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Paul's libertarian views attract diverse campaigners

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Libertarian appeals for Republican endorsement as convention nears

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – The Libertarian Party is challenging astate law that allows only Virginia residents to circulatepetitions to get minor party candidates on the general electionballot.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit Monday in federal court in Richmondon behalf of the Libertarian Party of Virginia and Darryl Bonner, aPennsylvania resident who often circulates petitions for theparty’s candidates in other states.

The complaint alleges that the restriction violates theplaintiffs’ First Amendment right of free speech and association.

In a similar case earlier this year, Republican presidentialcandidate Rick Perry challenged a related Virginia law that imposesthe residency requirement for petition circulators in primary

elections. A judge said the requirement is probablyunconstitutional, but ruled that Perry filed his lawsuit too late.

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Libertarian Party Sues, Challenges Ballot Circulation Law

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Ron Paul campaign rules out endorsing Libertarian Party nominee

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Libertarian Solution – Barry Short: End Alcohol Prohibition – Video

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Libertarian Solution – Fred Stitt: End Government Electric Monopoly – Video

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Libertarian Solution – Elizabeth B: Your Right to Self-Defense – Video

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Libertarian Solution – Scott Spencer: Opt out of Gov. Regulation – Video

Former GOP Gov. Gary Johnson pulled an end run to get into the presidential elections by switching to the Libertarian Party and winning the party’s nomination. But Johnson still faces the same challenge he had as a Republican — trying to get to debate the top candidates.

The Commission on Presidential Debates tells Fox News a final determination will be made in early fall. But Johnson, the former New Mexico governor who supports gay marriage and the legalization of marijuana, appears to be facing long odds.

“We know what the challenges are,” campaign spokesman Joe Hunter said Saturday. “To get the attention we believe we deserve, we have to stay relevant, say things that get people’s attention.”

Hunter said that like other third-party or second-tier candidates, Johnson has relied on the Internet to get out his message and on grassroots efforts, including a burgeoning unofficial campaign called Let Me Speak to get him into the debates.

Johnson, highlighting his outside-the-GOP-mainstream position, called out President Obama this week for supporting gay marriage, but saying it should remain a state issue.

“When the smoke clears, gay Americans will realize the president’s words have gained them nothing,” Johnson said in a blog post. “Millions of Americans in most states will continue to be denied true marriage equality. What is the President saying — that he would eat a piece of cake at a gay wedding if the state the happy couple lives in allows it?”

Johnson was essentially shut out of the GOP debates for failing to garner even 1 percent of the popular vote until an exception was made and he was allowed to participate in two debates cosponsored by Fox News.

The criteria of getting in the presidential debates is that a candidate must be constitutionally eligible, which means being a natural-born U.S. citizen who is at least 35 and has lived in the country for 14 years. The other two rules are the candidate must be on enough state ballots to “at least have a mathematical chance” of getting the majority of Electoral College votes, which would be a minimum 270, and have at least 15 percent of the popular vote.

Johnson appears to be on the ballot in all 50 states, but getting 15 percent of the vote appears unlikely.

A committee official said earlier this week that Gallup will take the average of five national polls to determine the percentages for candidates. The non-partisan group has in years past made the announcement in September.

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Johnson gets Libertarian nomination but still faces debate challenge

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Libertarian MSNBC Guest Gets Mic Cut Off for Refusing to Debate ‘Non-Story’

INDIANAPOLIS –

Indiana Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Rupert Boneham says he’ll have more differences with the Republican and Democratic candidates than they will with each other and expects he’ll gain support despite a spartan campaign operation.

Boneham told newspaper editors at the Indiana Associated Press Managing Editors meeting on Saturday that his 20 years of running mentorship programs for youths gives him a unique perspective on what he calls the burdens of state government.

Boneham says Republican Mike Pence and Democrat John Gregg will take similar positions in their campaigns and that he’ll pick up support as voters across the state learn that he is a serious candidate.

Boneham gained attention as a star in the “Survivor” TV reality series, winning $1 million in 2004 when he was voted the fan favorite.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This story may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

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Libertarian Boneham: Indiana governor run is serious

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Libertarian Nominating Convention 2012 Video Contest – Video

Keegan Steele adds more stock to a sales rack of Romney buttons at the Nevada Republican Convention. His brother Collin also worked the booth.

PHOTO BYDENNIS MYERS

In the latest New York Times tally, Mitt Romney has 847 national convention delegates, more than three times as many as his nearest competitor, Rick Santorum, and about 11 times as many as Ron Paul, who is in fourth place with 80 delegates. Romney is just 115 delegates short of the nomination. There are 117 unelected superdelegates, 40 of whom already support Romney and 71 who have not yet committed. Paul has one unelected delegate.

The Republican state convention in Sparks was dominated by the passionate followers of the presidential candidate who came in third in the Feb. 4 GOP caucuses.

It was a settling of scores that was four years in the making, prompted by Republican leaders in 2008 who suddenly adjourned that years state convention to avert a similar takeover by the same faction.

After the February caucuses, which began this years process, supporters of libertarian Ron Paulwho received just 18.7 percent of the caucuses votedid a better job of getting his people first to the county conventions and then to the state convention than did the supporters of Mitt Romney, who won the caucuses with 50.1 percent of the vote.

Last weekend, it all came together as Paul won in convention the victory he could not win in the caucuses. The Paulists easily unseated two of Nevadas three members of the Republican National CommitteeRobert List and Heidi Smithand swept all 22 elected national convention delegate seats.

While perennial presidential candidate Paul was triumphing in Sparks, at the other end of Nevada, at the Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas, the Libertarian National Convention was also meeting to choose its presidential nominee.

Many members of the Libertarian Party view Paulist libertarians in the GOP the way science fiction fans regard Trekkies. But they also see the Paulists as potential backers if the Republican Party mistreats them, as happened in 2008.

In that year, when the Paulists won control of the Nevada Republican Convention and were poised to elect a Ron Paul delegation to the national convention, party leaders who feared embarrassment to Romneywho had also won that years caucusesand to expected nominee John McCain called off the state convention halfway through and chose national delegates later in a party committee.

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Libertarian weekend In Reno and Las Vegas, a third way advances.

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John Stossel: ‘Thank God we’ve had an EPA’ [VIDEO]

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Ron Paul's stealthy delegate strategy: What does he really want?

by Gene Healy

Gene Healy is a vice president at the Cato Institute and the author of The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power.

Added to cato.org on May 8, 2012

This article appeared in The DC Examiner on May 8, 2012.

As a small-”l” libertarian, it’s not often I can say that National Public Radio cheers me up on my way into work. But it did the trick yesterday morning with an All Things Considered feature titled “Libertarians Find Their Voice in 2012 Race.”

“Somewhere on the path to the White House this year,” the announcer declared, “a powerful set of ideas began to creep into the mainstream debate over which direction the country will take. … free and open markets and extremely limited government. Those ideals are now becoming more mainstream.” Case in point, according to NPR, was the Libertarian Party’s decision Saturday to make former Republican Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico its nominee for president.

When the federally funded voice of urbane, upper-middle class liberalism says we’re on the verge of a “libertarian moment,” that’s what the lawyers call an “admission against interest,” and it’s worth paying attention.

[T]o be a libertarian is to be eternally fractious and dissatisfied, refusing to take yes for an answer.

Watching the Libertarian Party over the years, I’ve sometimes had the feeling that, as George Bernard Shaw once snarked about socialism, “we should have had libertarianism already, but for the Libertarians.”

In 2004, the LP’s presidential standard-bearer was Michael Badnarik, a freelance constitutional lecturer who taught that the federal income tax was optional and refused to obtain a drivers’ license despite campaigning by car. In 2006, the Montana LP nominated 67-year-old Stan Jones for the U.S. Senate. Because of his odd pallor, Jones quickly became known as “the blue guy.” A survivalist who in the 1990s was worried about the impending Y2K crisis, Jones began taking a homemade antibiotic laced with collodial silver that permanently changed his complexion (“a true blue libertarian,” the Washington Post called him). This weekend’s LP convention, televised on C-Span, was a relatively buttoned-down affair, with most of the delegates in suits (though the irrepressible, omnipresent Starchild, libertarian activist and male exotic dancer, opted for a bare-midriff miniskirt number).

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Libertarian Gary Johnson: Spoiler Alert?

Libertarian V.P. pick: Former O.C. Judge Gray May 8th, 2012, 12:39 pm posted by Martin Wisckol, Politics reporter

Jim Gray

Gary Johnson got the expected nod as the Libertarian Party presidential nominee while longtime drug reform activist and retired Orange County Superior Court Judge Jim Gray was confirmed as Johnsons running mate at the partys convention last weekend in Las Vegas.

Johnson said he expects to be the only third-party ticket on the ballot in all 50 states. But the former New Mexico governor, who started the election cycle as a Republican presidential candidate, has rebutted the suggestion he could cost Mitt Romney close states.

You know, all of those Romney supporters that are ardent marriage-equality advocates?, Johnson, who favors legalization of gay marriage, told the Daily Caller. All those pot smokers that are for Romney? Nah, I dont buy it.

Gray, whom Johnson had previously mentioned as his preferred running mate, is hardly new to the political arena himself.

Gray ran as a Republican for the House of Representatives in 1998, losing in the primary as Bob Dornan advanced to the general but failed to win back his seat from Loretta Sanchez. Gray ran as a Libertarian for U.S. Senate in 2004 and helped lead the failed 2010 campaign for Proposition 19, which would have legalized marijuana for recreational use in California.

Johnson also supports legalized marijuana, but his differences from Romney and Barack Obama hardly end there. He attacks both for not being what they say they are criticizing Romneys plan to cut the budget as unrealistic given his spending priorities and criticizing Obama on civil liberties.

Marriage equality, getting out of the wars, getting out of Afghanistan he doubled down on Afghanistan drug reform, signing the National Defense Authorization Act with the caveat that now you and I as U.S. citizens can now be detained without being charged, he said in a New York Times Q&A.

He says his positions are similar to those of Ron Paul, noting that Pauls support has doubled since two years ago.

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Libertarian VP pick: Former O.C. Judge Gray

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Libertarians nominate ex-Governor Gary Johnson for president

(CNN) Former GOP presidential candidate Gary Johnson won and accepted the presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party on Saturday, which his campaign said earns him a spot on November ballots in all 50 states.

Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico and business owner, won the nomination with more than 70% of the vote at the party convention in Las Vegas. He entered the Libertarian primary race after dropping his 2012 Republican bid in late December. Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker

He is best known for his support for the legalization of marijuana and the end of the so-called war on drugs. He supports same-sex marriage, an immediate end to the war in Afghanistan, and proposes slashing the federal budget by 43% to eliminate deficit spending.

I think theres a mathematical consequence to continue to print money to the tune of 43 cents to the dollar that we are spending, he told CNN by phone after winning the nod.

Its a mutual sacrifice by all of us to prevent a catastrophe down the line, he continued, saying the United States is within a decade of the fiscal collapse which hit Greece.

On the campaign trail, Johnson presents himself as an alternative to both major party candidates, especially on civil liberties issues. He has touted the hundreds of bills he vetoed as the New Mexico governor from 1995 to 2003, his successful re-election and balanced budgets enacted under his administration.

Johnson said that were he president at the time, he would have favored military action against al Qaeda in Afghanistan, but would have withdrawn U.S. troops within two to six months.

I would get out of Afghanistan tomorrow, Johnson said Saturday. I want to bring our troops home.

He appeared at two GOP presidential debates in 2011 and may be best remembered for his answer to a question on the economy. Referring to Obama administration initiatives to fund public works projects, Johnson quipped that his next door neighbor’s two dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs than this current administration.

Since his decision to pursue the Libertarian nomination, he has visited many state-level Libertarian conventions and held online town hall meetings with supporters.

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Gary Johnson wins Libertarian Party presidential nomination

Reuters

Former GOP presidential candidate Gary Johnson won and accepted the presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party on Saturday, which his campaign said earns him a spot on November ballots in all 50 states.

Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico and business owner, won the nomination with more than 70% of the vote at the party convention in Las Vegas. He entered the Libertarian primary race after dropping his 2012 Republican bid in late December.

He is best known for his support for the legalization of marijuana and the end of the so-called war on drugs. He supports same-sex marriage, an immediate end to the war in Afghanistan, and proposes slashing the federal budget by 43% to eliminate deficit spending.

“I think there’s a mathematical consequence to continue to print money to the tune of 43 cents to the dollar that we are spending,” he told CNN by phone after winning the nod.

“It’s a mutual sacrifice by all of us to prevent a catastrophe down the line,” he continued, saying the United States is within a decade of the fiscal collapse which hit Greece.

On the campaign trail, Johnson presents himself as an alternative to both major party candidates, especially on civil liberties issues. He has touted the hundreds of bills he vetoed as the New Mexico governor from 1995 to 2003, his successful re-election and balanced budgets enacted under his administration.

Johnson said that were he president at the time, he would have favored military action against al Qaeda in Afghanistan, but would have withdrawn U.S. troops within two to six months.

“I would get out of Afghanistan tomorrow,” Johnson said Saturday. “I want to bring our troops home.”

He appeared at two GOP presidential debates in 2011 and may be best remembered for his answer to a question on the economy. Referring to Obama administration initiatives to fund public works projects, Johnson quipped that his “next door neighbor’s two dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs than this current administration.”

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Gary Johnson wins Libertarian presidential nomination