Politics as Unusual
From The Atlantic's Reihan Salam:
"Former
Rep. Bob Barr, once an ardent Republican and one of the architects of
the effort to impeach President Clinton, is on the verge of entering the
presidential race as a Libertarian"
"Once known for his zealous opposition to medical marijuana, he has reversed his old stand on the Drug War, and he is almost as passionate in damning the invasion of Iraq as Paul himself. Can Barr become the Ralph Nader of 2008 -- spoiling the election for Republican conservatives, or perhaps for anti-war Democrats? Almost certainly not. All the same, this year's most interesting presidential debate will likely happen within Bob Barr's Libertarian Party."
"Meanwhile, Mike
Gravel, the erstwhile Democratic presidential candidate, has also thrown
his hat into the ring for the Libertarian nomination. For all his
strident anti-imperialism, Gravel never developed a real constituency on
the left. But his politics offer an intriguing way forward for
Libertarians. His plan for overhauling the welfare state, devised by the
far-from-insane Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff,
promises to put entitlements on a sound footing and deliver healthcare
to all Americans, all while sparking an investment-led economic boom.
This isn't the kind of platform that normally appeals to flinty
individualists, but the case can be made that the plan is in some
important sense freedom-friendly. Provided you found the right messenger
-- namely, someone slightly less loopy than Gravel -- it might even
resonate with the public."
I
don't think the term "loopy" really describes Senator Gravel. Having
met the man and having listened to him speak at length, I can say that
he struck me as an intensely passionate man, a thoughtful and
intelligent person, and a strikingly candid politician, but not loopy.
Dennis Kucinich is loopy. Ross Perot is loopy. Mike Gravel is, well,
driven--and I imagine his passion is what some folks misinterpret as
loopy behavior. Seriously, he's done a tremendous amount of good for
this country, reading the Pentagon Papers, helping stop the draft for
the Vietnam War, and injecting a healthy dose of reality into the
Democratic debates--precisely the sort of behavior that one would not
describe as loopy.
I look forward to the
Libertarian debates. If Bob Barr does decide to throw his hat into the
ring, that would make a tremendous race. As it stands now, Vegas
oddsmaker Wayne Allyn Root remains the leading Libertarian candidate,
but George Phillies, Christine Smith, Michael Jingozian, Mary J. Ruwart,
and Senator Gravel promise to make for a hotly contested nomination
battle. What will be really nice about the LP debates is that Sen.
Gravel will be allowed time to speak--something he was systematically
denied during the Democratic debates. You will recall that second- and
third-tier candidates like Gravel, Dodd, Biden, and Kucinich were
allotted considerably less talk time than top-tier candidates like
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards and, to a significantly
lesser extent, Bill Richardson. It's too bad America's third-largest
party does not have the clout of the big two and, consequently, lacks
the ad revenue potential required to land prime time television
coverage, because I am certain these debates will be much more probing
than the predictable GOP and Democratic debates we've been subjected to
over the past ten months...
And speaking of Libertarians: George Phillies says "Libertarians are not Conservatives."
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