Subject:
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Re: Not the Green party...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 11 Oct 2002 03:00:22 GMT
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Viewed:
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490 times
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Larry Pieniazek wrote:
>
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, William R. Ward writes:
> > "Dave Schuler" <orrex@excite.com> writes:
> > > What the?!
> > >
> > > http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/Central/10/02/candidate.blue.skin.ap/
> > >
> > > I like a candidate who knows a nostrum when he sees it! If Browne can't do
> > > it, maybe blue can!
> > >
> > > Dave!
> >
> > I'm sorely tempted to make a wisecrack about what this says about the
> > intelligence of libertarians, but I will refrain.
>
> Good. Because if you go down that road it opens up a whole topic about
> crackpots... in every party... which I think we can skip, ne?
>
> However I think there IS an interesting topic in there, which is this, where
> should a smaller party draw the line?
>
> Given a limited budget, how much background checking is appropriate or even
> possible?
>
> How do you prevent things like Howard Stern hijacking your nominating
> process (happened in the NY governer race)?
This is a real interesting question. It's crystal clear to me that the
parties should have a lot of say over how their name gets used. On the
other hand, perhaps the parties should not "own" positions on the
ballot. So, let's say a Republican candidate gets on the ballot, and
then starts spouting off Democratic ideals. I think the Republicans
should be able to withdraw their support, but perhaps the candidate
should still be on the ballot. If slots on the ballot were open to
anyone who could get X number of signatures, rather than to parties, it
would also reduce the impact of the primaries (and then, since the
primary would be purely to decide who gets the parties blessing, then
clearly each party should be able to restrict participation in it's
primary to card carrying members of the party - possibly even with some
kind of donation required). I might even go so far as to remove the
party names from the ballot... and publicly funded voter guides... and
increase the distance between polling places and advertising... (thus
forcing people to actually do some research on the candidates, even if
it is just to watch the TV spots, and no more "check this box to vote
the party ticket")
> If you have a goal of running candidates in certain races and no one really
> great steps up to run, what should you do?
>
> What should you do when you find things out later? The LP has repudiated
> candidates in the past (even after they had been petitioned on the ballot,
> at great expense) who were not true to the ideals of the party, but hasn't
> had the luxury of being able to turn away candidates merely because they're
> eccentric.
I wonder, if the LP played it right, could they benefit from how they
handle an eccentric, but true to the party, candidate? The LP could
point out in cases of eccentricity that what matters most in the
political arena is not what people do on their own time (though that can
certainly be a reflection of what their ideals are), but what their
political ideals are. The LP could stand above the other parties by not
just shuffling the crackpots under the rug.
While Pat Wright's pet issue that Maggie brought up certainly seems to
be making a big thing over a minor issue, it's also raising an issue
which follows the party ideals (the Libertarian ideal for domestic
animals of course would be no regulation at all, an purely rely on
responsibility and proper care). I think it's also valuable for the LP
to point out that while there are many big issues, there are also lots
of small issues. Government needs to continually balance small issues
against big issues (for example, the police in the DC area should not
stop responding to reports of minor theft just because there's a serial
killer on the loose - if we followed some people's feelings that small
things should get no attention until the big things have been resolved,
why, the US would be a criminals paradise right now because every law
enforcement officer would be spending all their time looking for
terrorists).
Frank
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Not the Green party...
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| (...) Good. Because if you go down that road it opens up a whole topic about crackpots... in every party... which I think we can skip, ne? However I think there IS an interesting topic in there, which is this, where should a smaller party draw the (...) (22 years ago, 10-Oct-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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