United Liberty

The choices for libertarian oriented Republicans in this year’s Republican field are, admittedly, better than they have in the past. Not only is Ron Paul doing much better than he did four years ago, getting more press attention, and seemingly surging into second place in Iowa, but we’ve also got Gary Johnson, former two-term Governor of New Mexico.

There’s been much to lament about Johnson’s campaign, of course, not the least being the near disaster caused due to a campaign miscommunication that almost kept Johnson off the New Hampshire ballot, as well as staff problems inside the campaign. At the same time, though, Johnson has largely been ignored by the media, and kept out of nearly all the debates due to low poll numbers (although, as Johnson has noted himself, it’s hard to do well in the polls when they don’t even include your name on the list of prospective candidates).

The possibility that Johnson could run for the Libertarian Party nomination for President next year is also encouraging. It’s not perfect, of course, and libertarian Republicans have had to sit back and watch a bunch of incompetents like Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain rise in the polls and get far more media attention than either their qualifications or their accomplishments would seem to warrant while a two-term Governor is ignored. Nonetheless, it’s better than we’ve had it in the past, and hopefully a sign that libertarian-leaning candidates are gaining wider acceptance in the Republican Party as a whole.

Guess what? The race for the Republican nomination has been shaken up again. Many of us saw Herman Cain’s downfall coming, it was only a matter of time. But still the fact that he lasted this far into the race is concerning given his lack of experience and complete lack of knowledge on some of the most basic issues, including foreign policy.

It looks as though Newt Gingrich has been able to capitalize on Cain’s misfortune and, as noted earlier, seems like to receive an endorsement. Gingrich leads in six of the last nine national polls, hold a single-digit lead in Iowa, and double-digit leads in Florida and South Carolina. Mitt Romney still leads in New Hampshire, but Gingrich and Ron Paul are gaining steam.

The News

This primary has been crazy. There is a significant portion of the Republican electorate that is determined to make sure that Mitt Romney doesn’t win the party’s nomination. It’s hard to blame them given his frequent position changes and refusal to back away from RomneyCare, which — as I so frequently note — was the basis for ObamaCare.

In the last two weeks, we’ve seen Herman Cain’s campaign implode due to the handling of the past accusations sexual harassment and another series of embarrassing gaffes. As expected, the next candidate in line for conservatives — who have gone through Cain, then Bachmann, then Perry, and then Cain again — is Newt Gingrich, whose campaign was all but dead in the water a few months ago.

The News

I was at the Defending the American Dream Summit last Friday, put on by the Americans for Prosperity Foundation. I was really there just for the Free Market Job Fair, sponsored by the Leadership Institute and ConservativeJobs, but I also managed to see the speeches by Romney, Cain, and Giuliani in the ballroom. (Fortunately, I left long before the OccupyDC nutcases appeared, but that’s another post.)

Sitting there in the back, the room illuminated only by the four gargantuan TV screens projecting the speaker’s face, and the light on the stage, I was awestruck by how cavernous the place was. No, really—you could have parked the Nimitz in there and still probably had enough room for a Space Shuttle or two. That feeling, however, was quickly replaced by awe at the candidates who graced us with their presence—and the fact that one old guy up in the front was really spry, to be hopping around like that.

Namely, though, the awe was, “This is the best the GOP has?”

To me, Romney’s biggest plus was he has a voice that belongs in nearly every commercial about life insurance and in cartoons. It has that deep texture that you look for in voice actors, and seriously—could you not imagine this guy being the voice of Skeletor? Aside from that, however, I was disappointed. He offered up the same conservative talking points of cutting government spending and working from one’s bootstraps (including a story about creating Staples in the back room of a warehouse with used Naugahyde chairs), but those are words: will they actually translate into action?

It’s been awhile since we’ve posted the GOP Presidential Power Rankings. Honestly, I needed a break from the race. But with the first votes being cast on January 3rd in Iowa, we need to crank it up again.

The News

• We are now less than a year away from the 2012 Presidential Election; 364 days to be exact (November 6, 2012).
• The latest numbers from Gallup show Obama and Romney tied. However, he leads Perry and Cain both nationally and in “swing states.”
• A generic Republican beats Obama on key issues in swing states.
• Jim Pethokoukis notes a recent election forcast model showing that the odds of Obama being re-elected are declining.
• Whoever wins the GOP primary will, along with Obama, face a skeptical electorate.
• Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) will not endorse in the GOP primary.

The Rankings

As we role merrily right along into November, I, along with the rest of the libertarian crowd, am watching the Republican Party blissfully make the same tired mistakes yet again. Watching what appears to be unsynchronized cat herding under penalty of broken knee caps can be entertaining, but at this point, I’m really close to pulling out a speech worthy of a spot in Pulp Fiction on Samuel Jackson’s cue cards.

On saying “we have to remove Obama” out of fear and we can only support whoever the eventual GOP Nominee is: I’ve already written about this subject in The Strategy of Hating One. In the current cycle, it’s President Obama, but the previous installment was Bill Clinton and little blue dress. You can point to a general belief that the President is a Marxist or Socialist without too much opposition. You can make the point that the closest description of our country is Fascism. But I have to challenge you to point out the differences between the last Republican President or the alternative of McCain, and this Democrat President. We have stayed in Iraq until they are kicking us out, we have escalated Afghanistan, Libya, kept Gitmo open. Leaving the main differences that the increase in spending has been larger than say a McCain might have done, and Obamacare has been pushed through. And frankly, Obamacare could very well be named McCain-Care given the same congressional make-up.

It’s been another interesting week in the battle for the Republican nomination for president. Rick Perry continues his free fall as Herman Cain benefits from a substantial amount of press coming off his straw poll win in Florida. Of course, Romney stands to benefit from this as he hasn’t had much of a tea party appeal.

In this latest version of our Power Rankings, Cain and Newt Gingrich are moved up, Bachmann drops down into the bottom tier. And while may disagree with this, Romney moves back to the top.

The News

My write-up from Friday concerning Ron Paul and Gary Johnson created quite a stir. I wanted to take an opportunity to write a follow-up to address some of the questions and concerns of several of the readers. For those who haven’t read the original write-up, please do so here.

I thought that I had made it pretty clear that this wasn’t just some guy commenting on a page. This was the actual page owner posting an update that was going out to the page’s readership. There were several pages on Facebook that posted it. Those pages include Ron Paul 2012 (18,500+ fans), Ron Paul Revolution (20,000+), several state pages (with readerships ranging in the hundreds), and at least a couple of others. Once again, these were the actual pages, not just random people commenting. I would bet money there were many other pages on Facebook as well as countless blogs, forums, and other webpages posting this same line. Regarding the ones on Facebook that I saw, there were hundreds of responses and of those, a majority felt like there was a conspiracy or at least an orchestrated effort to get Johnson in the debate as it might hurt Dr. Paul. So we’re definitely not talking one person. We’re talking hundreds with exposure to thousands. In all fairness, there were several responses on these pages discounting that theory.

It’s been an interesting last couple of weeks in the race for the Republican nomination for president as this race has seen the two frontrunners go after each other on economic records and other issues, including a debate over Social Security. While Romney has cast himself as a conservative, he has been running to the left of Perry on entitlements, chastizing Perry for his past comments on the issue.

As far as the rankings go, I’ve moved Herman Cain up a spot over Newt Gingrich, but he’s still below Bachmann. But I expect a shake up as soon as next week as fresh polls come out in the race.

The News

During Ron Paul’s speech at the 2011 Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, he closed his speech with a couple of references to Samuel Adams. One that many know, and one more obscure. Dr. Paul said that Sam Adams was known for saying “no long faces”.

“If we wear long faces, others will do so too; if we despair, let us not expect that others will hope; or that they will persevere in a contest, from which their leaders shrink. But let not such feelings, let not such language, be ours.” - Samuel Adams

With the ever-encroaching leviathan comprised of local, state and federal governments and a political class that doesn’t appear to address, much less acknowledge, the concerns of the average person, it is tempting to build a bunker somewhere, crawl into bed and pull the covers up over your head.

Tempting until you take notice of the positive strides made by liberty advocates in the past four years; things which could not have been accomplished had activists focused on the negative or gone into bunkers.

Does Ron Paul actually have a chance at winning the GOP nomination? In all honesty, yes.

There are a lot more positive differences between this and last Presidential election than you might know. Consider the utterances of a few Republican candidates espousing a less interventionist foreign policy. Much of this is merely anti-Obama windmill-tilting but it wouldn’t be occurring at all if it weren’t for widespread support amongst the general public.

The recent news that Osama bin Laden has been killed has itself caused some conservatives to wonder what we’re still doing in Afghanistan. If the main objective has been accomplished, after some 10 trillion dollars and 10 years, shouldn’t we bring the troops home and leave the people of Afghanistan to deal with their own independence?