Troubling news

As many of you know, when I moved to Delaware and registered to vote I decided to register with the party I felt was closest to my beliefs. Given the choices, I opted to register with the Constitution Party (CP) – so the upcoming primary that’s mainly for the duopoly wouldn’t be all that interesting to me. You may remember I selected the CP’s Darrell Castle as my Presidential choice in 2016, eschewing the Republican for the first time since 1992.

I was a little bit put off when I learned that the CP nominated Don Blankenship to be their Presidential standard-bearer this time around. You may not know the name, but he’s a former coal company executive who ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for the U.S. Senate in West Virginia in 2018 then, after losing in the primary, tried (but failed) to get on the general election ballot as a member of the Constitution Party. So it appears more like a vanity campaign than a real run for office.

But I wasn’t alone. In a scathing critique of the national CP, its Indiana state branch voted to disassociate with the national group, and I think they have some valid criticism. This will be a call-and-response post, beginning with what they had to say about the party’s history:

Lot of news to report. In May, the national committee of the national Constitution Party voted to elect new officers for the next four years. As the party has been on a downward trajectory for several years, this election was a watershed moment in the history of the party. The election for chairman was an opportunity for the party to vote for someone who wished to enact the necessary changes to its marketing and communications. Shockingly, the national committee voted decisively to maintain the current trajectory. After 28 years, many people thought that the party was ready to change course based on past results. Sadly those people were mistaken.

Indiana Constitution Party letter, June 17, 2020

Let’s talk about that “current trajectory.” The two current primary “third” parties in this nation are the Libertarian Party and the Green Party. Respectively they came into being in 1971 and 1991, although the Green Party began laying their groundwork seven years earlier. In either case, projecting their party’s fortunes ahead 28 years or so found that the Libertarians had ballot access in all but one state for the 2000 election and gathered 384,431 votes (or 0.36%); meanwhile that 2000 election was a high-water mark for the Greens, who nominated Ralph Nader for president and picked up 2.74% of the vote, mainly based on Nader’s name recognition. In the 2016 election, which was closest to the 28 year mark for the Greens, they picked up 1,457,218 votes and were on the ballot in 45 states.

So compare that to the CP’s high water mark set in 2016 with just over 200,000 votes and ballot placement in less than half the states and it’s obvious trajectory is an issue. In looking up the 2016 election I also noticed the CP spent a whopping $50,000 on that race. You can’t even win a contested Delegate seat with that.

Current leadership was responsible for vetting the presidential candidates, but they failed to properly vet the candidates. Seeing how the national party’s main goal is to run a standard bearer for the party as a Presidential candidate, the national executive committee failed in its main task. In addition, we see that one of the main reasons why the party has failed for 28 years is because it does not have the right vision for success. It concerns itself with running a viable presidential candidate and getting ballot access instead of building a sustainable party.

Indiana Constitution Party letter, June 17, 2020

This is one of those chicken-and-egg questions. Ballot access is important because it’s exceptionally rare for a write-in to win a major race. (The most recent example I can think of is Lisa Murkowski in Alaska in 2010; however, she had the advantages of name recognition and incumbency, something a CP nominee would almost certainly not have.)

It’s perhaps best to try and build up the party in states where ballot access is easiest and begin with populating the ballot with local and state candidates. To use Delaware as an example, here in Sussex County – which is plurality Republican, the only county in Delaware where the GOP has an advantage – the CP has just 43 registered voters out of its 282 statewide. Honestly, this county should be a hotbed for the CP but apparently no one has really tried to solicit people from the other conservative parties and independents. Getting ballot access is a start, although finding motivated and articulate spokespeople for the CP is also a challenge. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

In this election cycle, the Constitution Party has nominated a presidential candidate for whom there are serious questions about his fidelity to the party platform and his personal conduct. Many of us came to the Constitution Party to get away from the two major parties who refuse to hold their candidates accountable to ethical standards as well as adhering to the principles of the party. We are now disappointed to see the Constitution Party at the national level do the same thing.

Indiana Constitution Party letter, June 17, 2020

As I said, I think Don Blankenship is running a vanity campaign, even after spending time in a federal prison on a misdemeanor charge (admittedly, that is highly unusual) about which he dubs himself a “political prisoner.” We’re not talking about wearing a boot on his head like Vermin Supreme (not to mention why would you want that to be your name?) but I have to wonder whether this opportunist was really the best the CP could get? Maybe the Indiana folks have a point here.

Furthermore, it was brought to our attention that for the second time in three years the national executive committee was planning on interfering with the affairs of a state affiliate. This interfering is strictly forbidden by the party constitution and the party bylaws. Seeing how the three pillars of the national party are “Integrity, Liberty, and Prosperity”, we cannot ignore that the national executive committee is not holding one another accountable. If the national party officers cannot hold themselves accountable, and if they cannot uphold their own party constitution, how can they hold legislators accountable and how can they uphold the U.S Constitution?

Indiana Constitution Party letter, June 17, 2020

Good question.

As a result of these events and others, the officers of the Constitution Party of Indiana have decided that they have no confidence in the present and incoming leadership at the national level and therefore have voted to disaffiliate and disassociate from the national party. With the current chaos occurring in our nation, it appears that we are in our darkest days in quite a long time. However, there are too many patriots among us who will not sit quietly as our nation reels back and forth. It is dark now, but a new day will soon be dawning. Updates will be posted as warranted.

Indiana Constitution Party letter, June 17, 2020

I appreciate the hopeful tone, but this also begs some serious questioning of my own.

In studying the TEA Party as much as I have, I learned early on there was a debate among its many leaders, who were in reality scattered among very localized groups. While there were some who tried to nationalize the TEA Party (often in order to bolster or create their own political fortunes) oftentimes these local people wanted to stay neutral and avoid entangling alliances with political parties.

After the high-profile Doug Hoffman race in the fall of 2009, where a Democrat won a long-standing GOP seat because Republicans selected a moderate who withdrew last-minute and endorsed the Democrat over the conservative TEA Party favorite Hoffman, and as a result of the beginnings of a consolidation of power by nascent national groups and long-established backers who had political experience, the TEA Party began to adopt the philosophy of eschewing a third party for their needs and instead tried to take over the Republican Party from within. (I was one who was already there.) Given that the Constitution Party has much in common with the goals of the TEA Party, would the TEA Party have been better off trying to build up a third party using the CP’s resources? (A similar argument could be made about the Libertarian Party, but they don’t appeal nearly as much to the social conservatives in the TEA Party.)

Maybe the better question is, particularly with the populist direction Donald Trump has taken the GOP, are we seeing the dawn of a new split in the GOP? Perhaps the new party is going to be founded in the center between moderate #NeverTrump Republicans who are willing to cross the aisle and centrist Democrats who aren’t down with the AOC/Bernie Sanders/Antifa wing of the Democrat Party. I know they have tried and failed multiple times to create a moderate, centrist third party, and it’s because the electoral rules are stacked against them in most cases.

If the Constitution Party (or some like-minded equivalent) is going to succeed, they need a national organization which is willing to build from the bottom by gaining ballot access where it’s easiest to obtain and working with the grassroots elsewhere to amend restrictive laws that protect the duopoly. Maybe there’s no CP presidential candidate for 2024 or they de-emphasize his or her success. For the near term the goal is simply to build name recognition for the CP by being principled, not to make a name for yourself.

Maybe it’s time for other CP state groups to follow Indiana’s lead. As it stands now I don’t have a lot of confidence in what the CP wants to do.

Odds and ends number 96

It’s been nearly a year since I did one of these, but let me assure you that I’m not digging up a lot of chestnuts from my e-mail bag. There are just a few things which have piqued my interest lately and deserve a mention, whether it be a few sentences to a handful of paragraphs. It’s like riding a bike – you don’t forget how to do it after enough times.

Miss #FliptheFirst almost flips the race

I thought for a bit that, after the winding down of Red Maryland, I might have to step into the breach temporarily with popcorn in hand to witness the glory of having the candidate who won the First District Congressional primary despite withdrawing try to convince the twelve Democrat Central Committees involved to pick the only other candidate who lives in the district – but who finished a distant third – over the second-place finisher.

Alas, the late-arriving mail-in votes vaulted Mia Mason to a narrow victory over Allison Galbraith in the First District Democrat primary. Early on, it appeared the Allison may have won the race despite announcing her withdrawal six weeks ago for personal reasons. Had she not dropped out, it’s clear Allison may have won her primary on a scale comparing with Andy Harris’s 82-18 win in the GOP primary against challenger Jorge Delgado.

(By the way, have you ever noticed that Republicans who say how tired they are of Andy Harris don’t turn out in droves to the primary? Andy has never received less than 75% of the GOP vote since taking office in 2010, although he’s had at least one challenger in each primary election since 2014. I guess you can call it a silent majority.)

Mia is going to have a very reluctant supporter in Allison. On her campaign social media page Galbraith charged that, “Mia, she’s just playing pick a district and hasn’t been filing any of her FEC reports properly. She also called the state party and told blatant lies about me saying I had somehow ‘intimidated’ or ‘pressured’ her by offering her a job because she happens to be good at field. Her ethics, less commendable.”

If it were a more fairly-drawn district I would keep out the popcorn, but to know that Mason could have ran in her own district and has few ties to the Eastern Shore means the local Democrats will have a harder time backing her.

Good reads on energy

I’m going back to the B.C. era (before coronavirus) on this, but over the last few months the folks who write the Energy Tomorrow blog have also linked to some other good pieces which found their way to media.

For example, the good news about natural gas gets very little play as we try and force-feed solar and wind power on the energy market. “It would be hard to find anything NOT to like about this great American success story,” writes Stephen Moore, “(Now we have) energy independence, reliable and inexhaustible supply, low prices, reduced power of the Middle East, Russia, and other OPEC nations, and cleaner air than at any time in at least a century.” But the environmentalists whine because natural gas is “a hurdle” in their zero-carbon goal, which is unattainable until that day we figure out how to make the wind blow constantly at just the right speed and sun shine 24 hours a day – in other words, the twelfth of never.

Yet they talk about a fracking ban on the Left, and despite the fact Joe Biden hasn’t publicly stated he’s for a ban that will change if he wins the election. He’s already promised a de facto ban by pledging he would be, “Requiring aggressive methane pollution limits for new and existing oil and gas operations.” By making compliance expensive and cumbersome it would create the same effect as a ban: imagine you liked ice cream enough to produce it, but the government told you that you had to make sure the cow farts didn’t reach the atmosphere with expensive equipment attached to their behinds to collect their “residue.” That cost has to come from somewhere and reducing profit makes for a lot less incentive to stay in business. (And it’s not like the energy industry doesn’t want to improve its record since methane sent into the atmosphere is methane we can’t use for profitable purposes.) So, yeah, it would cripple our economy and this study documents how much. (Bear in mind it, too, was conducted B.C.)

A voice of reason on Biden

Last summer I did a radio interview with Kansas-based host Andy Hooser, who bills himself as the “Voice of Reason.” Since he has an Ohio connection and is a pretty good self-promoter, I’ve kept following his efforts as he went from terrestrial show to podcast to a bid for a syndicated national show.

But the reason I bring him up now is his long summary of the Joe Biden campaign as it begins in this brave “new normal” world. It’s a rather in-depth opinion from a different kind of pundit and he made a number of good points.

Denied access

In the past I have often voted for Libertarian Party candidates when their views meshed with mine moreso than the ones of the RINO on the ballot. Yet thanks to the reigning D vs. R duopoly, oftentimes the Libertarians and other minor parties – including the Constitution Party, which I’ll get to in a minute – have to waste valuable resources maintaining a ballot position whereas the majors don’t.

Back in March, the two leading minor parties in Maryland realized they would have an issue with petitioning their way onto the ballot thanks to the Wuhan flu; despite being allowed to collect electronic signatures they sued the state last month.

Maryland’s petition law is daunting, and it shouldn’t really be necessary: as of the last report which listed the Greens and Libertarians (january 2019), the LP had over 22,000 registered voters with their party and the Greens 9,262. One would think those should be automatic signatures with their registration, meaning that only the Greens would have to collect 738 signatures from non-party members to qualify. Delaware has a much simpler and fairer system of ballot access based on voter registration numbers, requiring just 1/10 of 1 percent of voters to be listed. (At present there are six ballot-eligible parties in Delaware, the largest besides the two major parties being the Independent Party of Delaware, or IPOD.) Here the Libertarians are in like flint; however, the Green Party is actually about 20 short at the moment. (Besides Rs, Ds, Ls, and IPOD, the other two eligible are the American Delta Party and Nonpartisan.)

Blankenship is their man

Since I voted for and registered with the Constitution Party, I should let you know they selected Don Blankenship as their Presidential nominee. Unfortunately, the problem with smaller parties is that they often pick out self-serving people as their nominee and I get that impression with him. Rather than the issue-based platforms of most political candidates, I see a lot of filler on Blankenship’s website. I don’t know if he really believes the Constitution Party platform or just sees the party as a way to serve his vanity run. But then I wasn’t a delegate to their convention last month and that’s where he was selected.

So, since I’m looking for the best person regardless of party, later this summer I will have to resurrect my issue-based search for the best candidate. I’m not sure this Don is my guy, either. This is especially true when compared to the common sense the CP’s last nominee espoused in response to the coronavirus.

Advice worth taking

Speaking of Presidential candidates and advice, my last Republican choice has written a smart op-ed about the pitfalls of businesses becoming too “woke” and alienating millions of consumers. It’s a shame this Bobby Jindal piece ran before the whole George Floyd episode because we’re seeing that on steroids right now.

Now I know conservative groups have wanted to boycott this or that for the last generation, but that really doesn’t work as a focused campaign. It’s the business side that Jindal appeals to, concluding, “businesses threaten to undermine the very conservative coalition that stands between them and ruinous policies on the Left.” I really don’t want those “ruinous policies,” thank you.

Programming notes

It’s taken a long time and quite a few turns, but I’m going to make an effort to finally finish my Indivisible series as my next or second-to-next post. I need to put it to bed.

In the meantime, I’m adding a personal page to this website. I’ve often referred to my faith in these posts and on social media, but never really detailed how I got there. This new page will serve as my testimony and if it brings even just one reader to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ it’s worth placing.

On the duopoly

One facet of the early TEA Party which fascinated me was the debate on whether to try to form a political TEA Party or work through the existing two-party system, or, as I call it, the duopoly. In Rise and Fall I devoted a significant part of the early chapters to the TEA Party’s impact on two political campaigns: the 2009 Doug Hoffman Congressional race in New York’s 23rd Congressional District and the Scott Brown Senate race for the “Kennedy seat” in Massachusetts in 2009-10.

In the Hoffman case, you may recall that the Republican nominee was selected by local party officials rather than the electorate at large, resulting in a candidate, state Assembly member Dede Scozzafava, who was deemed most electable as a moderate as opposed to necessarily espousing Republican principles. Hoffman, who had also interviewed for the seat and had originally pledged his support for Scozzafava, eventually prevailed upon New York’s Conservative Party to give him his own ballot line.

Although Hoffman was in a close second place by the time late October rolled around – thanks to the sudden interest of the TEA Party in a rather obscure, backwater Congressional district special election race – the eventual withdrawal by the Republican and her endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens, along with a disadvantageous ballot position, pulled defeat from the jaws of victory. (Owens had the advantage of two ballot lines as well, as a far-left party endorsed him rather than run a candidate on their own.)

Stung by that loss, the TEA Party tried things the other way. Fast-forward about six weeks and once Scott Brown made it official by winning the Republican nomination for the Massachusetts special election it was (practically) all hands on deck – never mind he was arguably to the left of Scozzafava overall and there was an independent libertarian candidate in the race (ironically by the name of Joseph Kennedy, but no relation to the Camelot clan) who may have been more suitable philosophically. Aside from the small percentage who argued the Kennedy case on TEA Party principles, the national focus was on Brown winning, and as we now know, he did – and was soon rather disappointing for two reasons: one, his moderate stances, and secondly, he’s the one who gave us Elizabeth Warren because he got his doors blown off in the 2012 general, when his wasn’t the only race of national concern.

In short, this brief few months sealed a key decision (and perhaps error) by those who were the leaders of the TEA Party: they chose to try and reform the Republican Party from within. Convinced that someplace within the GOP were candidates and officeholders receptive to the conservative message of the TEA Party, the effort in the first half of last decade was to take over the GOP from within, through gaining seats in local precincts and working their way up the ranks. By now you would think this policy of percolating through from the grassroots would be bearing sizable fruit – but it doesn’t seem to be working that way.

This long prelude has finally brought me to my main point and inspiration. One of those who I made acquaintance with in promoting my book over the summer was Andy Hooser, whose radio show “The Voice of Reason” was the seventh stop on my radio tour. (I remember doing his show pacing around my backyard on what I called “Triple Dip Friday” – three shows in one day!)

Since then I’ve signed up for updates and the other day Andy introduced the current two-party system as a topic of discussion, noting in part:

We have been the ones, as members of the parties, that have allowed the parties to get out of hand. Our nation was built on strong, hard individuals who were leaders, not followers. The founding fathers that did promote a two party system, did so with the idea that the informed, active member of society could listen to an argument, contribute to the cause, and help the party accomplish it’s goals. Now…the party creates fear in the hearts of ill-informed followers to create an agenda. With our lack of involvement in politics…with our lack of engagement in the system…and our lack of understanding of issues as a society, the parties are no longer run by us…but for for self preservation with us as the follower to keep the lifeline going. 

So how do we fix this? A third party? HA. Third parties are no more relevant than Vermin Supreme running for President. The only thing third parties do, is potentially swing an election to the side lest in line with your views. 

Our job is to fix the parties from within. We cannot destroy them (unless they destroy themselves…Hello socialist Democrats?), we cannot leave them. At the end of the day, the money, they power, and the influence is within the parties. Our chance to change things…is the fix the party internally. Run for office locally. Set a standard of what you will tolerate as a platform for the party and the candidates. Hold you local, statewide, and national elected officials accountable. Don’t let them say one thing, yet vote another way. Work within your party. And bring it back to the platform it says it promotes. That’s the reason you joined it in the first place. 

“To be a two party system…or not to be!” – Voice of Reason website, January 29, 2020.

A common definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and it seems to me we in the TEA Party tried this approach a decade ago. Nor would it surprise me if the Moral Majority crowd didn’t try it in the early 1980s, to name another somewhat failed attempt to mold and shape politics to their will. Everything old is new again.

This assertion also begs the question: are the two parties really that popular? Since I was a Maryland resident at the time, this is where the party registration totals stood the day after the initial set of TEA Parties, February 28, 2009:

  • Democrat: 1,953,650 (56.9%)
  • Republican: 919,500 (26.8%)
  • unaffiliated: 482,806 (14.1%)
  • all others: 76,486 (2.2%)

It was a D+30 state. Now let’s see where we are at as of the end of 2019:

  • Democrat: 2,204,017 (54.7%)
  • Republican: 1,009,635 (25.0%)
  • unaffiliated: 757,953 (18.8%)
  • all others: 60,536 (1.5%)

Of the four major groups, the only one which is growing in rate are the unaffiliated. But it is still a D+30 state.

Turning to my adopted home state of Delaware, the online numbers only go back to 2010. In Delaware at that time (January 2010) there were 25 (!) registered parties but only four had ballot access: Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and the Independent Party of Delaware (or IPOD).

  • Democrat: 287,821 (47.1%)
  • Republican: 180,479 (29.5%)
  • unaffiliated: 137,072 (22.4%)
  • all others: 6,095 (1.0%)

That would make it a D+18 state, which was a little more promising for conservatives. So where do we stand now, a decade later? Well, we are down to 17 parties listed but the top dogs are still on top:

  • Democrat: 338,586 (47.4%)
  • Republican: 198,018 (27.7%)
  • unaffiliated: 163,150 (22.8%)
  • all others: 14,365 (2.0%)

The Delaware GOP has seen their previous support splinter in every direction: their 1.8% loss has gone slightly to the Democrats (0.4%) and unaffiliated groups (also 0.4%) but mainly to minor parties, which doubled to 2% of the electorate. Now it’s a D+20 state.

What does this all mean? Well, at least in this small area of the country, it means that if the TEA Party took over the Republican Party, it didn’t do a very good job of making it thrive. (Given the Delaware GOP’s treatment of their Senate primary winner Christine O’Donnell in 2010, it wouldn’t surprise me if a significant part of their registration loss came from that incident.) Of course, there are other areas of the nation where the GOP is probably growing but I suspect these types of declining numbers are prevalent in many areas.

So why not a third party? Well, if you look at our history as a whole our political system went through a number of party upheavals in its first century, but the last major shift came in the 1850s as the Republican Party ascended over the ruins of the old Whig Party. I tend to believe that as time went on the two dominant parties entered into a gentleman’s agreement to divvy the political spoils among themselves, making it more difficult for competing parties to grow and prosper.

Imagine the time and effort wasted by the Libertarians, Green Party, Constitution Party, Reform Party, and others in having to gain ballot access again and again in some states, such as Maryland – a state that required parties secure 1% of the vote in certain races or go through a process of collecting thousands of signatures just to qualify for another cycle. Of course, the Republicans and Democrats don’t have to do this, and they are the ones who prefer the duopoly because it cuts off competition.

On the other hand, the reason Delaware has so many parties is fairly lax rules on party formation. Their biggest hurdle is getting and maintaining 1% of registered voters for ballot access, but it’s been done by the Libertarians, Green Party, and IPOD, so there are possibly five choices all across the political spectrum. (They are very close to six, if the American Delta Party can pick up a handful of voters.) Granted, none of these parties fill a ballot all the way down to state representative, but I believe the reason is a self-fulfilling prophecy (created by the duopoly, echoed by the media) that only a D or R can win.

Over the years, there has become a “lesser of two evils” approach to voting: people voted for Donald Trump not because they were enamored with him but because they were really afraid of what Hillary Clinton would do to us. We were all told that “a vote for Gary Johnson, Evan McMullin, etc. is a vote for Hillary.” So they were scared into voting for Trump. (On the other hand, having disgruntled Bernie Sanders backers and conventional wisdom that Hillary would easily win may have freed those on the Left to vote for who they really wanted, to Hillary’s detriment.)

That was the approach by enough people in enough states (including her so-called “firewall” across the Midwest) to give Donald Trump the upset victory despite the fact more Republicans voted against him than in his favor during the primary season, although Trump had the plurality by the time it was over. (As Democrats did against Barack Obama in 2008 – Hillary Clinton won that popular vote, too.)

But what if people had something to vote for? If you’re on the far left, maybe you like the Green Party or Socialist Workers Party, while those on the conservative side may prefer my political home, the Constitution Party. There’s nothing hurt by giving the electorate more choices, but the key is getting states to loosen up balloting requirements.

And if we want a real TEA Party, it would become possible and easier to build one from the bottom up. Why take over a party which is set in its ways when you can build to suit? Let’s make that easier to do.

Sitting right next to square one: a postmortem, part three

I’m not patient enough to wait on the final Maryland results, but if they hold fair enough to form they will conform to a degree with my prediction.

Evan McMullin will get the majority of counted write-in votes, eclipsing the 5,000 mark statewide. I think Darrell Castle comes in next with around 1,100, which almost triples the 2012 Constitution Party candidates Virgil Goode and James Clymer (both ran under that banner as the party had split factions.) This would be astounding when you consider there were over 10,000 write-in votes cast in 2012 but most of those weren’t counted…Thanks to McMullin, though, this year the stigma behind write-ins will be broken somewhat.

On the Wicomico County level…Evan McMullin will beat (Jill Stein) by getting 0.6% of the vote. Of the other 100 or so votes, I figure Darrell Castle gets about 45.

If I had to make a living predicting write-in votes I would go broke in a week. However, there is something very instructive about how they did turn out.

Just based on the state results that are in, and making an educated guess about the remainder, it looks like Evan McMullin will handily exceed the 5,000 mark. Based on the number of votes left to be counted and where they come from, I wouldn’t be surprised if McMullin picks up close to 9,000 statewide. But compare that to the 34,062 Jill Stein received as the bottom on-ballot candidate. McMullin’s success comes in a field of write-ins that is far outshadowed by the “other” write-ins category they don’t count (that category is beating Stein so far but its numbers will dwindle as counties sort out the results.)

On the other hand, my expectations of Castle may be twice what he actually draws, as he’s looking at about 500 to 600 votes when all is said and done. However, there is a chance he may finish third among the group of write-ins depending on how many wrote in Michael Maturen of the American Solidarity Party – I would describe that group as having a left-of-center Christian worldview and the counties that remain to be counted would be more likely to support that than a conservative, Constitutional viewpoint. (99 votes separate the two.)

Here in Wicomico County I think double-digits could be a stretch, although the comparable Cecil County gave Castle 17 votes. (Proportionately, though, Somerset County cast 6 votes for Castle, which put him at 0.1%. So my vote for Castle may have quite a bit of company.)

But think of all the press coverage Evan McMullin received during his brief run of 3 months; by comparison we heard next to nothing about Darrell Castle accepting his party’s nomination in April of this year. I did a Bing search just a day or two before the election and found out that McMullin had five times the number of mentions that Castle did. Although that rudimentary measuring stick alluded to a large disparity, it doesn’t factor in the depth of coverage, either. McMullin got a serious number of pixels from #NeverTrump personalities such as Erick Erickson and Glenn Beck, so people had an awareness of a candidate whose campaign turned out to be more or less a favorite-son quest in Utah to deny Trump 270 electoral votes.

And there is a legitimate argument to be made for a very pessimistic point of view regarding this. My friend Robert Broadus remarked yesterday on Facebook that:

Considering that among all these choices, Castle was the only candidate representing a pro-God, pro-Family, pro-Constitution platform, I think it’s safe to say that conservatives are a negligible minority in the United States. Either it’s time for conservatives to adopt a new philosophy, or it’s time for a new party that can attract conservative voters, rather than abandoning them to liberal Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, and all the other flavors of Communism that exist on the ballot.

Nationwide, Evan McMullin has 545,104 votes (with ballot access in just 11 states and write-in access in 31 others) while Darrell Castle is at 190,599 with ballot access in 24 states and write-in access in 23. If nothing else, this shows the power of media, but I disagree that conservatives are a negligible minority. Rather, they fall prey to the notion that the election is a binary choice and the two major parties aren’t exactly going to go out of their way to say, hey, we know you may not agree with us so you may want to consider (fill in the blank.)

But it’s also clear that ballot access makes a difference. In looking at the states where Castle was on the ballot and McMullin a write-in, the limited amount of data I could find (the state of Missouri and a sampling of Wisconsin counties – they report that way) suggested that a Castle on the ballot far outdistanced a McMullin write-in. Castle received nearly ten times the votes in Missouri, for example, and generally defeated McMullin by a factor of 2 to 4 in Wisconsin.

So if you are the Constitution Party (which, based on their platform, would be my preference as an alternate party) – or any other alternate to the R/D duopoly not called the Libertarian or Green parties – job one for you is to get ballot access.  Granted, the Constitution Party only received between .2% and 1.1% of the vote in states where they qualified for the ballot, but that was vastly better than any state where they were a write-in.

Maryland makes this a difficult process, and this is more than likely intentional. To secure ballot access, a party first needs to get 10,000 valid signatures to the Board of Elections stating that these voters wish to create a new party. To maintain access they then need to get at least 1% of the vote in a gubernatorial election or 1% of the total registered voters – at this point, that number would be about 38,000. The Libertarian Party maintained its access in 2014 by receiving 1.5% of the vote, while the Green Party managed to once again qualify via petition, so both were on the ballot for the 2016 Presidential race. The Constitution Party did field a candidate for Maryland governor (Eric Knowles and running mate Michael Hargadon) with ballot access in 2010, but did not qualify in subsequent elections.

I also looked up the requirements in Delaware:

No political party shall be listed on any general election ballot unless, 21 days prior to the date of the primary election, there shall be registered in the name of that party a number of voters equal to at least 1 0/100 of 1 percent of the total number of voters registered in the State as of December 31 of the year immediately preceding the general election year.

In the First State the same parties as Maryland (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green) qualified for the ballot; however, the Green Party made it by the skin of its teeth as they barely broke the threshold of 653 they needed – they had fallen below that earlier in 2016. At this point Delaware would be adding the American Delta Party (2016 nominee: Rocky De La Fuente, who has 6 Maryland write-in votes so far) and maintaining the other four; meanwhile the Constitution Party sits at 311 of what is now a requirement of 676. (The Conservative Party is also in the same boat with 432. Perhaps a merger is in order? Also worth noting for the Constitution Party: Sussex County could be a huge growth area since they only have 36 of the 311 – they should be no less than Kent County’s 135.)

So the task for liberty- and Godly-minded people is right in front of them. While it’s likely the Republican Party has always been the “backstop” party when there are only two choices, more and more often they are simply becoming the lesser of two evils. Never was that more clear than this election, as most of the choices they presented to voters were the “tinker around the edge” sort of candidate who will inevitably drift to the left if elected.

Of course, Broadus may be right and those who are “pro-God, pro-Family, (and) pro-Constitution” may be a tiny minority. But so are homosexuals and they seem to have an outsized role in culture and politics. (I use that group as an example because they have successfully created a perception that homosexuals are 20 to 25 percent of the population.) It’s time for the group I write about to become the “irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” It may be a stretch when most people think Samuel Adams is a brand of beer, but I choose to try.

Woe unto them that call evil good: a frank discussion about life issues and the party platforms

By Cathy Keim and Michael Swartz

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Isaiah 5:20, KJV

This fall in Maryland we will have four parties on the ballot: not just the Republicans and Democrats, but also the Libertarians and the Green Party. All four of them are represented on the Presidential ballot, with three also contending for United States Senate and for our First District Congressional seat. (There is no Libertarian running for Senate and no Green Party candidate in the First District. Around the state, there are six Libertarians and five Greens running for the House.)

As one who has a passionate interest in the subject, Cathy Keim sat down to take a look at the four parties and where they stand on life issues, particularly abortion. Most of us aren’t single-issue voters, but I think I speak for Cathy when I contend we are both convinced that the way a party looks at the subject of life is an indicator of how it interprets the intersection of liberty on the one hand and faith on the other – or, as I would put it, the location of the guardrails on America’s path.

The Declaration of Independence states our unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. One cannot partake of these unalienable rights if they are murdered in the womb, so to us it is just that simple that an American that believes in the founding principles of our nation must also embrace a pro-life position.

To approach this, we have decided to lay out each party’s platform on the subject and provide our take on it afterward. These will be placed in alphabetical order so the Democrats go first.

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Securing Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice

Democrats are committed to protecting and advancing reproductive health, rights, and justice. We believe unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should have access to quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion – regardless of where she lives, how much money she makes, or how she is insured. We believe that reproductive health is core to women’s, men’s, and young people’s health and wellbeing. We will continue to stand up to Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood health centers, which provide critical health services to millions of people. We will continue to oppose – and seek to overturn – federal and state laws and policies that impede a woman’s access to abortion, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment. We condemn and will combat any acts of violence, harassment, and intimidation of reproductive health providers, patients, and staff. We will defend the ACA, which extends affordable preventive health care to women, including no-cost contraception, and prohibits discrimination in health care based on gender.

We will address the discrimination and barriers that inhibit meaningful access to reproductive health care services, including those based on gender, sexuality, race, income, disability, and other factors. We recognize that quality, affordable comprehensive health care, evidence-based sex education and a full range of family planning services help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions.

And we strongly and unequivocally support a woman’s decision to have a child, including by ensuring a safe and healthy pregnancy and childbirth, and by providing services during pregnancy and after the birth of a child, including adoption and social support services, as well as protections for women against pregnancy discrimination. We are committed to creating a society where children are safe and can thrive physically, emotionally, educationally, and spiritually. We recognize and support the importance of civil structures that are essential to creating this for every child. (Page 37 here.)

Also, on Page 46:

We will support sexual and reproductive health and rights around the globe. In addition to expanding the availability of affordable family planning information and contraceptive supplies, we believe that safe abortion must be part of comprehensive maternal and women’s health care and included as part of America’s global health programming. Therefore, we support the repeal of harmful restrictions that obstruct women’s access to health care information and services, including the “global gag rule” and the Helms Amendment that bars American assistance to provide safe, legal abortion throughout the developing world. (Emphasis ours.)

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Cathy: How can the Democrat Party write such drivel with a straight face?  They define reproductive health as including abortion and proceed to say that reproductive health is core to women’s,  men’s, and young people’s health and wellbeing.  Except for the baby that is murdered in the womb.  The aborted baby’s health and wellbeing is certainly not benefited by legal abortion.

Once upon a time, they pretended that the baby was just a blob of tissue, but now they declare that even if life begins at conception, they would still demand that abortion be legal. Despite their claim that they want abortions to be safe, they have blocked and overturned any laws that have been passed to require abortion mills to conform to accepted standards of safety. You would be horrified if your vet subjected your dog to the kind of unsanitary, unsafe conditions that abortion mills routinely conduct their procedures under.

The Democrat Party plank on abortion definitely falls under the category of calling evil good.

Michael: What I can’t get over is the sheer hypocrisy of the Democrats standing for “creating a society where children are safe” when the one place you would think would be the safest is fair game for a mother’s ill-informed “choice.” And does it not reek of the same sort of eugenics made famous by Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) that the Democrats want to promote abortion “throughout the developing world?” Why not just call them “human weeds” while you are at it?

And once again they give their whole-hearted support to Planned Parenthood by claiming they “provide critical health services.” So do thousands of other facilities that don’t make millions of dollars performing abortions or stand accused of selling baby parts for profit.

Next we will turn to the Green Party, which recently finalized its 2016 platform.

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Women’s rights must be protected and expanded to guarantee each woman’s right as a full participant in society, free from sexual harassment, job discrimination or interference in the intensely personal choice about whether to have a child.

Women’s right to control their bodies is non-negotiable. It is essential that the option of a safe, legal abortion remains available. The “morning-after” pill must be affordable and easily accessible without a prescription, together with a government-sponsored public relations campaign to educate women about this form of contraception. Clinics must be accessible and must offer advice on contraception and the means for contraception; consultation about abortion and the performance of abortions, and; abortion regardless of age or marital status.

We endorse women’s right to use contraception and, when they choose, to have an abortion. This right cannot be limited to women’s age or marital status. Contraception and abortion must be included in all health insurance policies in the U.S., and any state government must be able to legally offer these services free of charge to women at the poverty level. Public health agencies operating abroad should be allowed to offer family planning, contraception, and abortion in all countries that ask for those services. We oppose our government’s habit of cutting family planning funds when those funds go to agencies in foreign countries that give out contraceptive devices, offer advice on abortion, and perform abortions.

We encourage women and men to prevent unwanted pregnancies. It is the inalienable right and duty of every woman to learn about her body and to be aware of the phases of her menstrual cycle, and it is the duty for every man to be aware of the functions and health of his and his partner’s bodies. This information is necessary for self-determination, to make informed decisions, and to prevent unintended consequences. Unplanned conception takes control away from individuals and makes them subject to external controls. The “morning-after” pill and option of a safe and legal abortion need to remain available. (This is under the heading of “Civil Rights.”)

Under “Health Care“:

The Green Party unequivocally supports a woman’s right to reproductive choice, no matter her marital status or age, and that contraception and safe, legal abortion procedures be available on demand and be included in all health insurance coverage in the U.S., as well as free of charge in any state where a woman’s income falls below the poverty level.

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Cathy: The Green Party seems to think that reproduction refers to the right to prevent or terminate a child. This is changing the meaning from good to evil. A child is to be prevented from being conceived (I find this hard to believe) by the woman knowing her menstrual cycle! This sounds rather like the rhythm method. Why bother when you can have a free morning after pill or a safe abortion on demand? Every part of this plank is geared towards preventing future citizens. Women are only equal if they do not get pregnant.

“Unplanned conception takes control away from individuals and makes them subject to external controls.” I would think that that sentence should read makes them subject to internal controls since the baby is inside the mother’s womb!

This whole conversation is ignoring the right of the baby to exist. They try to hide that by talking about prevention, but in the end, the right to abort the baby must be universal. Since any baby can be aborted, then there can be no protection for a baby that has Down’s syndrome or any other problems. This means that there is no call to prevent sex-selection abortions. What if the baby has a cleft palate which can fixed by surgery? Once the sanctity of life is broken, there is no end to the mischief that results.

The Green Party fails completely on the abortion issue, but that didn’t surprise you, did it?

Michael: The scariest part of their platform to me is the fact that they actually say abortion is a “right (that) cannot be limited to women’s age or marital status.” As I read this, they are perfectly fine with a 10 year old getting an abortion, whether the parent knows or not. There IS a surefire way to prevent unwanted pregnancies, but then it would eliminate the choice a woman would have to sleep with a man. If the choice is made to engage in sexual activity, then there is a risk of pregnancy. Even if a woman is “aware of the phases of her menstrual cycle” there’s no guarantee that a time she thinks she’s safe is really a safe time. (Nor does this account for the inevitable failure of contraceptives.)

In essence, they are perfectly willing to absolve the women of all responsibility for their actions in the name of “individual rights.” And that leads us to the Libertarian Party.

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1.5 Abortion

Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.

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Cathy: The Libertarian Party takes a dive with their disingenuous attempt to leave abortion up to the individual.  If life is an unalienable right, then you cannot leave the choice up to the individual.  We do not leave it up to the individual to decide whether to murder someone, so why should we suddenly pretend that this is different?  The only difference is the size of the citizen.

Michael: They definitely punt on this question, and not in the least because “people can hold good-faith views on all sides.”

I believe that the Founders placed “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in that order intentionally. It is difficult, if not impossible, to pursue happiness without liberty, but it is impossible to enjoy liberty without life. And this is why I believe a true libertarian would by necessity be pro-life. Rather than argue about the point of viability for the unborn, I presume that they enjoy the right to life upon conception and their right to life trumps the mother’s liberty, as expressed in the phony “right to privacy” the majority in Roe v. Wade made out of thin air.

I can agree that the federal government should be kept out of the abortion matter, because I believe it’s properly debated and adjudicated in the several states.

Finally, we get to the Republican Party, which has been traditionally the home of the pro-life movement.

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The Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life  

Faithful to the “self-evident” truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund organizations which perform or advocate it and will not fund or subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life. We oppose the non-consensual withholding or withdrawal of care or treatment, including food and water, from people with disabilities, including newborns, as well as the elderly and infirm, just as we oppose active and passive euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Republican leadership has led the effort to prohibit the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion and permitted States to extend health care coverage to children before birth. We urge Congress to strengthen the Born Alive Infant Protection Act by enacting appropriate civil and criminal penalties on healthcare providers who fail to provide treatment and care to an infant who survives an abortion, including early induction delivery where the death of the infant is intended. We call for legislation to ban sex-selective abortions – gender discrimination in its most lethal form – and to protect from abortion unborn children who are capable of feeling pain; and we applaud U.S. House Republicans for leading the effort to protect the lives of pain-capable unborn children in the District of Columbia. We call for a ban on the use of body parts from aborted fetuses for research. We support and applaud adult stem cell research to develop lifesaving therapies, and we oppose the killing of embryos for their stem cells. We oppose federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

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Cathy: The Republican Party plank is pretty good.  It covers a lot of areas that need to be protected.  However, it stops short of stating that from conception to natural death, life should be protected.  This includes children with Down’s syndrome, birth defects, and babies conceived by rape.  The baby should not be punished for the sins of the father.

Michael: It’s a very comprehensive platform. I think Cathy’s concern is covered somewhat by the opposition to “withholding or withdrawal of care or treatment…from people with disabilities.” But I especially like the mention of judges, who are vital in the effort to provide protection to the unborn – how many common-sense laws have been overturned by the unelected federal judiciary? Ask the state of Texas, which had a perfectly valid law regarding abortion clinics overturned by judicial fiat.

Yet with such a great platform one has to ask just how much the nominee believes in it, given his statements on Planned Parenthood and relatively recent conversion to a pro-life stance. I understand people can honestly change, but the proof is in the pudding and this nominee sometimes has difficulty keeping a story straight.

Cathy: If you are a person that believes that abortion is wrong, then the party platforms reduce the viable candidates immediately.  If you further look at which party has a chance of winning, then there is only one party that works for the pro-life individual.

Voters that are concerned with “social issues” are frequently reprimanded for being single issue voters or for holding the party back from success.  I hear those arguments, but they don’t hold much water if you are not allowed to ever draw your first breath.  The pro-life position is so basic that it leaves no room to discuss other policies.  Once we have determined that our future citizens have the right to safety in their mother’s womb, then we can talk about the other issues.

The Republican Party does many things that I do not always agree with, but they have still managed to hang onto their pro-life plank.  I also understand that not every candidate will fully support every plank, but from my survey of the candidates listed on the Maryland ballot, they all claim to stand on abortion where their parties’ plank would put them.

Consider this as you choose which candidate will receive your vote.

The third party alternative

For decades, millions of Americans have complained that their Presidential choices consist of someone more evil against someone slightly less evil. Since we don’t have compulsory voting, those people have taken the option to skip voting altogether, with Presidential election turnout in 2012 estimated at 57.5%. Put another way, “none of the above” trounced both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama as they each only picked up around 29% of the registered voters.

But the fact that neither Democrats nor Republicans seem to be completely pleased with their presumptive nominees has brought out those who believe the Libertarian Party is best poised to make a little bit of inroads among the voting population. This seems to happen every cycle, but by the time the votes are cast the Libertarians are usually stuck with between 1/2 and 1 percent of the vote, By comparison, independent efforts from Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996 garnered a vastly larger percentage of the vote, and those of us who are a certain age recall liberal Republican John Anderson and his 1980 Presidential bid, which got 6.6% of the vote against incumbent Jimmy Carter and eventual winner Ronald Reagan. (Perot received 18.9% in 1992 and 8.4% in 1996, both times denying Bill Clinton a majority of the vote.)

Of course, with the unpopularity of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, who both have significant shares of voters on the principled edges of their respective parties declaring their intentions to not vote for the nominee, there is the luster of an independent run by a conservative like Ted Cruz or a socialist like Bernie Sanders. The idea falls apart, though, thanks to early ballot access deadlines in several states and “sore loser” laws preventing defeated Democrats or Republicans from going back on the ballot a second time in a particular cycle for the same office.

So here in Maryland there are only four party lines: Republican, Democrat, Green Party, or Libertarian. Each has a place on the ballot, and since I’m nowhere near caring who runs for the Green Party my focus for this is on the Libertarian ticket, where their nominating convention will be held in Orlando this weekend. Their field of 18 recognized candidates actually exceeds the original GOP field, but for all intents and purposes the balloting is going to come down to three: Gary Johnson, John McAfee, or Austin Petersen.

Johnson has the highest profile, but I suspect the purists of the LP are a little leery of him because he ran and governed as a member of the Republican Party. He originally sought the GOP nomination in 2012, but left early on to pursue and secure the Libertarian nod, getting the LP past the million-vote barrier in a Presidential election for the first time. He’s already selected former Massachusetts Governor William Weld as his running mate, making it a ticket of two former governors.

John McAfee is the guy whose name is synonymous with computer software, and in some respects is the Trump of the Libertarian field. He seems quite brash to me and of the three I would give him the least chance of winning. But it’s a convention and anything can happen.

There are a number of conservatives openly rooting for Petersen to win (Erick Erickson is the latest) for various reasons, not the least of which is a platform which is rather tolerable to those Republicans disgruntled with Trump. (One example: “Encourage a culture of life, and adoption, and educate Americans about the ‘consistent pro-life ethic,’ which also means abolishing the death penalty.”) I could get behind the pro-life portion, although I differ with Petersen on the death penalty believing there are circumstances where one forfeits his right to life by committing heinous deeds. Another more in a mainstream libertarian vein (that I can agree with): “Allow young people to opt out of Social Security.” I give Petersen the outside chance of winning, but I suspect there’s just enough support for Johnson/Weld to give them the nod.

Regardless of who wins, though, the pattern will probably work this way: over the summer the LP will poll in the high single-digits and may crack 10% nationally in some polls. But sometime around October these campaigns reach a point where voters decide they really want to back the winner, not some guy polling 10 percent. They’ll forswear their allegiance to the LP for the chance to say, yes, I backed Trump or Clinton in the election. Or in a lot of cases they’ll just say, “screw it, I’m staying home because my guy has zero chance.” Given that the support for the LP seems to be coming more from the Republican side right now, that attitude could lose the Senate for the GOP.

So on Tuesday we will know just who the LP nominee is, and the #NeverTrump group will have to decide if he (or, the slight possibility of she) is worth losing party privilege over.

Hearing all the voices

I’m probably going to drive my Republican friends nuts here, but I think this guy has a point.

Last night I saw this among the posts on my Facebook feed:

What do you think you will hear Saturday from Brown and Hogan?

Brown will tell you about his folks and the one year he served. He will replay everything that O’Malley has done has if he had something to do with it.

Hogan will simply bash Brown for every problem in the state.

If Quinn had been allowed to speak you would hear about term limits, lower taxes, better schools, reformed tax codes and regulations, restored rights and power being given back to the people. Do you see why they can not let Quinn to be heard? November you decide, a self serving governor or an open, honest and people caring governor. They can’t stop you from voting for the best possible governor.

Of course, the author of this piece was Libertarian candidate for governor Shawn Quinn, who wasn’t invited to the MACO forum to speak and will lead a small protest to that fact Saturday morning.

Come out on Saturday in Ocean City and help me protest this apparent anti-citizen group. We will get pictures of who is supporting this government-controlled Association and let you see who is abusing their office.

Obviously I come from a Republican perspective, but I have given the Libertarians a little ink in the past (like this when the 2010 campaign began.) So it’s nothing necessarily new, even though I do believe they take more votes away from Republicans than Democrats. (Conversely, the Green Party takes mainly from the Democrats, which may be why they haven’t put up a 2014 candidate.)

I can understand that there are candidates who will be on the ballot but get a tiny percentage of the vote, but it’s interesting how they’re treated by the media. Until he was tossed off the ballot, Brian Vaeth and his likely 1-2 percent of the vote was often included in Republican debates; on the other hand, only the three main Democratic candidates got the spotlight while the other three (Ralph Jaffe, Charles Smith, and Cindy Walsh) were ignored. It begs the question of whether their combined 2.8% was a factor of not having popular viewpoints or being ignored by most media. (Jaffe and Smith, however, fall into the perennial candidate category. On the other hand, Walsh ran to the left of Heather Mizeur, who she called “a nice person (who) will serve as an establishment neo-liberal.” I think Walsh would have been great in the debates, and she got half that 2.8%.)

There’s no question that Quinn will fall far short of being the next governor. Susan Gaztanaga got 0.8% of the vote in 2010, which set the high-water mark for the Libertarians in Maryland. They didn’t field a 2006 candidate, and Spear Lancaster scored 0.68% of the electorate in 2002. Getting to 1% would be enough of an achievement.

But even though there’s little chance Quinn will win, I think he should be included in debates. I think it would be educational for the others to respond to some of the points the Libertarian brings up on his issue page, like this one:

The largest percentage of welfare tax dollars goes to pay the salaries of welfare workers and government overhead expenses, only a fraction of these monies actually make it into the hands of the needy. Throughout history private charities and groups do a better and more efficient job of helping the truly needy get back on their feet. A priority for our administration will be working to transfer these much needed services to the private sector and assist them in creating programs to put people back in the work force instead of continuing to perpetuate the meager handouts which force the needy into government dependency.

In turn, there needs to be some questioning of Quinn as to how he would perform some of these policy changes with a General Assembly practically (if not physically) devoid of his party.

But that’s the great thing about a debate of ideas – too bad we won’t get one anytime soon.

Blocking access

This week marks nine years since I moved to Maryland from Ohio. While at the beginning this website delved regularly into Ohio politics as a base of comparison (since that was most of my experience at the time), over the years I have worked away from the goings-on in the Buckeye state. But an article regarding the state’s bid to decimate the third party movement piqued my interest, and shamefully it’s backed by the legislative Republicans – all but one GOP State Senator voted for it.

It’s definitely worth pointing out that, in my estimation and memory, the Ohio Republican Party is more Republican than conservative. John Boehner is a good example of an Ohio Republican in that principles come in a distant second to party. Instead of showing leadership in good government, Ohio Republicans cynically shamed the overall GOP by creating one of the most gerrymandered Congressional districts in the country in order to place two liberal incumbents in the same district. (This used to be my district and part of my family lives there, so I have a vested interest.) I guess it should be expected from a party which bent over backwards to avoid primaries for their chosen, “electable” (read: moderate) candidates.

Of course I understand that third party votes generally tend to be siphoned away from the Republican side as opposed to the Democrats. Libertarians have just enough philosophical differences from the Republicans that they tend to draw support from the GOP pool, whereas the Green Party and Democrats are basically two peas in a pod. It’s noticeable to me that the Green Party in Maryland runs relatively few candidates in our state when compared to the Libertarian Party, despite the fact there’s supposedly far more liberal voters than conservative ones.

Yet the Ohio proposal is very draconian for a group which accumulated less than 2 percent of the vote last year. Yes, much of it probably came out of Mitt Romney’s total and it could have cost him the election. But is that the right thing to do? I don’t think it is.

Aside from the insurgent campaign of Ross Perot and the Reform Party, which proved to be a one-year flash in the pan back in 1992, the last time the two-party structure was challenged was the mid-1800s, when the Republican Party was born. All that movement did, though, was supplant the Whigs, which faded from the scene. In the years since, both parties have found agreement on methods to insulate themselves from the prospect of a challenge from other political parties.

I look at it this way: if the Republicans can stand on their ideas they should not be afraid of any challenge. If they want to prevent the rise of a conservative third party, though, they might want to reaffirm themselves to conservative, limited-government principles.

Odds and ends number 58

While I ditched one long-running post series Friday night and another will soon go on its annual hiatus now that the Shorebirds season is nearly complete, the “odds and ends” series continues to be a fan favorite. (It’s also a writer favorite, which is why I keep doing these 1-5 paragraph looks at interesting items I come across.)

First up are the Libertarians, which once again have made it to the ballot in Maryland as an official minor party. This means all of their Congressional and Senatorial candidates can run under the Libertarian banner. Locally, First District Congressional hopeful Muir Boda noted:

We are so grateful for the hard work put into this drive for ballot access. This was a true grassroots political effort that will offer real alternatives to the two major political parties. Thank you to all who petitioned and to all who signed the petition giving voters more legitimate choices in November. Liberty is on the ballot!

What I find interesting, though, is that the Green Party, which also secured the required number of signatures to appear on the ballot, only has a handful of candidates running in Maryland. I encourage them to get moving and fill their ballot spaces as well!

About 18 months ago I posted about the District of Columbia’s 5-cent-per-bag tax and efforts to make it a reality in Maryland. So far our retailers have remained unscathed for the most part, but a recent study done by The Beacon Hill Institute for Public Policy Research at Suffolk University in Boston indicates that the bag tax is neither producing the revenue contemplated from the tax nor significantly reducing the number of bags in circulation, to wit:

We project that a rebound in grocery bag consumption will lead to higher Bag Tax collections. Consumers will pay $5.74 million in Bag Taxes, with D.C. receiving of $4.59 million in FY 2016 (114.8 million bags X $0.04) and retailers keeping the other $1.15 million. This revenue will drain resources from the private economy of D.C.

All other things being equal, consumers will allocate a portion of their spending to the Bag Tax or divert spending outside D.C. to avoid the tax ─ both will reduce consumption spending in D.C. As a result, retail businesses will see a reduction in sales and profits and, in turn, reduce their employment and investment expenditures leading to lower wages and income.

The higher Bag Tax collections will destroy 136 net local jobs. The job losses will cause annual wages to fall by $13.73 per worker and aggregate real disposable income to fall by $8.08 million. The tax will also lower investment by $1.58 million, with the loss concentrated in the retail sector.

The lost income and employment will be felt in the collection of other taxes in D.C., such as the sales tax. We estimate that D.C. will forgo an additional $163,510 in sales tax revenue due to the Bag Tax.

In short, people are working around the problem and retailers are lax about the collection of the tax. To them, it’s just more paperwork they can do without. Just like any other tax – such as the 2008 sales tax increase in Maryland – people eventually will pay the additional tax a little bit at a time but that will leave them less money for other economic activities.

And the bags add up. On Friday I spent $200 at the grocery store and probably received 15 plastic bags. If you figure (anecdotally, of course) that an average family gets a dozen bags a week for various purchases, that adds up to $30 a year. Maybe it doesn’t sound like much, but if you read through the study you’ll find that other places which have adopted the tax increased it after a time – that nickel today might be a dime tomorrow and suddenly it’s a $60 annual bite.

Speaking of tax raisers, I’ve been getting a lot of shrill feedback from the Obama For Against America camp regarding the Republican convention. Let’s start with David Axelrod:

Judging from the number of times they’ve said it this week, you would think repealing Obamacare on Day One is the most urgent goal of the Republican Party and number one reason to elect Mitt Romney.

I’d like to know what’s noble about making it harder for people to get health care.

I’d like to know why you’re lying about the Republican goal, since it’s YOUR Medicare cuts which would eventually make it more difficult for seniors to receive care. Unfortunately, I doubt Obamacare would be repealed on the first day because I keep hearing this crap about “repeal and replace.” No replacement is needed.

How about Jim Messina:

If you’ve seen any coverage of Paul Ryan’s speech in Tampa, you know that the consensus among journalists and independent observers is that it was … factually challenged.

He lied about Medicare. He lied about the Recovery Act. He lied about the deficit and debt. He even dishonestly attacked Barack Obama for the closing of a GM plant in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin — a plant that closed in December 2008 under George W. Bush. He also failed to offer one constructive idea about what he would do to move the country forward.

Does Obamacare cut Medicare? Yes. Did the stimulus waste a lot of money and have few “shovel-ready” jobs to show for it? Yes. And that GM plant actually closed its doors in 2009, when Barack Obama was President.

Oh, and by the way Jim, that idea to cut spending to no more than 20% of GDP? That seems pretty constructive to me given our spending problem, with the trillion-dollar annual deficits your guy has run ever since taking office.

The ones who are “factually challenged” seem to be in the White House these days.

And then we have John Kerry:

I have one message burned into my memory for everyone who cares about the outcome of this year’s presidential election:

Respond quickly and powerfully to attacks from the other side.

(snip)

What makes 2012 different from when I ran for president in 2004 is that the other side doesn’t have to wait for an outside group to come along with false attacks.

Consider this: Swift Boat Veterans for Truth spent about $23 million on smear ads against me in 2004.

This year, the Romney campaign and super PACs have promised to spend more than $1 billion.

Barack Obama has been a tremendous leader who has moved our country forward in more ways than we even probably now realize. He needs another four years to get the job done.

Shouldn’t that be “seared” into your memory, Senator? Of course, the $23 million in ads merely pointed out the truth! In fact, they probably didn’t go far enough in exploring your life as a turncoat.

I’ll grant that Obama is a tremendous leader – if you count leading from behind, that is – but as I point out to Jim Messina above the ones who are misleading voters are you guys. Ask Harry Reid next time you see him about the proof that Mitt Romney didn’t pay taxes for 10 years, or else just ask him to repeat that off the safe zone of the Senate floor next time.

Oddly enough, each and every one of these e-mails asked me for money. Guess what? Thanks in large part to you, I have none to spare.

And it wouldn’t be Labor Day if I didn’t mention…Big Labor. If you don’t think Democrats and their toady groups aren’t scared, witness the bus driver protest in Montgomery County the other day. Montgomery County GOP Chair Mark Uncapher had the right comeback though:

(L)et me offer the SEIU bus drivers a test.  If they want to take credit for kids making the honor roll, are they also will to accept responsibility for failing schools?

Of course they won’t, because those are always the fault of Republicans who won’t throw enough money at the schools.

Even though our convention is past, local Republicans aren’t done with the fun yet. The Worcester County Republicans will open their own headquarters on Saturday at 5 p.m. It will be located at 11934 Ocean Gateway, behind Sherwin Williams.

It’s good to see that other local counties are taking the step to open their own facilities instead of piggybacking from ours. Not that I mind the other counties coming here, but for convenience sake it’s better to spread the GOP wealth around. I was told to not forget my camera because “you may have a photo opportunity” so we’ll see.

But let me close with a sort of Labor Day-related question: is Barack Obama a communist?

Certainly he’s shrewd enough to not be a card-carrying member (not that most media would care anyway.) But this 30-minute snippet of an upcoming documentary called “The Unvetted” raises other disturbing questions about Obama’s background as well. This is what the Accuracy in Media folks write about the film:

A new film from America’s Survival, Inc. documents what journalist Cliff Kincaid calls “one of the most extraordinary cover-ups in American history — how a presidential candidate with a covert connection to a major Communist Party operative was protected by the major liberal and conservative media.” Kincaid is the president of America’s Survival, Inc. (ASI) and recently held a Washington, D.C. conference on “The Vetting” of Barack Obama. The 30 minute film “The Unvetted” is available for viewing for free at the ASI YouTube channel.

Since they’d like me to share, I will:

“The conservative media must stop protecting Obama from the scrutiny he deserves. Our film ‘The Unvetted’ explains this scandal and cover-up,” says Kincaid.

While the film is rather sensational, I get the feeling that this horse is already out of the barn. I doubt many people are going to have their minds changed by the film, about which filmmaker Agustin Blazquez says:

I’m now editing a full feature documentary that I want to have ready in September–the election is fast approaching!  I have been running a marathon working 14 to 16 hours a day in order to produce these two productions on time.

These productions need venues.

With the recent success of the ‘2016: Obama’s America” documentary, the climate could be good for another such film if it’s well made. As for this one, you can be the judge.

You can also be the judge as to how successful this edition of odds and ends will be. Now that voters will be starting to pay attention I’m probably going to get many more items worthy of inclusion.

Better to switch than fight?

Shades of Arlen Specter or “Jumpin’ Jim” Jeffords.

With the number of candidates for the U.S. Senate nomination on the GOP side climbing over a dozen, perennial candidate Corrogan Vaughn made a surprise move to bypass a primary by dropping out of the crowded U.S. Senate field and perhaps securing the Green Party nod – for Governor.

(continued on my Examiner.com page…)