Enlarge Photo

TAMPA, Fla. Rep. Ron Paul rewarded thousands of his presidential campaign supporters with a rally here Sunday, vowing that with their help, his small government, anti-war libertarian message will continue after he retires no matter who occupies the White House come January.

Introduced by Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, his son and the would-be heir apparent to the political movement headed by the 77-year-old congressman from Texas, Mr. Paul took the stage at the Sun Dome at the University of South Florida to an ovation so long and so thunderous that he was temporarily at a loss for words.

Is there anything left for me to say? he asked the crowd wryly.

But he went on to tell them that his cause of liberty was bigger than any convention, or even any election and that the Republican big tent eventually wouldnt matter.

We will get into the tent, believe me, he said. Because we will become the tent, eventually.

Mr. Paul trotted out his various policy emphases abolishing the Federal Reserve, scaling back the countrys military spending and repealing the provision in the National Defense Authorization Act allowing for the indefinite detention of terrorist suspects without trial, for example before sending off his supporters with both gratitude and a call to arms.

The worst thing we can do is remain silent, he said. I have been taught, and Ive been convinced, that patriotism is that [loyalty] that permits us as a free society to criticize our own government when theyre wrong.

Mr. Paul noted that he visited more than 30 college campuses during the campaign a testament to his popularity among young people as well as old.

Weve come so far in this fight for liberty, said Ashley Ryan, 21, a Republican National Committee member from Maine and the youngest delegate to this years GOP convention. You can truly say this is a revolution.

Read the rest here:

Paul forecasts a libertarian storm brewing

Ron Paul supporters are pondering what next for the libertarian cause and complaining bitterly of betrayal by a party establishment about to crown Mitt Romney the Republican presidential nominee.

Link:

Diehard Ron Paul fans stalk Republican convention

HATTIESBURG, MS (WDAM) -

The Libertarian candidate running for Congress in Mississippi's 4th District made a campaign stop in Hattiesburg Thursday.

Ron Williams said he's running for office as a Libertarian because both political parties have spent too much money and have let the American people down.

Williams, 54, is a former Moss Point businessman. He ran unsuccessfully for Mississippi governor as a Republican in 2011.

Copyright 2012 WDAM. All rights reserved.

View original post here:

Libertarian Ron Williams campaigns in Hattiesburg

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson has obtained a spot on the Minnesota ballot after gathering more than 3,000 signatures.

A spokesman for the Minnesota Secretary of State said Thursday that Johnson met the requirements to get on the November ballot with running mate Jim Gray.

Johnson, a former Republican, served two terms as governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003.

His platform includes cutting taxes and government spending, repealing the federal health care law, legalizing marijuana, keeping abortion legal and allowing gay marriage.

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

See more here:

Libertarian gets on Minnesota ballot for president

August 23, 2012

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson has obtained a spot on the Minnesota ballot after gathering more than 3,000 signatures.

A spokesman for the Minnesota Secretary of State said Thursday that Johnson met the requirements to get on the November ballot with running mate Jim Gray.

Johnson, a former Republican, served two terms as governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003.

His platform includes cutting taxes and government spending, repealing the federal health care law, legalizing marijuana, keeping abortion legal and allowing gay marriage.

Follow this link:

Libertarian gets on Minn. presidential ballot

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson has obtained a spot on the Minnesota ballot after gathering more than 3,000 signatures.

A spokesman for the Minnesota Secretary of State said Thursday, Aug. 23, that Johnson met the requirements to get on the November ballot with running mate Jim Gray.

Johnson, a former Republican, served two terms as governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003.

His platform includes cutting taxes and government spending, repealing the federal health care law, legalizing marijuana, keeping abortion legal and allowing gay marriage.

Continued here:

Minnesota: Libertarian on presidential ballot

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson has obtained a spot on the Minnesota ballot after gathering more than 3,000 signatures.

A spokesman for the Minnesota Secretary of State said Thursday that Johnson met the requirements to get on the November ballot with running mate Jim Gray.

Johnson, a former Republican, served two terms as governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003.

His platform includes cutting taxes and government spending, repealing the federal health care law, legalizing marijuana, keeping abortion legal and allowing gay marriage.

View post:

Libertarian gets on Minn. ballot for president

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson has obtained a spot on the Minnesota ballot after gathering more than 3,000 signatures.

A spokesman for the Minnesota Secretary of State said Thursday that Johnson met the requirements to get on the November ballot with running mate Jim Gray.

Johnson, a former Republican, served two terms as governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003.

His platform includes cutting taxes and government spending, repealing the federal health care law, legalizing marijuana, keeping abortion legal and allowing gay marriage.

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. )

Link:

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson on MN ballot

The Libertarian Party's vice presidential candidate will be in Greensboro and Winston-Salem on Monday for two events, both open to the public.

Jim Gray, a retired California superior court judge, will take part in an educational talk from 2 to 4 p.m. at Salem College, according to the campaign. Then he heads to Greensboro for a meet-and-greet at Liberty Oak, a restaurant on West Washington Street. That event begins at 6:30 p.m. and runs until 9 p.m., according to a campaign flier.

Gray is running with the party's presidential candidate, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson. The pair is on the ballot in 37 states, including North Carolina, despite various petition requirements that make it more difficult for third parties to get ballot access.

The party is working to get on the ballot in all 50 states, and Executive Director Carla Howell said it's likely to make it this year.

Monday's event at Salem College is free and open to the public, according to the campaign. The event at Liberty Oak will cost students $25 and all others $40, with proceeds going to the campaign, party spokesman J.J. Summerell said.

For more information, call Jason Melehani at (916) 834-7612 or email jasonmelehani@garyjohnson2012.com.

Read more:

Libertarian VP candidate in Triad Monday

The Libertarian movement has been working for years to infiltrate the GOP and basically what they have accomplished is getting a bunch of Republicans to pay lip service to certain tenets of Austrian Economics. Unfortunately this makes it easy to think that your average Professional Libertarian is dedicated less to liberty than to keeping top marginal tax rates low for billionaires. Related: Cato Institute executive vice president David Boaz, one of the movements most influential figures, loves Paul Ryan.

Meanwhile, Gary Johnson is still running for president (on the Libertarian Party line), and he is still saying things that make me admire him even though I am a big-government socialist. Here he is on Paul Ryan:

He voted for the Patriot Act, he voted for the National Defense Appropriation Act, he voted to ban online poker, hes proposing a budget that gets balanced in thirty years. He is anything but a libertarian, anything but, said Johnson after a packed campaign dinner at Hills Caf.

Johnson, the Libertarian Party nominee for president, noted that Ryan was a strict social conservative who voted to restrict abortion rights and against marriage equality.

Paul Ryan submitted personhood legislation that is anything but libertarian, he said. Johnsons eyes widened and his volume increased as he went into detail about Ryans support for a national version of Virginias controversial transvaginal ultrasound law.

Gary Johnson was the Republican candidate who might have broken out during the primaries if the movement that surrounds Ron Paul a born-again anti-abortion isolationist with a history of making racist political appeals were actually about libertarian principles instead of being a weird cult of personality. (Johnson also might have benefited if the liberal media hadnt decided Jon Huntsman was the official Republican Liberals Should Like solely because of his bold decision to repeatedly call his partys base a bunch of morons.) (And if those Principled Libertarian Koch Brothers had wanted to throw a bunch of money at him it probably wouldnt have hurt, right?) Alas, it was not to be.

Oh, Johnson also released a statement on Rep. Todd Akins recent unpleasantness:

Rep. Akins comments were not just offensive, but also absurd on their face, and serve to remind us why politicians and the government ought not be asserting themselves onto decisions and judgments about a womans right to choose.

Its almost as if this crazy guy actually means it when he says he doesnt want the government interfering in private affairs, and he isnt just talking about the God-given right to profit as much as possible from pumping as much carbon as possible into the atmosphere.

Read more:

Gary Johnson: Ryan’s no libertarian

HARRISBURG - The state Republican Party is challenging candidate petitions by members of the Constitution and Libertarian Parties, seeking to bounce from the state ballot candidates for president, vice president, and several other offices.

Line-by-line reviews of the candidates' petition signatures ordered by a state Commonwealth Court judge will begin Monday at the Philadelphia Board of Elections.

Analysts say Republicans are probably worried that conservatives dissatisfied with their presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, will defect to Constitution or Libertarian candidates.

The issues that tend to attract those two party's activists, such as limited government, tend to also be key for many Republicans, said Terry Madonna, a professor of public affairs and director of the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin and Marshall College.

In the most recent public poll, released Thursday by Franklin and Marshall, President Obama is ahead of Romney, 44 percent to 38 percent, with 15 percent undecided. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

A Republican Party spokeswoman said the GOP was challenging the nominating papers because they are riddled with errors, and the party is concerned that Democrats are behind the petitions.

The petitions, spokeswoman Valerie Caras said, were circulated by and signed largely by Democrats.

The president of the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania, Tom Stevens, said the petition drive was financed strictly by Libertarian Party members and the campaign of former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, the party's candidate for president.

"It's part of no plot, and no money is coming from Democrats to finance our petition drive," Stevens said.

He said it may be true that the signers and circulators were Democrats. But they were hired exclusively by a contractor for the national Libertarian Party, and they must accurately represent the Libertarian Party and its philosophies, he said.

Read more here:

Pa. GOP targets 2 parties' petitions

1:00 AM

By Steve Mistler smistler@pressherald.com Staff Writer

Gary Johnson isn't a household name in Maine or most other places, yet the Libertarian presidential candidate could become an attractive option at the ballot box for some of the same voters who helped sweep Republicans into power here just two years ago.

click image to enlarge

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson

AP photo

The former New Mexico governor will be on the Nov. 6 ballot in 34 states, including Maine. National pundits say Johnson has no chance of winning the presidency, but some believe he could be a spoiler candidate in several swing states, such as Nevada, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina and Colorado. Although Maine isn't among those states, Johnson's level of appeal may signal the future of the Maine Republican Party.

The reason isn't just Johnson's platform of limited government and fiscal conservatism, key tenets of the tea party and the current energy core of the Republican Party.

It's also because an increasingly bitter standoff between establishment Republicans and the so-called liberty movement could spur some tea party voters to abandon the presumptive Republican nominee, Mitt Romney.

Johnson backers certainly hope so.

Excerpt from:

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson may sway voters

GILMER--Members of the Upshur County Libertarian Party at their monthly meeting last week criticized the selection of Paul Ryan as presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney's choice for his running mate.

"This guy'll (Ryan) really sink him (Romney) because he's chairman of the (House) Budget Committee, and look where the (federal) budget is," said Criss Bartley during the Aug. 14 meeting at the Buckeye Cafe.

Allen Weatherford and Upshur County Libertarian Chairman Vance Lowry ridiculed Ryan's budget plan, saying it would take 40 years to balance the budget. However, Lowry said he saw a "silver lining" in Ryan's selection in that the vice-presidential candidate had read "Ayn Rand, which is the patron saint" of the Libertarian Party.

"He's a decent guy, plus a good Catholic boy," said Lowry, himself a Catholic.

But former county Libertarian Chairman Mark Grimes said Ryan "voted for all of this TARP (the Troubled Assets Relief Program) and everything else," and said the candidate "voted for some of this stuff he's railing against" now.

Grimes, a Union Pacific Railroad worker, also said "Paul Ryan made all the railroaders mad because he went after railroad retirement." Ryan "thought it was costing the government money," but railroad workers (including company officers) totally fund the retirement, Grimes said.

Meantime, Weatherford praised the Libertarians' vice-presidential nominee, James Ray, who is running with the party's Presidential candidate, Gary Johnson. Weatherford said Ray quit the Republican Party over the Patriot Act.

Lowry said Ray is a judge who wants to "decriminalize the drug war" or devise a different approach to the drug issue, if possible.

As for the top of the presumed Republican Presidential ticket, Weatherford charged "Romney's like the husband your wife decides on, they settle for."

Also at last week's meeting, the Upshur Libertarians discussed their U.S. Senate candidate, John Jay Myers, who was scheduled to make appearances in Tyler and Mt. Pleasant Tuesday, Aug. 21. Weatherford organized the Mt. Pleasant gathering.

Read the rest here:

Uphsur Libertarian’s Not Happy With Choice of Paul Ryan

Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson almost certainly can't win the presidential election this year. But his supporters claim he could determine who does.

Johnson, the former New Mexico governor who briefly and unsuccessfully competed for the Republican presidential nomination before joining the Libertarians, is polling barely above 5 percent nationwide. Yet his numbers in key battleground states suggest he could make a difference in what is shaping up to be a tight contest between President Obama and Mitt Romney.

He was rating at 13 percent in New Mexico and 9 percent in Arizona in recent polling -- not enough to win, but certainly enough to disadvantage whichever major-party candidate he's drawing votes away from.

The Libertarian Party is now touting that possibility. An emailed statement from the organization earlier this week carried a rather sensational subject line: "Libertarian Presidential Candidate Gov. Gary Johnson Could Deprive Mitt Romney of 5 battleground states, 74 Electoral Votes, 27% of the Electoral Votes needed to win in 2012."

Libertarians reasoned Johnson, then, "could determine the winner" of the election.

It's impossible to gauge at this point what effect Johnson could have, but of course it's not unprecedented for a third-party candidate to tilt the scales.

In 1992, third-party candidate Ross Perot won roughly 19 percent of the popular vote, which many people think cut into GOP incumbent George H.W. Bush's take and put Democratic candidate Bill Clinton in the Oval Office with just 43 percent of the vote.

Though Johnson is polling barely above 5 percent nationwide, Romney and Obama are separated by single digits in the battleground states of Colorado, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia.

The Libertarian Party is pointing to those states as among the places where Johnson's presence could make a difference. All five states voted for Obama in 2008. But they largely voted Republican in prior modern-day elections, and could be a toss-up this year.

As for which candidate Johnson benefits, it's unclear. The Libertarians think he mostly takes away from Romney's numbers. And they say Johnson will likely have the biggest impact in Colorado, based on a recent statewide poll that shows him with 7 percent of the vote.

Go here to read the rest:

Libertarians Look to Make Waves

Drug policy reform, smaller government and combating childhood obesity are just a few issues libertarian vice presidential candidate, Judge Jim Gray, will touch on during his multi-state tour.

And Washington is among the first few states hell visit this weekend, with stops in Seattle, Kirkland and Spokane.

Gray said in a phone interview that there is an increasing amount of libertarians in Washington.

I tell libertarians for us to sit together, we must discuss the issues with everyone, said Gray.

But his main reason for the visit this weekend is to be a panel guest and give a speech Saturday at Seattles 21st Hempfest, specifically about Washingtons Initiative 502 marijuana reform. Gray supports the initiative.

Then on Sunday, Aug. 19 from 3-6 p.m., Gray plans to visit Kirklands Everest Park Shelter for a barbecue with members of the libertarian party and a chance to speak with the public.

At some point around the middle of the event, Judge Gray will speak briefly and open the floor to questions, and throughout the event he will be available for conversation, said Kyra Sands, Grays schedule liaison.

News broke Thursday that the Washington Libertarian Party filed a lawsuit in Thurston County Superior Court contending that the Republicans are no longer a major political party in Washington state. According to state law, a political party must nominate a candidate for state-wide office, in an even year general election, and receive at least 5 percent of the vote.

They hope to block Mitt Romney from the November ballot on grounds that Republican Dino Rossi was never formally nominated by the Republican party during the 2010 U.S. Senate election. Rossi received 48 percent of the vote in 2010.

According to Sands, John Mills, the libertarian who filed the Thurston County lawsuit against the GOP will attend the Kirkland barbecue.

Read the original post:

Libertarian vice presidential nominee to visit Kirkland on Sunday

Libertarian candidate Barbara Howe is no stranger to running for statewide political office.

Dear Reader, This content is only available to subscribers of the Rocky Mount Telegram print or electronic edition. If you are a current subscriber and have established a user name and password, you can click the Electronic Edition subscriber login box to the right. If you have not established your user name and password, click here to set up your information. To become a subscriber, click here. For questions call Customer Service at 252-407-9907.

Read more from the original source:

Libertarian candidate makes third gubernatorial run

Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson left the Republican Party to run for president as a Libertarian. / Eddie Moore / Albuquerque Journal / AP A presidential candidate was in Tennessee Wednesday but wasn’t campaigning or fundraising for his White House campaign.

See the original post here:

Libertarian Johnson didn't want to skip visit

A libertarian think tank is publishing a report today claiming taxpayers may be in for a raw deal if the federal government offers a loan to a company planning a high-speed rail line linking Victorville to Las Vegas.

The company, XPress West, is proposing to build a rail line that could travel as fast as 150 mph, and the Federal Railroad Administration has approved the firm's planned route from Victorville to Las Vegas.

What the government has not yet agreed to, however, is Xpress West's application for a multi-billion dollar loan to build the rail line.

And that's something the libertarian Reason Foundation does not want to see happen.

In a "Taxpayer Risk Analysis" published today, think tank analysts contend XPress West overstates Vegas-bound travelers' willingness to drive from from the Inland Empire or Greater Los Angeles in order to buy a train ticket for the balance of their journey.

"There's a reason so many people drive to Las Vegas from the Inland Empire, Riverside, Los Angeles. If you get two or three people in the car, it's pretty cheap," said Adrian Moore, the Reason Foundation's vice president for policy.

XPress West executives declined to comment for this report since no one at the Las Vegas-based firm has yet to see the report before its publication.

In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Daily News, The Sun and Inland Valley Daily Bulletin's sister paper, XPress West chief operating officer

Mack also said Xpress West has applied for a loan through the Federal Railway Administration's Railroad Rehabilitation program. The company needs $5.5 billion on top of the $1.4 billion in capital already raised for the project.

The loan would be paid out over 35 years, he said. A ticket on Xpress West could cost $89 round trip.

Read the rest here:

Libertarian think tank opposes government loan for Victorville-to-Las Vegas rail

Given his libertarian political views and the U.S. Constitution, retired Orange County judge James P. "Jim" Gray believes every American has the right to own a gun.

What kind of gun can be subject to debate, he adds. "I don't think people should own a bazooka, for example," said Gray in a recent Illinois radio interview. "You know, you can own a Sherman tank but can you have a 22 millimeter gun on it? So there's a discussion that should be had on that, of course."

His comments were in the context of the recent shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin, incidents that naturally spark the gun-control debate, according to Gov. George Deukmejian 1989 appointee to the Orange County Superior Court bench.

OC Weekly Judge James P. Gray archives

Since retiring in January 2009, Gray has become a national spokesman for liberalizing drug use and possession. Someone in the Illinois listening audience may have wondered if he'd smoked something before answering whether he thought he and Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson can win in November.

Noting their platform includes balancing the budget, bringing the troops home and repealing the income tax, Gray said, "We need to be polling well enough. And if we are, we're absolutely convinced that we will merit people's votes. We think the rules will change, people will see us as viable, and voters will flock to Governor Gary Johnson."

Follow OC Weekly on Twitter@ocweeklyor onFacebook!

See the article here:

Judge Jim Gray, Libertarian Vice Presidential Candidate, for Limited Gun Control

Ballot access signatures submitted by the Libertarian Party of Connecticut will take at least two to three weeks to verify, Av Harris, spokesman for Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, said Tuesday.

Signatures covering Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson and U.S. Senate candidate Paul Passarelli totaled 12,686 with 7,500 required to get both men on the ballot, according to party Chairman Dan Reale, who lives in Plainfield.

Reale is also running for Congress in Eastern Connecticuts 2nd District and his petition signatures totaled 4,303 with 2,404 required, he said. Reale said he plans to announce his campaign staff soon and has set a fundraising goal of between $500,000 and $1 million, adding that the party has hired fundraisers.

Marc Guttman, who is running for State Senate in 22nd District, which includes East Lyme and Waterford, will automatically be on the ballot because the party has received enough votes since 2008 to maintain its listing, Reale said in a Saturday email.

See more here:

Libertarian Party signature checks to take at least two weeks