using the party as a vehicle to continue to push his agenda after the democrats rejected him.
Bob Barr is another candidate that has many positions that are not exactly in line with the libertarian party platform, but at least he didn’t just join this year.
I really wish Ron Paul would have chosen to accept the LP’s offer of the nomination, but it might have done more harm than good for his movement. He has a few positions that are not “purist” Libertarian, but at least his 20+ year voting record is directly in line with the platform he was running on and he didn’t have to conveniently change his positions to ones more in line with the LP like Barr and Gravel.
With that said, Barr may be the best bet to get the most votes. He probably would syphon more votes away from McCain and give the election to Obama.
That is not necessarily a bad thing. Although Obama is about as far from Libertarian as you can get, his foreign policy would save us far more money than any earmark spending McCain want to cut while he fights a perpetual war against the boogey man. I just hope we dont lose any more of our civil liberties in the process.
The outlook is bleak indeed.
I bet Barr gets the nomination. Then if Barr picks Gravel as his running mate, they will have a ticket that will attract a lot of attention. Having a defector from each major party would garner lots of attention and discussion. And having two candidates with high national profiles would elevate the status of the LP ticket enormously. (But lots of LP purists would be unhappy with such a ticket, I’m sure.)
Where was c-span when the Constitution Party held it’s convention in April? The Constitution Party is the 3rd largest alternative political party in the country and no coverage. Once again this shows the lamestream medias bias!!!
WRONG the Green party is bigger than the Consititution Party. Sorry pal
This is great news!
Thank You for the report.
CSPAN actually going to give the convention that much coverage.
Barr/Gravel is the strongest libertarian ticket. Meaning the one most likely to get media coverage.
Media coverage translates into $$$. That in turn grows the third party movement.
Bob Barr has had a disciplined focused message since announcing. Not as strong as Ron Paul as calling for cutting $1 Trillion taxpayer wasted money on foreign military misadventure…Calling for bringing America troops home from Europe and Asia.
The Green Party has made a reasonable claim to be the largest third party. Whether it’s the Libertarians, or the Greens the key point is that both are positive alternatives that continue to grow.
Cynthia Mckinney is starting to do a little media now. The more she does, the more the greens grow. Especially if she forms 1) Nader alliance on one ticket or, 2 ) picks a well know national politician as her Vice President. Say Jesse Ventura, Kinky Friedmann, Cecial Angus, or Lowell Weichert…to name a few common sense candidates.
Deciding which is the biggest party is ambiguous. The Constitution Party has more registered members, but the Green Party has more office-holders in office. In 2006, Greens running for Congress got more votes than Constitution Party nominees running for Congress. But in 2004 the Constitution Party got more votes for president than the Green Party did.
MY CHOICE FOR THE LP TICKET IN 2008 BARR FOR PRESIDENT AND RICHARD WINGER FOR VICE PRESIDENT
There has been surprising amounts of news coverage of the LP convention.
Even Nasty Propaganda Radio (NPR) had a story this morning (Friday) that was balanced and non-sneering.
Astonishing.
The Atlanta Communistution has run some stories on Bob Barr and his candidacy, even placing his announcement news conference on the front page; naturally most of the coverage is negative, but that the AJC even mentions Barr and the Libertarian Party is pretty unusual.
I think, in order for there to be peace within both the radical Libertarians and reform Libertarians, the ideal ticket would be Barr/Ruwal. The LP has every right in the world to be afraid of another possible Buchanan Brigade takeover destroyed the Reform Party. But I’m sure the LP won’t allow anyone or anything to destroy the party. Make the right choice Libertarians and good luck at the convention!
Derek, second your well wishes for the Libertarians.
The Reform Party hasn’t really ended. It’s members grew and learned. They’ve moved on to either the Green, Libertarian, Constitution, or Independence parties.
More experienced, wiser politically, better behaved.
Knowing pragmatic third party political alliances are an absolute must.
Will the convention TV ratings be higher or lower than the Nov. 2008 Prez percentage for each party ???
Stay tuned.
Much happy talk about how this defector or that defector will raise the public prestige of the Libertarian Party, or swing the election between the duopoly parties, or even Libertarian candidates down the ticket elected is mostly just that happy talk cheer leading chat.
Regular readers to BAN know the deeply entrenched barriers to dissident party success in law and custom. Whoever is nominated by the LP will have NO significant effect on the core of political power. The defeat of Dems by Reps or vice-versa changes nothing but the dominant propaganda themes in the main stream media – their happy talk.
The importance of the LP nominee is to the credibility of the LP with its own “base”. I am highly suspicious of the candidates with establishments pedigrees. I am not convinced neither Barr, nor Gravel nor Root regard the LP as anything but a disposable vehicle for their own ambitions – which are to raise their clout within the legally entrenched parties.
In the interest of disclosure, I am a founding member of the LP. I chaired the Bylaws committee at the Denver Convention in 1972 and Chair emeritus of the Oklahoma Libertarian Party which I co-founded in 1972.
Discounting Barr, who told me personally he would not commit to Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and abolition of the Federal Reserve, and Gravel, and Root, I have no favorite candidate in this race. Or, to put it most bluntly – anybody but the tree named above will do.
It’s the message not the messenger that has been the core of the Libertarian strategy from its founding.
At the same time I am critical of the tactics employed by LP administrations to advance that strategy. They have all failed to fully grasp what BAN and Richard Winger has so throughly documented for them. It’s the damn electoral system, stupid! The LP has failed to present and aggressive agenda attacking the rigging of American elections nor have they integrated the depth of the corruption of the electoral system as documented by Bev Harris at Blackboxvoting.com.
The LP needs a tougher, more radical agenda and tactics which will make its candidates real competitors with people who realize that their votes are not intended to count in this electoral system – they can vote either way they want, but as Paul Simon said, “you lose.”
Why would the LP want to nominate anyone without an excellent libertarian resume anyway? None of the answers to that question advance the brand of the LP as a “Party of Principle.”
The regime –
Unequal ballot access laws
Minority rule gerrymanders – half the votes in half the gerrymander districts is about 25 percent minority rule.
Plurality primary nominations – about 10 States with top 2 runoff primaries
Plurality winners.
Result – NONSTOP gerrymander monarchy / oligarchy in ALL States since 1776 and in the Fed regime since 1789 — regardless of ALL of the 232 years of brainwashing by the regime (via the rotted public schools) and the brain dead MORON media that the U.S.A. is any way, shape or form as being *democratic*.
That convention was a television gem. Hip hop music from the adjacent room flooded the speeches, and the heads of delegation were hilarious. Most of these people looked like they came directly from the bowling alley. Many wore t-shirts, and I have never seen so much denim at a ‘convention.’ Highlight of the day: the lack of a projector requires cspan to place the camcorder up to a computer screen to show voting. The result: a blurry, shaky, and blinking video feed with indecipherable names/numbers. I laughed for hours and only regret not taping it.