Bob Barr, a Libertarian, entered the presidential race yesterday. This complicates things for libertarian-leaning Republicans like me. I like Barr’s positions on the issues better than McCain’s, but Barr doesn’t really have a chance of winning, and he’ll likely take votes away from McCain just as Nader took votes away from Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. I really don’t want Clinton or Obama to win, but I’ve never been too excited about voting for McCain, and it’s cool that there’s a candidate I’d actually be excited to vote for. Here are some of Barr’s views:
- Adopt a national sales tax, which would replace the IRS, and also repeal the 16th Amendment, which gives Congress the power to levy an income tax
- Secure people’s 4th Amendment rights
- Let people make more of their own choices and accept responsibility for the results
- Secure our borders against people who want to take advantage of American taxpayers
- Don’t interfere with other nations; use the armed forces only for national defense
Barr still has to become the Libertarian nominee, and he’s up against Mike Gravel, Wayne Allyn Root, and others. The Libertarian National Convention will take place over Memorial Day Weekend, May 22-26. Should be interesting! In the meantime, check out Barr’s site: BobBarr2008.com.
Probably just about everyone has heard about Barack Obama’s comments about “bitter” working-class Pennsylvanians who “cling to guns and religion.” I think I’m going to have to side with Hillary Clinton and the other Obama detractors on this one. Clinton said that people support the Second Amendment because they “believe it’s a matter of constitutional right” and that people are religious because they “believe it’s a matter of personal faith.” I completely agree with her. People don’t support gun-ownership rights and believe in God because they feel threatened and blindly stick to what is familiar. They believe what they believe because they think it’s the right thing to do. Obama shouldn’t dismiss people who disagree with him by saying that they are just “bitter” and need “a way to explain their frustrations.”
Here is the excerpt in question from Obama’s speech:
“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them… And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not…And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Source: CNN
I just had an idea: McCain should pick Ron Paul as his running mate! Paul is the only Republican who hasn’t dropped out of the race, so I guess he’s the runner-up, of sorts. That would be a great ticket! I know a lot of conservatives consider McCain too liberal, so adding a libertarian-leaning conservative might make the ticket more appealing to a lot of voters. If not, then it would certainly be interesting…
It looks like John McCain is definitely the Republican nominee. He won all 4 primaries today, exceeding the 1191 delegates needed, and Mike Huckabee dropped out of the race. Ron Paul didn’t, though, good for him! Haha, I know he has no chance to win, but he’s definitely my favorite. He didn’t do too bad today, either (at least not for him).
Sources:
McCain clinches GOP nomination, CNN projects
CNN Election Center 2008 (Ron Paul)
Ralph Nader has entered the presidential race as an independent! This makes things a little more complicated. Of course, he’s liberal on most of the issues, but I like that he’s asexual (at least according to NNDB) and think it would be cool if there was a second unmarried president. This is probably a bad reason to vote for someone, though, so I will probably still support McCain, even though he wasn’t my favorite of the Republicans. We’ll see what happens. I bet the Democrats aren’t happy about this!
Why does the media always leave out Ron Paul? Since Tancredo, Hunter, Thompson, and Giuliani dropped out, Paul has been the only long-shot Republican candidate in the race, and the media sometimes treats him like he doesn’t even exist. I didn’t mind it so much when there were a bunch of long shots, and the media tended to ignore them and focus on the more mainstream candidates. But now Paul (and occasionally Huckabee) tends to be the only one who gets left out, which is really starting to annoy me. He may not have much of a chance, but I think he’s the best, and he certainly deserves to be recognized as a candidate.
For example, right after Edwards and Giuliani dropped out, Fox 25 news proclaimed that there were now only 4 candidates left and showed a graphic of Clinton, Obama, McCain, and Romney (ok, they left out Huckabee too). An article from a while back in the Boston Globe analyzes the font choices in all the candidates’ posters except for Paul’s. And today the Boston Herald website shows the MA primary results at the top of the page, listing the top 3 candidates for each party. They even show Edwards, who dropped out, but no Paul!
According to various news sources, Sam Brownback is planning to drop out of the 2008 presidential race. This is fairly disappointing, as he was among my favorite candidates. However, there are still Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, and Duncan Hunter! I’m not sure who my favorite candidate is, but it’s definitely one of those three. I’m leaning toward Paul right now, but only by a small margin.
Over at the New York Times, I saw this nifty article, a comparison of the candidates and their views on health insurance (which seems to be one of my favorite topics recently). I liked Paul and Hunter the best!
