Lawsuit may put Libertarian in South Carolina Senate seat
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Lawsuit may put Libertarian in South Carolina Senate seat - Video

With some polls showing the Virginia governors race tightening in its final days, Republicans and Democrats are looking to manipulate a bloc of libertarian voters who have withheld their support from the major parties but who could swing the hotly contested race if they return to the fold for Election Day.

A Quinnipiac poll released Wednesdayshowed Republican Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II trimming Democrat Terry McAuliffes lead in the Virginia governors race to 4 percentage points, suggesting the contest is much closer than some analysis has indicated.

The survey gave Mr. McAuliffe a lead of 45 percent to 41 percent, with 9 percent of likely voters opting for Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis. That advantage is down from 46 percent to 39 percent for Mr. McAuliffe in a Quinnipiac poll last week, when Mr. Sarvis had 10 percent.

Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said the results suggest that some people who committed to Mr. Sarvis might be coming home to Mr. Cuccinelli good news for the Republican who has had a difficult time throughout the race solidifying support among members of his own party.

In an overwhelmingly negative campaign, Mr. McAuliffe has refrained from making any critical remarks about the third-party candidate, apparently content not to upset the Libertarians backers, who are disproportionately pulling support from his main rival.

Mr. Cuccinelli, on the other hand, has made a point of brandishing his libertarian credentials to attract Sarvis supporters who would be crucial to pull out a win over Mr. McAuliffe.

The Republicans campaign announced Wednesday that former Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Republican and former presidential candidate, will rally Monday evening with Mr. Cuccinelli in Richmond. Mr. Paul, who often is described as a libertarian folk hero, endorsed Mr. Cuccinelli this month.

Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican and Ron Pauls son, campaigned with Mr. Cuccinelli this week.

The poll released Wednesday suggested that some crucial voters might not have settled on a candidate.

Political analysts have long speculated that Mr. Sarvis could be attracting disaffected voters turned off by what has been a contentious and unusually mean-spirited campaign.

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McAuliffe, Cuccinelli try to swing Libertarian vote in Virginia race for governor

A last-minute Westville aldermanic candidate proposed a fix for New Havens street violence: take more young people to the gun range, and help them get more guns.

That way fewer potential shooters would mess with them, argued the candidate, Aaron Freeman.

Freeman just made the deadline to register as a write-in candidate in next Tuesdays election for alderman in Westvilles high-voting 25th Ward. Until a week ago, Democratic incumbent Adam Marchand was running for reelection unopposed. Then Michael Pinto, a prominent backer of mayoral candidate Justin Elicker, announced an 11th-hour candidacy as a write-in candidate. (Read about that here.) And now Freeman has entered the fray.

Pinto and Freeman are among two of five officially registered write-in candidates in next Tuesdays municipal elections. The others are perennial mayoral write-in candidate Roger Uihlein of the Neverending Books store; and aldermanic candidates Kevin Diggs and Patricia DePalma, who lost Sept. 10 Democratic aldermanic primaries in Beaver Hills/Westvilles Ward 27 and Fair Haven Heights Ward 11, respectively.

The candidates names wont appear on ballots. But because they registered, their votes will officially count if people write in their names. (West Havens incumbent mayor, John Picard, is running for reelection as a write-in.)

Aaron Freeman, a 59-year-old unemployed former pizza-delivery driver, is a registered Libertarian, he said, although I havent paid the $425 [the party] has been asking me for. He discussed his reasons for running the other evening in a conversation on a bench outside the Central Avenue apartment complex where he lives with his mother, a retired teacher and bookkeeper.

Want a Twizzler? he said, beginning the conversation by defying a a stereotypical criticism of Libertarians as selfish (as opposed to people who believe protecting individual rights produces the greater social good).

Politics today needs more initiative at the grassroots level, he said. I see so many 2nd Amendment advocates who dont take inner-city children out to the rifle range. We haven an entire constitution that needs to be brought into the spotlight to see what the moths have eaten away.

He said the rifle-range trips would help both the gun-owners and their young guestswhile offering a better alternative to city officials attempts to stem street shootings by seeking to ban guns.

It would make [the 2nd Amendment advocates] a lot of friends. It would give them better political clout, Freeman argued. It would demonstrate some willingness of outreach.

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Libertarian Candidate Calls For More Guns

Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, is often described as both a tea party member and a libertarian, but it turns out that most libertarians arent tea partyers.

In a surprising finding from one of the most sweeping surveys on the attitudes and beliefs of Americas libertarians, a majority of libertarians 61 percent said they did not consider themselves part of the tea party movement, according to the annual American Values Survey released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute.

SPECIAL COVERAGE: Tea Party Voices

This new research reveals a libertarian constituency in America that is distinct both from the tea party and from the Christian right, said Robert P. Jones, CEO of the institute. While conventional wisdom has assumed that the tea party movement is fueled by libertarian convictions, most libertarians see themselves as outside of the tea party movement.

Libertarians, it turns out, are principled but not always easy to pigeonhole: A majority of libertarians support legal marijuana but not gay marriage, they would allow doctor-assisted suicide but wouldnt raise the minimum wage, and they really, really, really dont like Obamacare. There also are signs that libertarians are likely to take up a bigger slice of the American political spectrum.

Mr. Jones said the survey this year represents the first time the institute has asked about libertarians, and the timing is spot-on. In some polls ahead of Virginias gubernatorial election Tuesday, Libertarian Party candidate Robert Sarvis is supported by a hefty 10 percent of voters, cutting into the base of Republican candidate Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II.

I think we have a lot of growing interest in and activism among libertarians, but not a lot of data, Mr. Jones said.

The difference between libertarians and tea partyers appears to boil down to attitudes about religion. Libertarians are about half as likely to see themselves as part of the Christian right movement as those who identify with the tea party, the survey found.

Libertarians represent about 7 percent of the Republican Party, less than the 20 percent of self-identified Republicans who consider themselves part of the tea party and barely a fifth of the 33 percent who identify with the religious right.

The survey found that the typical libertarian looks a lot like Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. Nearly 94 percent of libertarians are white, two-thirds are male and 62 percent are younger than 50.

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Libertarians: Don't call us tea partyers; survey finds blocs often clash

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Frank Godon confirmed on Tuesday that he will be the Libertarian Party candidate. (SUBMITTED)

Voters in Brandon-Souris will have one more name to choose from when they cast their ballot on Nov. 25.

Boissevain resident and former United States marine Frank Godon confirmed on Tuesday that he will be the Libertarian Party candidate, just six days before the Elections Canada deadline of Nov. 4.

"My reason is to give the people of Brandon-Souris another option," Godon said.

Godon was initially going to seek the Liberal nomination, as he announced back in September. However, he withdrew from the race a few weeks later due to family concerns and because he believed his opponent, Rolf Dinsdale, was the "better candidate."

But after much consideration, Godon decided he wanted to throw his hat back in the ring.

"Talking with people I found that many of them, theyre either not going to vote because of what the Conservative party has done and of course whats going on now (nationally)," he said. "I just started thinking, these people deserve a chance to use their vote, thats our democratic right here in Canada."

Godon said his ailing mother is in the hospital where she is getting good care, and after speaking with his father and wife, he was encouraged to get back in the race.

"People say Im just jumping from party to party, no, I was Libertarian going for a Liberal position," he said. "Im going back to my core beliefs and working with the Libertarian party here."

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Godon Libertarian Party candidate

Survey: Libertarian numbers are small but their social, political clout is growing

Washington A new statistical portrait of libertarians examines their political and cultural views just as a Libertarian Party candidate could make a difference in the upcoming Virginia governors race.

The Public Religion Research Institutes annual American Values Survey, released Tuesday, examines libertarians to try to "pin down a group that doesnt fit on the traditional liberal-to-conservative spectrum," said Robert Jones, CEO of PRRI.

"We were not sure we could find a coherent group that could say they oppose making abortion more difficult and at the same time oppose raising the minimum wage. But we did."

Like their ideological opposites, the Tea Party, which PRRI studied in 2010, libertarians are just 7 percent of U.S. adults. An additional 15 percent of Americans lean toward libertarian views socially liberal, economically conservative while 17 percent of Americans said they leaned toward the Tea Party. Most Americans (54 percent) hold a mixture of views, PRRI found.

(The survey of 2,317 U.S. adults was conducted Sept. 21 to Oct 3, before the Tea Party-endorsed government shutdown.)

PRRI found libertarians are overwhelmingly (94 percent) non-Hispanic white and mostly male (68 percent). Theyre also young. The average age is 44, while the national average is 47; Tea Party folks average slightly older, at 51.

On religion, libertarians tilt to the mainline Protestants (27 percent) and the secular (27 percent say they have no religious identity). Only 11 percent are Catholic, 6 percent identified with a non-Christian faith and 4 percent named another Christian group. (The tally is less than 100 percent due to rounding.)

But libertarians are like the Tea Party adherents (chiefly white evangelicals and Catholics) in one respect: Politically, theyre beginning to punch above their weight.

"There are opportunities for libertarians to play a bigger role in primaries," said Jones, even though only 8 percent of libertarians identify specifically with the Libertarian Party.

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Survey: Libertarian numbers are small but their social, political clout is growing

Jeremy Walters says he's all twerked up. Hes a Fort Millcarpenter and chairman of the York County Libertarian Party. And hes twerked up because he feels like no one listened to him when he tried to get two Charleston candidates booted from the ballot before an election earlier this month. Hed filed a lawsuit in September, and now he hopes it can somehow overturn the election of Charleston Democratic Sen. Marlon Kimpson.

Walters accuses Kimpson, a Mt. Pleasant lawyer and now state senator, of putting the wrong year on an income disclosure form called a statement of economic interest (SEI) when he filed as a candidate. Kimpson, and his Republican opponent Billy Shuman, put the year 2013 on the form instead of 2012, Walters argued in a Sept. 26 lawsuit he filed without an attorney. The libertarian candidate in that race, Alex Thornton, filed the form correctly, Walters says. Those dates match with what the State Ethics Commission has on file for the three candidates.

Although Walters wants Kimpsons election thrown out, he admits it doesnt seem likely. But he says the lawsuit is the only way to bring attention to what the Libertarian sees as a larger problem of powerful elites bending the law to their favor.

What else am I supposed to do? says Walters. Theyre violating the law. No one will do anything about it because they police themselves. Theres nobody to watch over these people. So this is my whole point of filing the lawsuit ... to prove that these people can do whatever they want.

Whether anyone violated the law would likely be up to whoever hears Walters lawsuit if it doesnt get dismissed. Walters says so far no one has responded to the suit. They think its a joke, he says.

The crux of the matter is this: last year, scores of non-incumbent candidates were kicked off ballots in elections throughout the state after a lawsuit challenged whether one candidate, Katrina Shealy, who was running for Senate, had improperly filed her SEI by only filing electronically and not also in person as the law required. A court ruled Shealy hadnt filed properly, and the penalty was that her name be removed from the ballot. It had implications for hundreds of other candidates. Incumbents were immune from the filing rule. (Incidentally, Shealy ran as a petition candidate by gathering enough signatures to get on the ballot in the general election and won her election against Jake Knotts, who is largely believed to have been behind the original lawsuit.)

Lawmakers quickly fixed the technical glitch in the paperwork-filing law during the last legislative session so technicalities in the way SEI forms are handled in the future wont result in such drastic consequences. But Kimpsons election was the last in South Carolina to take place before the amended law went into effect, says Chris Whitmire, spokesman for the S.C. Elections Commission.

Cathy Hazelwood, the deputy director and attorney for the State Ethics Commission, says she frequently sees similar instances of candidates putting 2013 on the SEI form instead of 2012.

Theres a least one mistake on every single daily report, she says. For us, would it be a deal breaker? No. Hazelwood says she sends e-mails asking candidates to fix the dates so it doesnt become a problem in the future. Kimpsons filing still has the 2013 date. Hazelwood believes it should read 2012, but says many other senators are using a 2013 date rather than 2012 and Senate rules allow them to.

That bugs Walters who says lawmakers policing themselves makes them unaccountable to citizens like him. He feels a lawsuit is the only way to settle the dispute.

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Libertarian activist hopes to overturn Marlon Kimpson’s election

It's probably safe to say that Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis will not be Virginia's next governor - but if the third party candidate wins just one in 10 votes next Tuesday, he could have a huge impact on Virginia elections for years to come.

Many people still don't know much about Libertarian Robert Sarvis. He was not included in any of the three gubernatorial debates, and his fundraising totals less than half of a percent of each of the major party candidates.

But Sarvis could leave a big mark on Virginia.

"I think it will open up the process, it will make it easier for third party and independent candidates to get their message across," said James Lark, vice chair of the Libertarian Party of Virginia.

According to Virginia law, any party that can win 10 percent or more of the total votes cast in a statewide election will receive official recognition from the state. Right now, Sarvis is polling right at the 10 percent threshold.

"I am honestly very surprised, but I think it's a reflection of just how Virginians feel about the two major party candidates," said Geoff Skelley, political analyst at the UVA's Center for Politics.

If Sarvis manages to win one in 10 votes on November 5, the Libertarian Party would be vested with the same powers as the Republican and Democratic parties. It would also secure Libertarian candidates a spot on any state or local ballot in Virginia through 2021.

"Even those voters who don't necessarily agree with the Libertarians may want to have the Libertarians in the debate," said Lark.

But Sarvis faces clear challenges. Three out of four voters still know little about him, and no third candidate in modern Virginia political history has won more than three percent of the vote in a gubernatorial election - let alone 10.

But Sarvis has already defied expectations, and he might be able to do it again. In a poll last week, about a quarter of Sarvis supporters say there's a good chance they'll change their mind before next Tuesday.

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Libertarian Candidate for Governor Could Leave Mark on VA

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. Rand Paul spent Monday touting Ken Cuccinellis libertarian bona fides across Virginia.

The Republican candidate for governor brought in the Kentucky senator for three joint appearances aimed both at firing up the base and stopping the bleeding of support to a Libertarian Party candidate ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

Robert Sarvis, persistently pulling around 10 percent in polls, could be a spoiler.

Paul delivered the convocation at the Liberty University convocation Monday morning in Lynchburg, flew here to the coast for an afternoon rally at a Filipino Cultural Center and finished the tour with a get-out-the-vote event in the D.C. suburb of Fairfax.

(PHOTOS: Ken Cuccinellis career)

The likely 2016 presidential candidate avoided directly attacking Sarvis in his public speeches, instead praising Cuccinelli for opposing intrusive government surveillance programs and new forms of gun control.

He also highlighted the current Virginia attorney generals success at exonerating a wrongfully-convicted man and freeing him from jail.

Theres only one candidate that will defend the Fourth Amendment, that will defend the Sixth Amendment, and its Ken Cuccinelli, said Paul.

Asked after his speech why Cuccinelli is better than the third-party challenger, Paul said he has heard Sarvis wants to create forms of taxation which is not a very libertarian idea.

I dont know a lot about his platform, said Paul. I like a lot of the things Ken Cuccinelli stands for.

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Libertarian divide on display in Va.

BISMARCK, N.D. _ A Fargo businessman has announced his intention to run for North Dakotas at-large congressional seat on the Libertarian Party ticket.

Jack Seaman, who owns MinDak Gold Exchange in Fargo, announced his candidacy on Monday.

Seaman, on his campaign website, refers to himself as a reformed Republican whos fed up with partisan, career politicians in Washington, D.C.

Among his campaign issues is a call for the immediate repeal of the federal health care law. He also supports an audit and subsequent abolition of the Federal Reserve.

Seaman also lists as priorities the ending of military action overseas, bringing troops home, and ending the federal War on Drugs.

Seaman makes no reference to previous runs for office.

Seaman has lived in Fargo since 1985. Hes married and has two teenage children.

In 2012, the Libertarian Party had candidates on the general election ballot for Congress and the Public Service Commission.

The partys gubernatorial candidate was disqualified from the ballot due to improperly filed paperwork and later gained ballot access as an Independent.

The Libertarian Partys PSC candidate garnered 4.3 percent of the vote in 2012, the highest percentage of the vote for the partys slate of candidates.

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Libertarian enters House race

News - Ben Swann Virginia Gov Race, Blocking The Libertarian Candidate
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News - Ben Swann Virginia Gov Race, Blocking The Libertarian Candidate - Video

What is a Libertarian? | Take the Red Pill
Our introductory video. Much more to come on numerous subjects.

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What is a Libertarian? | Take the Red Pill - Video

The Libertarian Republic #39;s 2013 Toy Gun March For Charity

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The Libertarian Republic's 2013 Toy Gun March For Charity - Video

The Shakaama Live Show Discussion Hub for Libertarian Ideals
The Shakaama Live Show Discussion Hub for Libertarian Ideals My channel is for discussion of Libertarian ideals, thoughts and wishes. I believe Americans hav...

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The Shakaama Live Show Discussion Hub for Libertarian Ideals - Video

RICHMOND The Republican and the Democrat were there again, along with their well-worn lines. But for once, they shared the stage with the Libertarian, whose very presence Saturday made the race for Virginia governor feel fresh with little more than a week to go before Election Day.

Anyone weary of the campaign same-old, same-old Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) saying, Im the only candidate in the race who wont need on-the-job training, or Democrat Terry McAuliffe declaring, Weve got sequestration here for the year could enjoy these new nuggets Saturday from little-known candidate Robert Sarvis: Quoting Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Advocating an end to the war on drugs. Discussing abortion as a metaphysical disagreement. And saying flatly that contracting policies that favor minority-owned businesses violate the rule of law.

It was a revelation to even the most dedicated politics-watchers because Sarvis, who has been polling around 10percent, has been shut out of every debate. He has participated in some forums with McAuliffe and Cuccinelli, but they were small ones that brought out the candidates sequentially, not together. On Saturday, Sarvis was allowed to take the stage with his major-party competition at a forum sponsored by Radio One and 8News, Richmonds ABC television affiliate.

He seems genuine, and I like that he doesnt appear to be backed by big money, said Felicia Kalber, 43, who came to the event inclined to vote for Sarvis and left convinced that she would. Kalber, who does accounting work, picked up a Sarvis pin and put it on before leaving.

Sarviss opportunity came about a week after his wife, Astrid Sarvis, issued a tearful, 15-minute video describing how disappointed she was that her husband had not been allowed to participate in Thursdays candidates debate at Virginia Tech.

The Richmond forum, which drew more than 100 people to the Virginia War Memorial, was not a formal debate. The candidates sat side by side and took turns answering questions posed by a moderator. There was no back and forth.

McAuliffe and Cuccinelli stuck to their usual themes, with McAuliffe stressing the benefits of expanding Medicaid and Cuccinelli touting his plan to create jobs by cutting business and personal income taxes by $1.4billion a year.

McAuliffe seemed eager to double down on a statement he made at the Virginia Tech debate, volunteering that he had been given an F rating by the National Rifle Association. He brought up the F on his own and declared, Im not running to be president of the NRA.

Cuccinelli, who has spent most of the campaign questioning McAuliffes ethics, seemed especially focused on the idea that McAuliffe was offering platitudes rather than concrete plans.

It was Sarvis who grabbed the most attention, if only because he had so rarely been in the limelight. He said that both major parties had failed the country and that it was time for something new: someone who supports both smaller government, as Cuccinelli does, and socially liberal policies, as McAuliffe does the only candidate, as Sarvis put it, who is both open-minded and open for business.

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Libertarian Sarvis injects freshness into Virginia governor’s race forum

Virginia's Ken Cuccinelli would arguably be the most libertarian governor in the United States if...

Virginias Ken Cuccinelli would arguably be the most libertarian governor in the United States if he wins on Nov. 7 which makes it odd that hes become a top target for many libertarians.

Cuccinelli trails Democrat Terry McAuliffe in all polls, while Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis is pulling 10 percent of the vote. One national libertarian group is spending big to back Sarvis and attack Cuccinelli.

But Cuccinelli has libertarian bona fides: As attorney general he led the states aiming to kill Obamacare, with all its mandates, taxes, regulations, subsidies and intrusions. He wants to cut the state income tax rate by 15 percent for individuals and 33 percent for corporations.

Cuccinelli has an A rating from the NRA earned while representing Fairfax County in the state Senate. He opposed smoking bans as a senator.

To a libertarian, all of the above looks good, but not extraordinary for a Republican. But there's more.

Republican governors who sing paeans to the free market almost always make exceptions in order to be more pro-business. Cuccinelli, meanwhile, has angered much of his states business lobby by running against corporate welfare, opposing the tax hikes that Northern Virginia developers are seeking to pay for roads and public services and pledging to put special-interest tax credits on the chopping block.

Cuccinelli also often chooses government restraint over law and order.

When Virginias GOP tried to expand the death penalty in 2009, Cuccinelli was the only Republican to vote no during a competitive GOP primary for attorney general.

Although not ready to support drug legalization like Sarvis, Cuccinelli has criticized the drug war as overzealous, and he said jailing marijuana dealers is a waste of taxpayer money. He told me hes open to legalizing pot in Virginia if things go well in Colorado and Washington.

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Ken Cuccinelli's policies show a strong libertarian streak

BREAKING: Jesse Ventura Willing to Run as "Libertarian" in 2016 Presidential Race!
On The Josh Tolley Show (10/22/13) Gov. Ventura told talk-show host Josh Tolley that if the Libertarian Party would grant him ballot access he would indeed b...

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BREAKING: Jesse Ventura Willing to Run as "Libertarian" in 2016 Presidential Race! - Video

BLACKSBURG, Va. (WTVR) In a statement released following Thursday nights Virginia gubernatorial debate in Blacksburg, Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis called the political system a farce.

Weve allowed our political system to become closed off from competition and good ideas, by letting the major-party candidates choose the terms of debate and exclude candidates like me. Its long past tragedy. Its become a complete farce, his statement read.

Sarvis was reacting to being left out of Thursdays debate, despite his contention that he has enough support to warrant inclusion. Recent polls show Sarvis getting between 8 and 10 percent of the vote.

Before the debate, Sarvis told CBS 6 political reporter Joe St. George why he believes his campaign has struck a chord with fed up Virginia voters.

Elections are about accountability and this is the perfect election in which to hold both parties accountable. They nominated two candidates who exemplify the worst of their parties and were the only campaign thats running a positive campaign standing on principles of freedom and the rule of law.

Following the debate, Sarvis offered his take away.

The debate didnt offer much value for voters. This is what two men without ideas or depth look like, he said in a statement.

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SHUTOUT: Libertarian Robert Sarvis calls debate process a farce

A lone cyclist on Providence Road pushed Eric Cable to run for City Council.

Commuting to his uptown job, Cable grew annoyed with the man who always rode his bike during the morning rush, zigging through cars as they backed up at lights.

So annoyed that in June he created a website and stood at the corner of Providence and Sharon Amity holding a sign that advertised it: banbicyclesonprovidence.com.

The sign, along with the site, a petition and a series of homemade YouTube videos decrying Bicycle Boy and other bikers using major roads at rush hour landed Cable on local TV news. His campaign went viral as bicycle advocates from around the world reacted strongly.

It also sparked something in Cable.

That kind of lit the fire, he says. I always was kind of interested in ... city politics. But that was the catalyst.

Now Cable, 41, is making his first try for office. The sole Libertarian running, hes seeking an at-large seat on City Council.

An Ohio native, he moved to Charlotte in 2006. He works at Wells Fargo as a database developer. The U.S. Navy veteran has eclectic interests.

He plays bagpipes with the Shriners. He sings chorus with Opera Carolina. And, pursuing an interest sparked during the 2002 Winter Olympics, he helped start a Charlotte-area curling club.

Cable became a Libertarian in 2008. Before that he was a self-described Reagan Republican. He says he left the party after Sarah Palin.

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Bike ban pushed Libertarian into local politics

ARLINGTON, Va. -- When William F. Buckley, running as the Conservative Party's candidate for mayor of New York in 1965, was asked what he would do if he won, he replied: "Demand a recount." Robert Sarvis, Libertarian Party candidate for governor of Virginia, will not need to do this.

Hours before Gallup reported record nationwide support -- 60 percent -- for a third party to leaven politics, Sarvis was declared ineligible for the final debate for gubernatorial candidates because he fell a tad short of a 10 percent average in recent polls. None of this disturbed his leisurely enjoyment of a tuna-burger lunch before sauntering off in search of free media, about the only kind he can afford.

Equanimity is his default position and almost his political platform: Why be agitated when your frenzied adversaries are splendidly making your case about the poverty of standard political choices? The Democratic and Republican candidates, Terry McAuliffe and Ken Cuccinelli, each say no good can come from electing the other fellow; Sarvis amiably agrees with both.

In Sarvis, the man and the moment have met. He is running at a time of maximum distrust of established institutions, including the two major parties. He has little money but McAuliffe and Cuccinelli have spent millions of dollars on broadcast ads making each other repulsive to many Virginians who surely feel as Will Rogers did: "You got to admit that each party is worse than the other." Furthermore, the partial shutdown of the government especially annoyed Sarvis' state, which has the nation's second highest per capita federal spending (Alaska is first) -- northern Virginia is a dormitory for federal workers and southern Virginia's military installations include the world's largest naval complex.

At the national level, the most potent third-party candidates have had vivid personalities and burning issues: Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, taming corporations; Strom Thurmond in 1948, asserting regional grievances relating to race; George Wallace in 1968, venting class and cultural resentments; Ross Perot in 1992, shrinking the federal deficit. Sarvis is more bemused than burning.

During an intermission in the telecast of a notably disagreeable McAuliffe-Cuccinelli debate, viewers heard from their television sets a woman's voice asking, "Can't vote for these guys?" Then Sarvis' voice:

"Like you, I can't vote for Ken Cuccinelli's narrow-minded social agenda. I want a Virginia that's open-minded and welcoming to all. And like you, I don't want Terry McAuliffe's cronyism either, where government picks winners and losers. Join me, and together we can build a Virginia that's open-minded and open for business."

McAuliffe is an enthusiast for, and has prospered from, government "investments" in preferred industries, which is a recipe for crony capitalism. Cuccinelli is a stern social conservative, an opponent of, among other things, gay marriage. Marriage equality interests Sarvis (whose mother is Chinese) because his wife is African-American, so his marriage would have been illegal in Virginia before the exquisitely titled 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia.

Sarvis, who is 37 and may look that old in a decade or so, graduated from Harvard with a mathematics degree, earned a law degree from New York University and clerked in Mississippi for a judge on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. After a spell as a mathematics graduate student at Berkeley, Sarvis worked for a San Francisco tech startup, then earned a master's degree in economics at George Mason University. In 2011, he ran as a Republican against the state Senate majority leader, a 31-year incumbent. Outspent 72-to-1, Sarvis got 36 percent of the vote.

He must scrounge for media attention because he fares poorly in polls that reinforce the judgment that he is not newsworthy. But he is.

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George Will: Young Libertarian makes a refreshing run in Virginia