Ron Paul and Chuck Baldwin

Next week Congressman Ron Paul will hold a joint news conference with presidential candidates Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin at the National Press Club. Now, readers of this blog know my feelings about Barr, but I can certainly understand why Paul might want to help him out. But Baldwin? This guy's a theocrat through and through. His party, the Constitution Party, is an explicitly Christian party that wants the United States to be governed by biblical law. Ron Paul the libertarian wants to support this?

According to its party platform, the Constitution Party:
- Would ban gambling.
- Would ban pornography ("government plays a vital role in establishing and maintaining the highest level of decency in our community standards")
- Proposes a complete moratorium on all immigration, describing immigrants (legal and illegal) as "people with low standards of living."
- Wants to deploy the military within the United States to stop immigration.
- Plans to persecute gays ("We reject the notion that sexual offenders are deserving of legal favor or special protection, and affirm the rights of states and localities to proscribe offensive sexual behavior.")
- Will continue the war on drugs that Paul has fought so hard against.
- Wants to repeal the Voting Rights Act (which allowed the federal government to force states to uphold their constitutional responsibility to allow all of their citizens to vote)
- Supports high taxes on imports to keep out goods made overseas.
- Opposes "efforts to confer statehood upon the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or expand statehood beyond the current fifty states." Now that's just weird. Puerto Rican statehood hasn't been much of an issue in this election, but why wouldn't the Constitution Party want Puerto Ricans to pay federal taxes (so long as the rest of us do)? Even if the motivation is hatred of brown people, Puerto Ricans are already U.S. citizens and can travel or move to any state without a visa.

Update: The Constitution Party of Montana will not put Baldwin's name on the ballot there, instead choosing ... Ron Paul. So what happens if Paul endorses Baldwin? Very odd indeed.

Ron Paul Supporters Like Obama

Forget about the haters - the libertarians who call Barack Obama a Marxist, or start websites telling Ron Paul supporters that they'd better line up behind John McCain. Plenty of libertarians, it turns out, support Obama. More evidence from today: an Associated Press story about how supporters of Paul and Mick Huckabee plan on voting in November.

Some stats from the story:
- In June, 18 percent of people who had visited Paul's web site before John McCain clinched the nomination read at least one major conservative blog while 22 percent read at least one major liberal blog. Could it be because liberal bloggers tend to agree with Paul on the issue most important to him, reining in the American empire?
- Six percent of these people went to McCain's web site and 8 percent to Obama's. Could it be because Obama agrees with Paul on both the war and Paul's second favorite issue, sound money?
- These small numbers aren't just noise. The same data show Huckabee's supporters going strongly for McCain.

Ron Paul has asked his supporters not to vote for him. I would bet that at least a few of them will be pulling the lever for Obama in November.

Ron Paul Soda

No commentary necessary. All the details here. Via Disinter.

Ron Paul Does Not Want You to Cast a Write-In Vote for Him

Just in case you were considering it. Whole story at Reason.

(via Third Party Watch)

Deja Vu: Ron Paul Suspends His Campaign

Maybe I'm not seeing the subtle distinctions, but what, exactly, is the difference between Ron Paul's announcement in March that he can't win the Republican nomination and will stop campaigning, and Ron Paul's announcement today that he's suspending his campaign? Notice that Paul still hasn't officially dropped out of the race, though he hasn't held any campaign events in months. Not that this has stopped him from taking more than 10% of the vote in Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Oregon and Idaho even after John McCain wrapped up the nomination.

Paul plans to transfer the energy his campaign generated to his new Campaign for Liberty, an organization for activism and education. That's probably for the best. Ron Paul is a lot better at raising important issues and building a movement than at winning votes in a national campaign. No word yet on whether he'll endorse Bob Barr - or anyone else. Reason confirms that he won't be endorsing John McCain - a big duh on that one, despite the work of some delusional McCain supporters.

Libertarians for Conformity

The web site Join or Die '08 is an effort to get Ron Paul supporters to abandon every piece of ideology their candidate has - non-interventionism, civil liberties, privacy, personal freedom, etc., etc. - and rally around John McCain for the good of ... what exactly? Paul has never been the most die hard Republican - remember 1988? - and the Republicans have been happy to return the favor (read the full history of Republican attempts to defeat Paul here). So why should libertarians care about Republican unity, especially when the party's standard bearer is John McCain?

The site was apparently started by a 14-year-old from Georgia who has raised a total of $320 for Paul's campaign. So I'll try not to bash its collectivist, conformist, rally-around-the-leader sentiments too much. But what are Join or Die's adult supporters thinking? And why is the site getting coverage in everything from Wired to Daily Kos? This is pretty embarrassing for Paul supporters.

No More Ron Paul

Ron Paul has conceded that he will not win the Republican presidential nomination. Anyone who cares about war, civil liberties and out of control federal spending owes Paul a debt of gratitude for so passionately championing these issues in the national conversation. Paul may even be able to make a nice stink at the Republican convention in August with the delegates that he's won. But a Paul is no longer a serious option for voters in the remaining primary states. And he won't be on the ballot in November. This leaves libertarians with five choices for the remainder of the campaign:
- Support Hillary Clinton
- Support John McCain
- Support a third party candidate
- Stay home on election day
- Support Barack Obama

This blog will make the case for Obama. I don't think it will take much to convince libertarians - especially those who, like Paul, believe that endless war is the greatest threat facing America - that Clinton and McCain don't deserve their votes. A small percentage of libertarians will switch their affinity from Paul to the motley crew of third party candidates who not only can't win, but probably won't even be able to get their messages heard. I don't know if I will be able to change these voters' minds.

But I think that most libertarians will struggle over the next several months to decide whether to support Obama or to sit out this election. These are the people that I want to reach. I do not support Obama because I believe that he is the lesser of the evils. I support him because I believe that he will bring changes to this country that libertarians can enthusiastically support, even if he is not strictly libertarian himself. On issue after issue - including ending the Iraq war (and its massive spending), restoring civil liberties, reining in the federal budget by enacting paygo rules and preventing a new war with Iran - Obama offers policies that libertarians should enthusiastically support.

If I haven't convinced you yet, I hope you will engage me in the comments section, or at least keep reading over the coming months as I make my case.