United Liberty

The other day I had a brief Facebook exchange with a friend (who really is a great guy) about Ron Paul. He had posted an image that basically said Ron Paul was the next Ross Perot, and that anyone voting for Paul in November would be actually casting a vote for Obama.

There are all sorts of problems with that. First, Paul isn’t going to be on a ballot in November, so nobody will be voting for him. (Yes, I know he could be a write-in vote, if non-qualified write-in votes are allowed in a state.)

Second, the notion that Perot cost Bush the presidency is commonly argued, but the polling for that race indicated Perot took more votes from Clinton than he did from Bush. If anything, Perot kept it from being a landslide victory for Clinton. But that won’t keep your Republican friends from pointing fingers and calling names.

And finally, let’s not forget that we balanced the budget under Clinton. He wasn’t the perfect president at all, but if my vote in November – for anybody – could guarantee a balanced budget in the next few years, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Our fiscal issues have to be addressed right away if we have any hope of solving our economic woes.

But I digress. The point in all of that was that people are already blaming a man who’s not even on the ballot for a Republican loss in 2012. Then today I saw this piece that talks about how the national GOP is working to keep Paul supporters out of the convention. Keep in mind that these aren’t random supporters who decide to take a road trip to Tampa. These are delegates and alternates that have gone through the delegate process in their states.

Note: This is part three of a three-part series covering some reasons that a voter may choose to support a specific presidential candidate. Part 1 for Mitt Romney is available here, and part 2 for Barack Obama is available here.

For a group of people who follow the veritable patron saint of Austrian economics on Capitol Hill, the fans of Ron Paul don’t seem to understand the Austrian concept of “malinvestment” very well. Malinvestment, as described by the Mises Wiki, is:

Malinvestment is an investment in wrong lines of production, which inevitably lead to wasted capital and economic losses, subsequently requiring the reallocation of resources to more productive uses. “Wrong” in this sense means “incorrect” or “mistaken” from the point of view of the real long-term needs and demands of the economy, if those needs and demands were expressed with the correct price signals in the free market.

Of course, the concept applies more to commercial dealings than with efforts in the political sphere, but I think it works here too, especially when you regard recent messages from the Ron Paul faithful:

Ok so the Rand endorsement let us all down a lot along with all of the discouraging emails and videos directly from the campaign. I think for the most part we are over the hump if you know what im saying.

Now think… before all of these shenanigans how much did you believe Ron Paul could win! And remember when we realized all the delegates are unbound?! That was amazing and at that point it was the cream of the crop. We were gonna win hands down, romney has no chance in hell.

You remember all those fuzzy feelings right?

Coming off a few great days of media exposure, including an appearance on The Daily Show, Gov. Gary Johnson is making an appeal to all voters — regardless of their political persuasion — to get behind his candidacy for president.

Johnson, who served two terms as Governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003, explains that Democrats and Republicans are ruining the country through excessive spending and endless war. Noting that the status quo will not fix these problems, Johnson explained that he wants to focus on fixing the issues facing our nation through through peace and prosperity.

Compared to some of the other ads from the campaign, Johnson’s team needs to put out more stuff like this:

Last night, Gary Johnson, the former two-term Governor of New Mexico and current Libertarian Party nominee, stopped by The Daily Show to chat with Jon Stewart about his campaign, the differences — or lack thereof — between Democrats and Republicans, and the obstacles he faces in getting into the debate:

In the last couple web ads produced by his campaign, Gov. Gary Johnson has covered his fiscal record and his anti-war stance. But in his new ad, his team makes a very clear appeal to Ron Paul supporters by noting that he’ll continue to wave the banner of auditing the Federal Reserve, making the nation’s central bank more transparent for Americans:

In what is surely going to set off another wankfest amongst the libertarian commentariat, Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson has become eligible for federal matching funds:

The Federal Election Commission has declared Gary Earl Johnson eligible to receive federal matching funds. Johnson sought and won the Libertarian nomination for president for 2012.

To become eligible for matching funds, candidates must raise a threshold amount of $100,000 by collecting $5,000 in 20 different states in amounts no greater than $250 from any individual. Other requirements to be declared eligible include agreeing to an overall spending limit, abiding by spending limits in each state, using public funds only for legitimate campaign-related expenses, keeping financial records and permitting an extensive campaign audit.

Based on documents filed by Gary Johnson 2012, Inc. on April 27, 2012, contributions from the following states were verified for threshold purposes: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Washington. All of the materials included with this submission may be viewed here. Based on Johnson’s initial threshold submission, the Commission requested on May 25 that the United States Treasury make an initial payment of $100,000 to Johnson’s campaign.

Once declared eligible, campaigns may submit additional contributions for matching funds on the first business day of every month. The maximum amount a primary candidate could receive is currently estimated to be about $22.8 million.

The delegate process isn’t over in many states, but Mitt Romney, after winning the Texas Republican primary last night, has mathematically secured enough delegates to win the GOP’s presidential nomination:

With a victory in Texas on Tuesday night, Mitt Romney secured the necessary delegates to clinch the Republican nomination that will be awarded in Tampa this summer.

“This was a big day by the way - 1,144. We finally got there,” Romney said at a Las Vegas fundraiser on Tuesday night. “It’s an honor and a privilege, an honor and a privilege, and a great responsibility. And I know the road to 1,144 was long and hard, but I also know that the road to 11/06, November 6, is also going to be long, it’s going to be hard and it’s going to be worth it because we’re going to take back the White House and get America right again.”

Shortly after the polls closed in Texas at 9 p.m. Tuesday night, Romney was projected to finally obtain the needed 1,144 delegates, according to The Associated Press.

Penn Jillette, half of the magic duo, Penn & Teller, has been everywhere the last few years. In addition to their almost nightly performances at the Rio in Las Vegas He and Teller hosted Bullshit!, a libertarian-themed show on Showtime that took on conventional wisdom and junk science.

More recently, Jillette has been acting as a political commentator. He appears regularly on various shows on CNN and Fox News and has been known to write an occasional column on political issues.

However, his recent criticism of President Barack Obama over the so-called on “war on drugs” gave him the opportunity to note on Hannity that, while he disagrees with many of the policies pushed by the White House, he is backing Gov. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee for president.

Here’s the entire segment of Jillette with Sean Hannity:

Gov. Gary Johnson’s team has released a new web video promoting a message of peace as polls show a war weary nation. In the video, Johnson’s team labels Republicans as “Thelma” and Democrats as “Louise,” noting that both parties “have a death wish” because they seem to want perpetual war: