Democratic Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang Visits Piedmont Park

Andrew Yang, businessman, philanthropist, and Democratic presidential candidate, stood on a podium at the Promenade at Piedmont Park in Atlanta and said something that one doesn't expect in these days of political polarization.

"Donald Trump got a lot of the essential problems right," he said. He said that Trump pointed out many problems facing modern America, to which the Democrats simply claimed everything was fine. This, much more than Russia, Facebook, or the FBI, was the reason that Trump won the election and Hillary Clinton didn't. However, although Trump diagnosed the problems, his solutions were all wrong. "It's not immigrants," he said about the losses of jobs. "It is technology."

Millions of manufacturing jobs in the Midwest had been automated in recent decades. Once prosperous blue-collar communities had been hollowed out as workers were replaced by machines and it's not going to stop with industrial work. He cited the case of malls and other retail outlets closing due to competition with Amazon, something that's a real problem given how retail workers represent the majority of American jobs. He also pointed out that advances in artificial intelligence would put call-center workers and truckers out of work as well. Although convoys of self-driving automated trucks would be more efficient and save lives (no drivers to fall asleep at the wheel after long drives, for example), millions of truckers would be out of work and towns that provided lodgings, food, maintenance, etc. for truckers would wither. This is what he called "The Fourth Industrial Revolution."

The solution, Yang advocated, is a universal basic income (UBI) like Alaska's. However, instead of oil funding what Thomas Paine called a citizen's dividend and what Martin Luther King Jr. advocated in Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community, it would be funded by technology. This "trickle up economy" as he called it would set the economic wheels spinning as people spent their money and would encourage entrepreneurship. This dividend, which Yang said would be $1,000 per month, would solve many of the problems Democrats talk about. Many women, for example, remain in abusive or exploitative jobs or relationships because they lack the financial means to get out. Democrats talk about empowering poor people of color and this dividend would accomplish that.

In addition to UBI, Yang advocated "Medicare for All" and thanked Bernie Sanders for making the idea mainstream. He rhetorically asked how "Medicare for All" would be paid for and said that the existing private insurance system is a network of middlemen who don't add value. He also advocated legalizing marijuana and what (to me) sounded a lot like forgiving $1.5 trillion in student-loan debt. This way young people can get out of their parents' basements and buy houses, start families, etc. He also criticized the idea of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the best measure of American progress. Although robotic trucks would increase the GDP they'd be bad for humans. He also cited how his wife's care for their two sons, one of whom is autistic, isn't measured in GDP either. He advocated for what he called "human-centered capitalism" and suggested an "American Scorecard" would be better to measure the well-being of the country.

Yang joked that as an Asian who liked math he was the opposite of Trump and ended his speech by citing his support from different factions in American politics. He said he had Trump supporters (a few made their voices heard) as well as Libertarians (these were louder). Louder still were those who identified themselves as "progressives."

"It's not left, it's not right, it's forward," Yang said, capping off his speech.

Gary Johnson and Evan McMullin Ought To Collaborate

In order to make sure the 2016 U.S. presidential election goes into the House of Representatives and consequently somebody better than Donald Trump (a lecherous authoritarian oaf who isn't the great businessman his supporters think) or Hillary Clinton (who will tilt the Supreme Court leftward, is opposed to gun rights, will empower the "illiberal left", and may get the US into more confrontations abroad) becomes president, the two most significant third-party candidates, Libertarian Gary Johnson and #NeverTrump Republicans' unofficial nominee Evan McMullin, should enter into a vote-sharing arrangement.

This idea is not my own. Casey Cho, an online pen-pal whom you can follow on Twitter here, suggested that Johnson and McMullin enter into an arrangement to maximize each others' chances of winning electoral votes and pushing the election into the House. 

To that end, Gary Johnson voters should support McMullin in Utah and other states in the "Mormon cultural sphere" (Casey said Idaho and Wyoming) and McMullin supporters should vote for Johnson everywhere else. This would be especially crucial in New Mexico, where Johnson was a popular governor and where people are predicting he could get an upset victory. I'm not basing my position on one news story--here's another source citing Republicans defecting to Johnson in the aftermath of Trump's "Grope-Gate."

Why, do you ask? According to the 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, if no candidate gets a certain number of electoral votes (270 in this election), the contest goes to the House of Representatives. Congress will then pick from the top three electoral vote earners. This has not happened since 1824's infamous "Corrupt Bargain" election. No third-party candidate has won any states since 1968, so this has never been a realistic possibility, even though Ross Perot pulled nearly 20% in 1992.

Until now.

Before McMullin entered, I assumed that #NeverTrump Republicans would support Johnson by default. In one poll, in one district in Utah, Johnson was tied with Clinton and Trump, so the possibility he could get electoral votes in Utah (historically Republican, but owing to conservative Mormons not likely to support the libertine Donald Trump) and push a close election into the House was a very real possibility. 

However, McMullin, a Mormon himself and more palatable than the pro-choice pro-legalization-of-drugs Johnson to Utah's Mormon majority, came in. Now McMullin is polling 22% in Utah, just 4% behind the tied Trump and Clinton, while Johnson is polling at 14%. This article claims McMullin is in a statistical tie with the Big Two. If even half of Johnson's supporters in Utah vote McMullin, that could be enough to push him over the top and secure Utah's six electoral votes. Trump may yet collapse further to McMullin's benefit, but given the reality's of America's electoral system, this is the easiest way.

McMullin doesn't appear to be a significant factor in New Mexico and Johnson, depending on the polls, is as few as four points behind Trump and Clinton and as many as 14, in order for Johnson to push ahead of the Big Two, all hands will need to be on deck for him and every little bit will help.

Depending on how the states break down November 8, a McMullin victory in Utah and a Johnson victory in New Mexico alone might push the election into the House. In that case, McMullin will be the third candidate, not Johnson (Utah has six electoral votes, New Mexico five), but depending on how badly Trump implodes and how much damage Wikileaks does to Clinton, there might be more states in play.

Still, Johnson can't win Utah at this point and McMullin sure as heck can't win New Mexico. Working together is the only way I can think of that they can win electoral votes and (potentially) stop Trump and Clinton.

So make this go viral. Make Mr. Johnson and Mr. McMullin take notice of it. We can still save the Republic.

My Thoughts on Ferguson and a Poll For You

The situation in Ferguson, Missouri seems to be winding down right now, but it was a pretty wild few days. We had such wonderful things as:

*The police using what looks a lot like military equipment to intimidate protesters.

*Rioting and destruction of property.

*Armed store owners keeping the hooligans away.

*Journalists roughed up in a McDonald's.

*Journalists getting gassed.

*Foreign propaganda outlets use this to make Americans look like a bunch of hypocrites.

*Someone writing in a respectable outlet called it a "police coup."

*I'd heard something about a state representative getting arrested too, but I haven't been able to find any corroborating evidence. I think it was referring to this state senator getting tear-gassed.

*Real soldiers sounding off on how inept the police were even with their military hardware and how if this was the "militarization" of the police force, it was the most inept militarization they'd ever seen.

*Cops telling people not to film them, even though that's perfectly legal.

*The hacker militia Anonymous shutting down much of Ferguson's government.

*A no-fly zone being declared. Very convenient for keeping away news choppers, I think, although it's the FAA and not the local cops declaring it.

Here're my thoughts. I identify as a conservative politically and/or as a Libertarian and I think this is bugnuts insane. Even IF the police shooting that set this all off was justified--and based on witness reports it almost certainly was not--the police massively overreacted to citizens exercising their rights to speak freely, assemble, petition the government for redress of grievances, etc. That the local thug element used this as an opportunity to make trouble doesn't justify the sheer overkill involved.

Some online left-wingers have been claiming Tea Party types, libertarians, militia types, people waving the Gadsden Flag, etc. have been awfully quiet about the situation, with the implication they're entirely cool with brutal police-state stuff if it's directed at black people.

Well, as a big fan of the Gadsden Flag (I plan on having the protagonist in my Wastelands series use it as his personal insignia), here's my response:

The police here have been behaving in a ridiculous manner, to the point their authority in the area has been revoked and the State Highway Patrol (led by a black officer who grew up in the area) has been brought in. Things seem to have gotten a lot better.

(And by the way, libertarians have been complaining for awhile.)

Now for some political thoughts:

*The militarization of the police has gotten absurd in this country. I could understand the need to have some kind of heavy iron for an emergency, but a lot of departments have stocked up on gear they're not likely to ever need short of an alien invasion. I'm an Eagle Scout and I'm all for being prepared, but there's not unlimited money out there. Although the problem in this situation is more of attitude than equipment, I'll steal a page from Rahm Emmanuel and suggest that a good crisis never go to waste. A relevant bill has been put forward. At the very least it might help control government spending.

*From eyewitness reports, the officer straight-up murdered the man. The robbery-suspect thing seems like an ex post facto justification for what happened, given how it didn't come out for days. If the eyewitness claim is true (it may not be--there hasn't been much of an investigation so far), he needs to be charged with the appropriate degree of murder and subject to the appropriate punishment (up to and including execution). Police have a reputation for closing ranks in the event of an accusation of wrongdoing and that needs to stop for the sack of justice.

*I've seen the suggestion floating around the Internet about having police carry small cameras on their persons to record the events of their shift. This seems like a good idea, in order to reduce police brutality and provide evidence to protect the cops themselves if a suspect attacks them and then claims to have been brutalized. It might also give them another source of information for their reports and all. Here's a poll from one of my major clients on cop cameras. If you could vote in it, that would be spiffy.

And because I'm a nerd, here's a selection from Battlestar Galactica about why the police and military are two different things.

A Little Image I Made About the Ferguson, MO Situation

Here's a little image I made to show my opinion about what's going on in Ferguson, MO.

Some people think conservatives and/or Libertarians are hypocritically staying quiet about Ferguson because they don't mind a police state so long as it's deployed against black people. I call BS, especially now.

I'll post more later. In the meantime, please share the heck out of that picture. Sorry for my mediocre MSPaint skills.

The Gary Johnson Campaign: Media Buys or Consultants?

I promised one of my readers just before the election that I would do a blog post citing some links he found about how Gary Johnson's 2012 Libertarian campaign and how Jill Stein's 2012 Green campaign spent their money. During a discussion on Facebook, he posted these links showing that the Johnson campaign spent very little on advertising and a great deal on administration and consultants, while the Stein campaign spent a significantly larger percentage of its money (and more in absolute terms) on advertising. The breakdown as to what money went where is even more damning, with Stein's largest expenditures being media buys and Johnson's being various advisers.

What the heck? The Libertarian Party, although it's got the best ballot access of all the third parties, still suffers from the popular image that it's a party focused on legalizing drugs. When I was in high school, a friend of mine gave me a photo showing the three parties as cartoon characters, with the Democrats as a donkey carrying a board with a nail in it, the Republicans as big, burly elephant, and the Libertarians as a pot leaf with an assault rifle. Humorous as that was, the Libertarian Party is not going to get any traction if it's viewed as the party of stoners and gun fanatics. I'm not saying the campaign wouldn't need consultants and advisers, but when they eat up money that could be spent on, well, getting out the vote, there's a problem.

I do recall seeing a Gary Johnson advertisement on YouTube about how he was the only candidate who did not want to start a war with Iran, but when I searched YouTube for Gary Johnson advertisements, that was all I found other than an ad for Ron Paul and Gary Johnson that was around four years old. Meanwhile, I found several Jill Stein advertisements that got a lot more YouTube hits.

Of course, the obvious response is that Johnson ran one of the most successful Libertarian campaigns in history, getting one million votes and one percent of the popular vote. Jill Stein's results were much less impressive.

However, imagine how much more successful Johnson could have been if he spent more money on advertising. He could have gotten his name out there as the civil-liberties candidate, in contrast to both Obama and Romney. Although Romney could have used "the president can make you disappear" as a hammer to beat Obama with, he basically said both he and Obama can be trusted not to abuse this power and said U.S. citizens who join al-Qaeda are not entitled to due process because that's treason.

(Never mind the Constitution has specific provisions dealing with treason, but that's a different matter.)

Johnson could have also piggybacked on the successful marijuana-legalization initiatives in both Colorado and Washington. Given how Romney and Obama are both opponents of marijuana legalization, even in limited medical circumstances, promising not to interfere with state-level drug policy would have been a way to gain support from the voters who made marijuana legal. Given how Colorado Democrats feared Johnson would take enough votes to push Colorado to Romney, that was a MAJOR missed opportunity.

I did not hope Johnson could win the election outright, but I was hoping he'd be a spoiler in enough states that it might force the election to the House of Representatives. Colorado would not have been enough to do this in and of itself, but it might have been part of a larger strategy.

2012 was a massive missed opportunity. Who knows if another such opportunity will come again?

Gary Johnson: What I Like

The other day, I said I would post what I did like about Gary Johnson, the presidential candidate I did vote for, rather than what I didn't like about Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

It took longer than I intended, but as Horton the Elephant said, "I meant what I said and I said what I meant." So here goes...

*Civil Liberties-This is the absolute biggie. Our nation, from its very beginning, has emphasized the personal freedom of its citizens. In the aftermath of 9/11, various "anti-terrorist" measures jeopardized those freedoms our Founding Fathers fought so hard to attain, freedoms protected and expanded by the hard work and sacrifice of those who came later. The federal government has used its police powers to demand library reading records without a judicial warrant and detained an American citizen without trial. Although some of the most dangerous provisions have been recently struck down, others remain in place and the parts that were ruled unconstitutional might still return, as the Obama Administration has appealed. Johnson said he would not have signed the Patriot Act and the later National Defense Authorization Act that have threatened American liberties.

What good is defeating the Islamists of al-Qaeda whose demands go beyond the U.S. not having bases in the land of Mecca and Medina, all the way to demanding we convert to Islam and abolish separation of church and state if we end up becoming a police state at home?

*Free Trade-At different points in the past, I have praised Obama for supporting free-trade agreements with other nations like South Korea, Panama, and Colombia. I read a book in high school entitled The End of Globalization: Lessons from the Great Depression about the Great Depression and how tariff walls and despotic autarkic regimes like the fascists and Nazis made things worse. There's an adage, "If goods don't cross borders, armies will" and although that doesn't always hold true (people thought the First World War was impossible due to intra-European trading relationships), economic integration has contributed to the cooling of tensions between the United States and China that led to war scares in the late 1990s and things like the capture of a U.S. spy plane by the Chinese early in the Bush presidency. Johnson has strongly committed to free trade.

*Foreign Policy-To be perfectly blunt, war sucks. War is evil. War is dead men (and women), or mangled men and women whose lives will be diminished forever afterward. War is broken families. War is burned houses and cities. War destroys rather than creates. I shed no tears for Saddam Hussein and his two evil sons, but the cost to the United States of the Iraq adventure has been enormous, in terms of money, lives, and America's strategic position.

I am not so naive as to believe the outcome of beating our swords into plowshares will lead to anything but us plowing for those who don't, but that doesn't mean we should go looking for trouble. Bin Laden is dead and the Cold War is over and an interventionist foreign policy is something we are increasingly unable to afford.  It's time to re-evaluate our foreign policy priorities. Full-blown withdrawal from everywhere in the world is not practical--for starters, the U.S. Navy guarantees freedom of the seas for all countries--but there are plenty of areas where cuts can be made that leave us strong enough to deal with legitimate threats. Gary Johnson has explicitly stated he is not interested in picking a fight with Iran, which could turn into a bloodbath and strategic disaster.

*The War on Drugs-Let the record state I do not use any recreational pharmaceuticals. In fact, I do not even drink alcohol or coffee. However, the Drug War has jeopardized Americans' freedoms in various ways (asset forfeiture abuses are a biggie) and cost vast amounts of money. Drug arrests often set otherwise-harmless people on the road to becoming hard-core criminals. Prohibition of alcohol failed; why would doing the same for, say, marijuana, be any better? Johnson has advocated legalizing, regulating, and taxing currently-illegal narcotics. Legalizing and taxing marijuana would save billions of dollars and generate billions more in tax revenue.

I could post some more, but I have some more urgent projects I need to work on. Don't forget to vote tomorrow, or today if the lines aren't too long.

A Christian Democratic Party...In Utah?

On my alternate-history forum, a young fellow (not yet old enough to vote) whose handle is MormonMobster (and whose real name is apparently Ryan Darby) has decided to found a political party.

You can stop laughing now.

MM, being Mormon, is fairly socially conservative, but he's rather left-wing in his views on other topics.  He said it seemed contradictory that Mormons could return from church where verses from the Book of Mormon that had very left-wing (in his opinion) messages and then vote Republican.

His ultimate goal was to create something equivalent to the Christian Democratic parties common in Europe, although he didn't want to actually call it a Christian Democratic Party on the grounds it would alienate non-Christians and get confused with the Democratic Party.  Another suggestion was the People's Party or Christian People's Party, but in addition to the religious issues, a party with "People" in the name might sound Communist.  He ultimately went with the American Revival Party or Revivalist Party, since the goal is national revival and the name invokes the religious-type revivals as well.

Here's the party's Facebook page.  Obviously I'm not endorsing the party's political positions (well, most of them--I can support ending the Drug War and wiser use of tax dollars), but here are some reasons I'm promoting it...

1. His strategy is to contest races at the local level and build from there--he seemed to think a party with these views would be competitive in Utah and the Mountain West.  With the federal election system working the way it does, third parties tend to weaken the party they're most akin to and strengthen the one most opposed to their views.  Witness the Greens costing Gore Florida and the Libertarians costing Bush New Mexico in 2000.  One of the sanest things someone from FreeRepublic ever said was that third parties (he was focusing on Libertarians) should start at the local level rather than running in federal races they won't win and tilt the election to the Democrats.  This strategy should be encouraged, if anything to encourage more political diversity at the local level and discourage premature state/federal efforts whose biggest effect is to be an electoral spoiler.

2. Pursuant to #1, should the grassroots strategy work, it would provide additional political choices to Americans, especially those whose views don't match up with the existing parties well.

(Someone who thinks religion should be an influence on public life won't fit well with the Democrats most of the time, but someone who thinks religion should be a left-wing influence and not a right-wing influence won't fit well with the Republicans.  And one person who was socially conservative but fiscally liberal said he'd be glad to find something that matched that basic rubric that wasn't fascism.)

3. I sometimes feel sorry for the (Christian) Religious Left.  There aren't very many of them and they get attacked by both the secularist left (which doesn't like religion in politics) and the Christian Right (who come off as believing the RLs are heretics--see this link that explicitly calls them that).  Although many members of the Christian Right claim persecution, despite being local majorities in a whole lot of places, I think the main national response to a Christian environmentalist critique of SUVs, generally summed up as "what would Jesus drive," was laughter.  Granted, the American cultural elite doesn't have a high opinion of Christians (or at least certain varieties of Christians) generally, but the "Religious Right" is numerous and influential enough in the places where it's strong that they can blow it off.

4. This party, if it gets off the ground, would draw off both Democrats and Republicans of a Religious-Right orientation.  Given my political views are right-wing but secularist, anything factionalizing those two would be in my opinion beneficial.

5. Even if this ultimately fizzles, this would be a good experience for MM--it would help him learn how to organize.

Although MM seems to think Utah and the Mountain West would be the best places for this party to develop, he might find a surprisingly-good reception in the South.  Mike Huckabee, after all, carried most Republican primaries in the area and although he was a religious conservative, he was less right-wing on other issues.  People on FreeRepublic called him a "Christian socialist" and a "pro-life liberal," frex.

The actual discussion was on the thread Hypothetical Third Parties: Utah.  You'll need to get a site membership in order to view the thread, but there is a lot of information on MM's rationale to be had there.

(I'll message him to suggest he put his strategy/rationale on the Facebook page as well, plus some contact information.)

My Column About Donald Trump...

Rather than write a column about local issues, I have decided to dip my toe in the 2012 presidential waters.

Here's a column about Donald Trump:

http://www.northfulton.com/Articles-c-2011-05-03-187113.114126-sub-Donald-Trump-not-a-good-Republican-candidate-for-2012.html

Hopefully this will be an attack on Trump from an unexpected direction.  I've heard Trump criticized on other grounds, like his divorce from his first wife, his tendency to attach "Trump" to everything (that he even jokes about), and his hair, and those attacks can be answered.

The eminent domain abuse criticism, although Michelle Malkin and John Stossel have engaged in it, has not to my knowledge hit the general public's radar yet.  However, those two wrote against Trump years ago and he was not a viable candidate then.  Trump's record is, in all likelihood, getting more attention right now than in the past.

Hopefully this foolishness can be nipped in the bud before Trump gets the Republican nomination (and is likely defeated in a landslide by Obama) or runs as an independent, which could lead to the vote being split and the Democrat winning again.

For the record, if Trump wins the Republican nomination, I'm voting Libertarian.  Even though the Libertarians won't win and I've been somewhat less hostile toward government spending in recent years, Trump's abuse of eminent domain is antithetical to everything any self-respecting conservative (or for that many, any self-respecting liberal) stands for.

A Proposal to Keep Cobb's Libraries Safe...

Recently, I got quite a scare.  Cobb County, where I grew up, was considering closing most of its library system in order to fill a $31.5 million budget gap.

Proposed Cobb budget plan would close most libraries, slightly increase taxes

(Luckily, the Cobb government found a way to keep the libraries open, although cutting public-safety was not the ideal way to do it.)

Given I spent many hours haunting the now-closed Merchant's Walk Library (replaced by a new library nearby) and the Mountain View library that would have survived even if the cuts were implemented, this was not something I liked at all.

And cutting libraries is a bad idea for more than just personal reasons.  Given how job applications are increasingly becoming online-only, libraries provide the major opportunity for people who don't have computers (or who have dumped their Internet connections to cut costs) to apply for jobs.  The unemployed finding jobs means tax revenue and consumer spending, which means more tax revenue.  If the county government made it more difficult for those without home computers to find jobs, it would be shooting itself in the foot.

Furthermore, libraries provide a ready source for books for students in the local schools, who will need to use them for required-reading assignments and research for their papers.  This is especially applicable to poorer students who may not have lots of books at home or Internet access and who might not have ready access to a car to get them to a farther-away library.

And finally, libraries provide major opportunities for those who seek to learn outside of school.  I learned a colossal amount of things I would never have learned otherwise if I did not have access to the library system.  Over the years, I probably read thousands of books.  And this wasn't just for pure entertainment or the joy of learning--many of those books had to do with improving my personal writing.  The document "General Writing Tips" on my computer is full of bits of useful advice I'd gotten from books I would not have even known existed if I hadn't gone wandering the shelves--it's a file I really should read more regularly.

Without the library system, I would have never reached my full potential.  And I had parents who cared a great deal about my education and put a whole lot of effort into it--when I was very young, my mother read to me an hour per day.  Someone not similarly blessed would be in need of the library system even more.

Now, libraries are government programs and require tax monies to sustain them.  As a conservative/Libertarian, I'm not a fan of high taxes and generally believe low taxes promote economic growth.

(And lest anyone start, Reagan and Bush 2.0 both spent colossal sums, the former on the military expansion that pressed the Soviets so and Social Security and the latter on the Iraq War, which was truly a massive drain.  The fact both ran up deficits does not disprove supply-side economics, since both were big spenders.  If a tightwad president still ran deficits under a low-tax regime, THEN the anti-supply-siders would have a much stronger point.)

I will admit, there comes a point when taxes are too low to gather the necessary revenue--the far left end of the Laffer Curve.  Although I lived in Cobb County most of my life, I'm not familiar with the tax rates so I cannot comment intelligently on whether or not they're too high or too low.

However, there's a way to increase Cobb County's income without raising taxes per se.

House gives final approval to Sunday alcohol sales bill

According to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, allowing Sunday alcohol sales could raise $3.4 million to $4.8 million for the state of Georgia.  The AJC quoted the group's vice-president, Ben Jenkins, as saying this was "state tax revenues."  This means there are additional monies to be had for local governments too, on top of the money going to Atlanta.


If Cobb County were to legalize Sunday alcohol sales, it would raise additional funds.  I don't know how much, since I am not familiar with how alcohol is taxed, but in these economic times, every little bit of extra money helps.  Legalizing Sunday alcohol sales would provide additional revenue for the county to provide needed services--not just libraries, but others as well.


I no longer live in Cobb County, so my voice would carry less weight than those living there still.  Those of who do live in Cobb County, if you could contact the county commissioners with this suggestion, it would be very helpful for the long-term future of your community.

John Monds and the Lesser of Two Evils

One common criticism of voting Libertarian, or for any third party, is that one is "throwing one's vote away" and the only realistic option is to vote for the lesser of two evils.

Firstly, I would wager that one is only throwing one's vote away if they do something absurd like write in Mickey Mouse or a candidate who isn't running. Otherwise, one's vote has an impact, even if that impact is helping a rival party.

(Voting Green tends to benefit Republicans; voting Libertarian tends to benefit Democrats.)

Secondly, in states with runoff elections for those who don't reach a certain electoral threshhold, one has a choice other than the lesser of two evils.

This WSB poll shows that neither Deal nor Barnes are polling above 50 percent.

http://www.wsbtv.com/politics/25192892/detail.html

If neither party gets more than a majority of the votes (50 percent plus one), it's runoff time.

My suggestion is that people who don't like Roy Barnes or Nathan Deal (and there are a lot of them) vote Libertarian John Monds. If Monds does well enough to force a runoff between Barnes and Deal, then it will be time to pick the lesser of two evils, since Monds will realistically not be among the top two finishers.

This will force the two of them to compete for Libertarian votes, which might affect their political platforms, and will strengthen the hand of the Libertarian Party in general.  After all, voting for a party that managed to force the two major parties into a runoff cannot be described as throwing one's vote away in the same manner that writing in Mickey Mouse is.

In turn, if the Libertarian vote is strengthened, the two major parties will alter their platforms to appeal to them.  Philosophically speaking, that would be easier for the Republican Party, since it strikes me as intellectually dishonest to support small government but at the same time support laws against victimless crimes that spawn big-government bureaucracy and abuses, like the Drug War or unnecessary foreign adventures.

John Monds and Why He Could Be Good for the GOP

I read about John Monds, the Libertarian candidate for the Georgia governorship, in the Atlanta Journal Constitution this morning.

Here's the article about him:

http://www.ajc.com/news/libertarian-candidate-john-monds-616835.html

Although voting for a third party with a similar position to an established party tends to benefit the established party's rival (Greens hurt Democrats; Libertarians hurt Republicans), the circumstances of this particular Libertarian candidate indicate he could do significant damage to the Democrats this time around.

For starters, the Democratic Party has been very strong among African-Americans for the last several decades.  Monds was a leader in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and many African-Americans believe, rightly or wrongly, that the Republican Party is racist.  A black Republican could be branded a token, a sellout, or window-dressing, but Monds is not a Republican and he was the president of the Grady County NAACP.

Some African-Americans are already interested in him, for that reason:

http://dekalbganaacp.blogspot.com/2010/01/will-georgia-elect-its-first-black.html

Furthermore, I believe research has shown that African-Americans are incarcerated at a higher rate for drug crimes than whites are and it is the incarceration rate (and the consequent difficulty in getting jobs or education after being jailed) that has hurt the African-American community, particularly men, rather badly. 

Given how the Libertarian Party has historically been opposed to the War on Drugs, this position could help make Monds attractive to African-American voters (in addition to him being black and involved in the NAACP).

Also, of the two policy positions Monds takes in the article, one of them is a socially-liberal defense of allowing horse-racing, casino gambling, and Sunday alcohol sales in Georgia on the grounds that although he may not like them, it's not the state's job to enforce his moral notions.  I don't think socially-conservative members of the Georgia Republican Party, the ones who picked Nathan Deal over Karen Handel, are going to be defecting en masse to Monds due to this issue.

However, those who are leery of social conservatism but also leery of the Democratic candidate Roy Barnes due to his previous term might be willing to vote for Monds.  See the book The Emerging Democratic Majority and the strong showing of Karen Handel, a more socially-liberal Republican who did well in Metro Atlanta, where half the Georgian population lives.

In short, Monds might be able to keep the Democrats from making inroads among independents and could divert black votes from Barnes, weakening him but affecting the Republican Party less severely.  And since he is an effective campaigner--he got over a million votes running for Public Service Commissioner in a prior election--he could do some real damage.

Even if all he does is force a runoff, this would force the Democratic Party to spend more money on Georgia, money that could be spent elsewhere.