Month: June 2016

When you think about it, the term “libertarian” makes more sense than liberal or conservative.  And Ted Cruz is almost a libertarian, in my book.  How do “social conservatives” such as Cruz differ from libertarians, politically?   Both Cruz and Johnson believe in overturning Roe v. Wade, and returning control over abortion laws to the States.  I believe both Cruz and Johnson believe that state legislatures, not federal courts, should make the laws of marriage within their states.  I don’t think Cruz is all hot and bothered that some states are legalizing marijuana.  It’s a state decision.

They disagree about what should happen at the state level.  But at the federal, Presidential level, they basically agree:  hands off, none of our business.  Cruz had some success appealing to the libertarian vote once Paul dropped out.  I’m Exhibit “A”, myself.  He understands that he is naturally allied with the libertarian wing of the Republican Party.  He’s an ardent federalist, and federalism is a libertarian concept, beloved of the Framers.

Cruz was a little dodgy on foreign policy, but he rejects neoconservatism and foreign adventurism and nation building.  And once he really thinks it through, he’ll understand that the people of this country will absolutely refuse to send soldiers to Europe to fight the Russians.  That will not happen, and NATO is dead, and Cruz needs to come to grips with it.

And since Cruz and Johnson basically agree on fiscal and regulatory restraint, and federalism, and the Transfer of Public Lands, why don’t have a little chat?  Off the record, of course, and just between friends.  The thing is, Cruz can’t say it, but he can’t stand Trump, and believes he’ll destroy the Republican Party.  When Trump gratuitously called his father an accomplice to the Kennedy assassination he pissed Ted Cruz off for life.   It’s personal.

And what, exactly, does Ted Cruz owe the Republican Party?  They fought him when he ran for the Senate four years ago, they fought him every day in Washington, and they set the nomination process up in a way to make it hard for him.  Sure, he wants the nomination in four years, but he owes the GOP nothing.  They did everything they could to stop him.  And like any sane American, he worries about this country for the next four years.  Things may get really bad if we don’t change, soon.

Ted Cruz should do what he can for Johnson, behind the scenes.  Or maybe, down the road a bit, even in the open.  No one has any idea of how things will play out for the next five months.  Everything seems in flux.  Things that once seemed outlandish may become possible.

Bill Fruth has been working on the Assembly of State Legislatures meeting for the last few weeks, and it should go well.  The set of Proposed Rules they’re working on will be helpful next year as we push for 34.  Tom Llewellyn continues to work on getting the Article V BBA into the Platform at Cleveland.  And Loren Enns has apparently left Florida and will be hanging out in the Far West, promoting the BBA Resolution in Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana.  Fruth thinks with $100,000 of media we could get Montana, and I think he’s right.  Maybe this is the year we raise some money.

The last twelve months have been amazing, from an historical political perspective.  The next twelve might be more of the same.  I guess I’d rather live in interesting times than not.

Long ago, in a political universe far, far away, personal likability was thought to be important in Presidential politics.  It was believed that, since we’re stuck with a President for at least four years, and they come into our homes constantly via the TV, we want to vote for a person we’re personally comfortable with.  Supposedly, the only time the less likable candidate won in the TV age was 1968.  Reagan was successful, in part, because he was likable.  Bush 2 was more likable than Gore and Kerry, etc., etc.

Who likes Hillary Clinton?  Who wants to hear that screeching voice?  Who wants to be hectored like a beat down husband?  My God, the woman screams unlikability.  And a new Fox poll shows 65% of Independents think she’s lying about her emails.  Who wants to spends time with a lying shrew?

I guess some people would like to have a beer with Donald Trump.  I call people like that jock sniffers.  They admire celebrities like jocks, actors, anybody rich and famous.  I can only speak for myself, and all the guys I know like me.  He’s an obnoxious coxcomb, and a complete jerk, madly in love with himself.  No thanks.

Gary Johnson is probably a guy I’d love to knock a few down with.  He’s originally from Minot, North Dakota, where his dad was a school teacher.  His father had been adopted by Scandinavian-American parents, while his mother was of Ukrainian immigrant stock.  The family moved to Albuquerque where Johnson ran track in high school, and went on to work his way through the University of New Mexico.  A year after graduating he started his own business, which turned into one of the largest construction companies in New Mexico.  When he was 40 he took on the Republican establishment, and with half a million of his own money won the nomination, and went on to beat an incumbent Democratic Governor.  After two eminently successful terms he took some time off to climb Mt. Everest, and is one of these fitness nuts.

He’s 62 now, divorced, and making his second run for President as a Libertarian.  I’m going to make a leap of faith and assume he’s serious.  He should be.  This is the craziest year in American politics in my lifetime, and anything can happen.  Right now Fox has it at Clinton 39, Trump 36, and Johnson 12.  We’ve got five months coming of Clinton and Trump hammering each other, and doing it effectively.  But there is always danger in a political attack.  It can hurt both the attacked, and the attacker.  Johnson can stay serenely above the fray.  I’ll be surprised if he can’t get in to the debates.  I think people will feel as though he should be given a shot.  And anything’s better than having to spend a whole debate looking at Trump and Clinton.  And once he’s in the debates, anything can happen.  I have a strong suspicion that Johnson is smarter than both Trump and Clinton, and would use that to his advantage.  I can dream.

Minot, North Dakota and Albuquerque, New Mexico are on the very eastern edge of the Far West, which does not include the easternmost parts of the Dakotas, Colorado and New Mexico.  So Johnson is  a man of the Far West, from birth.  It’s no coincidence he turned to libertarianism, because this is the most libertarian part of the country, by far.  It’s in the culture.  If a cowboy’s not a libertarian, who is?   And as a former Governor of New Mexico, he knows all about the big absentee landlords in D.C., the BLM and the National Forest Service, and he’d like to be rid of them.  He gets the Transfer of Public Lands issue.  He doesn’t need to learn it.

This is the issue that wins him electoral votes, and possibly throws the election into the House.  If that happened, you would see the most important game of cutthroat in American history.  Last time it happened, in 1824, we had the Corrupt Bargain.  But, of course, back then politicians were corrupt, so nothing like that could happen now.  Our political class, represented in this case by the 435 members of the House to be elected in November, will be making the decision, and we can all have complete confidence in them.

Every state gets a vote, just as the Constitution intended, and it takes 26 states to win.  Alaska and Wyoming have as much say as California and New York.  The majority of each state’s delegation decides who to vote for.  No one is bound to do anything.

This is why the Far West should vote for Johnson.  Throw the election into the House, where a block of ten or twelve Far Western States could get whatever they wanted.

Including their land.

 

 

Cutthroat is always fun to play.  There’s usually one weak player, and his only hope is to stay out of the way, and let the two stronger competitors beat each other up.  Then he steps in and delivers the knockout to whoever’s left standing.

In the Presidential game of cutthroat, nobody’s going to beat up Gary Johnson.  He’s not worth it.  The 10% or so he’s got seems drawn equally from right and left, so he’s no particular threat to either one.  But for the next five months we’re going to drown in   mud.  Clinton and Trump hate each other, and 2/3 of the country hates them.  I don’t think issues of substance are what will drive this campaign.  It’s attack, counter-attack, trench warfare of the ugliest kind.

And then there’s Mr. Sunshine, Gary Johnson, always with a smile on his face, talking about the great future in store for our country, once we’ve unshackled ourselves from government.  It’s a great spot to be in politically.  He can stay completely above the fray, refusing to wrestle these two pigs.  He can talk substance, about liberty and the Constitution.  It will be quite a contrast.

Bill Clinton is supposed to be a really smart politician.  If he is, he’ll cede the Far West to Johnson.  This is Hillary’s weakest area, and she should completely ignore it.  Let as many of her votes go to Johnson as you can.  Because every electoral vote Johnson wins in the Far West is a vote Trump needs to get to 270.  Make him work for those EV’s, while Clinton is in the battle ground states.  If it’s basically a two man race in the Far West, Johnson has a real shot.  This would be Johnson’s most realistic opportunity to  win EV”s, and he should concentrate his campaign there.

Other possibilities exist.  There may be a blue state that Trump concedes, and in which Johnson has a chance against Clinton if it’s one on one.  Cutthroat can be a fun game.

I’ve always had a hard on for the Libertarian Party.  They cost me my seat in the State Senate.  There was a strong Libertarian running for Governor in ’82, Dick Randolph, and he got enough conservative votes to elect the Democrat, Bill Sheffield, my mortal enemy.  The Alaska Supreme Court, in the most overtly political decision in its history, overturned the ’82 reapportionment plan and allowed Sheffield to redistrict the whole state.  His number one target was me, and he got me.  I stuck around, and got elected to the House, and damn near got Sheffield impeached, the corrupt bastard.

I ran for a third House term in ’88 only  because I thought I could get in the majority and be Speaker.  But we lost a couple House races that we should have won  because of Libertarian candidates siphoning off our votes.  The Libertarian Party of Alaska was always a damn nuisance when I was up there.

But times change, and the times they are a’changin’ right now.  Trump ran me out of the prediction business.  But I have to say it’s hard to imagine a set of circumstances being more favorable to Gary Johnson than we have in 2016.  My God, most people can’t stand his opponents, either one of them.  That’s always a good way to start a game of political cutthroat.

I haven’t been looking forward to the next five months of a really nasty Presidential campaign.  But now, when all I’ll see is mud flying, I’ll take comfort in the fact that Johnson’s not in the middle of it.

 

Mormons aren’t libertarians.  But Gary Johnson has as good a shot at winning Utah as any state, other than Alaska.  Because Mormons are constitutionalists.  I’m not sure if it’s church dogma, but many conservative Mormons believe every word written in the Constitution was divinely inspired.

Johnson can win Utah running on the Constitution, federalism, state sovereignty, and putting the federal government in its place.  In Utah, specifically, that means running on the Transfer of Public Lands (TPL) from the feds to the states, and the people.  65% of Utah is owned by the federal government, and they want their land.  Obama is on the verge of locking up millions of acres of southeastern Utah on a new National Monument called Bears Ears.  Gary Johnson should go there and announce his intention, as President, to sign legislation authorizing the transfer of Bears Ears from federal to state ownership.

Johnson should also become ardent proponent of Article V.  If he doesn’t, he’s really not much of a constitutionalist.  He should make TPL and Article V two of his top campaign talking points.  If he’s a good politician he won’t allow himself to be distracted by issues which are irrelevant to the duties of a President.

Take abortion.  Please.  If Johnson is a constitutionalist, he knows Roe v. Wade was one of the worst decisions in our history.  He should pledge to appoint Justices who are strict constructionists, using Clarence Thomas as a model.  If you’re a strict constructionist, you vote to overturn Roe V. Wade.  At which point, abortion laws are out of the President’s responsibilities.  If Utah wants to ban abortions, they can do it.  In California it would be abortion on demand.  It’s called federalism.  It’s the essence of the Constitution.  The same goes for gay marriage, LGBT issues, and all the rest.  It’s not the President’s, or the federal government’s, job to deal with all this.  It’s done by the States.  The same with prostitution, marijuana, and all the rest.  Johnson should refuse to discuss the merits of any of these arguments.   He’s running for President, not moralist in chief.

Red State reports a Gravis poll of Utah with Trump 29, Other 29, Clinton 26, and Johnson 16.  If he could pick up just half of the Other vote he’d be in the lead.  TPL alone would do it.

The glory of nature is its diversity.  The Gold Country where I live is not a particularly rich ecosystem.  We’re semi-arid.  But, especially in the spring, every walk in the woods, if you look close enough, reveals a little something new.  Every species, plant and animal, has a survival strategy, and a lifespan.  Every flower is like a woman displaying her beauty, hoping for fertilization and new life.  Most of them are gone now, but their seeds are dispersed throughout the valley.  They’ll sprout with the winter rain, and the cycle begins again.

One of the great glories of this country is its diversity.  Mormons are a subculture, but there are many others, all over the country.  San Francisco is a subculture, as is New York.  We’re all different.  I’m an Alaskan Californian.  The only way we can all get along is to tolerate each other, and not get into each other’s face.   Federalism fosters this, and at least as I understand it, so does libertarianism.  Talking about this could win Utah for the Libertarian ticket.  He doesn’t want to tell the people of Utah how to run their lives.  And he doesn’t expect Utah to tell anybody else how to run theirs.  If you know anything about the history  of Utah, and the Mormon Church, you’d understand the appeal of this line of argument.

Trump won’t apologize for calling out that Mexican judge from Indiana.  He can’t.  He can never apologize.  A strongman never apologizes.  It’s a sign of weakness.  One of John Wayne’s biographers claims that the Duke’s dad told him three things.  Don’t lie, don’t quit, and don’t apologize.  Trump just forgot the first one.

Isn’t it odd that all the hoopla about Trump U. didn’t come public until after Trump had the nomination?

No, it’s not odd at all.

But is Gary Johnson, the libertarian Presidential candidate, a constitutionalist?

The Constitution is libertarian, through and through.  It’s all about restraining and limiting the power of the federal government.  Not all government.  Just the federal government.  In 1787 the thirteen states which ratified the Constitution weren’t libertarian.  Most of them allowed legal slavery, which is the antithesis of libertarian.

Johnson needs to be a Presidential candidate, not an apostle of libertarian political philosophy.  I just saw him on Fox’s Special Report, and while he did well, he could have done far, far better.  During the entire interview, I never heard him say the word “Constitution.”   It’s his best line of defense, and his best line of attack.  When asked about abolishing the Department of Education, the first word out of his mouth should have been “unconstitutional.”  When asked about legalized polygamy, he should have deflected the question by deferring to state sovereignty.  As President, and leader of the federal government, he would have nothing to say on the subject.  If some state wants to legalize polygamy, the Constitution prevents the federal government from interfering.

He’s essentially for open borders, which is an intellectually indefensible position, and political poison.  It prevents him from being a serious contender.  And if his version of libertarianism requires a  borderless world, he’s a nut.  Nation states have borders, by definition.  Controlling those borders in a way that benefits the citizens of the nation state is a core function of any government.

But I digress.  Gary Johnson isn’t going to be President of the United States, and the Libertarian Party is not going to replace the Republican Party.  About 247 members of the House are Republican.  Maybe three or four are real libertarians.  There’s a reason for that.  It’s a minority view in this country.  I should know, since I’ve been a libertarian all my life.  I know I’m in the minority, and since I wanted a career in politics I never joined the Libertarian Party.

The Libertarian Party is a place for purists and absolutists, not real politicians, who are required to compromise.  My understanding of libertarianism is maximum freedom, minimum government.  But it all gets down to the meaning of the word “minimum.”  To me, at a minimum, a government must control its borders.  Not to Gary Johnson.  So I can’t take him seriously.

But I sure as hell can vote for him, and I intend to.   He’s off the weed, which is a good thing.  And I’m not really voting for him, though he’s much more appealing, personally and temperamentally, than the competition.  I’m voting for that “L” next to his name.  And as far as I’m concerned, that “L” doesn’t include open  borders.

This vote is strictly strategic.  I can’t choose between Trump and Clinton.  I refuse to do it.  I want my vote for Johnson to be counted as “none of the above.”  If Trump loses, the voters who supported him will hopefully learn a lesson.  Don’t get behind a guy that pisses most of the country off.  If Trump wins, he’ll screw the pooch, and quite possibly destroy the Republican Party for a generation, much as Hoover did.

Like Trump, Hoover was a highly successful businessman.  World class, as a matter of fact.  But Coolidge, one of my heroes, didn’t like the way he was always wanting to “do something.”  Coolidge, as President, tried to avoid doing things.  He was a constitutionalist, the last one before Reagan.

And then Hoover got elected, and royally screwed the pooch.  Do you see what I’m afraid of?  And Hoover never did any bitching about Mexican judges who were born in Indiana.

The Donald is special.