Give me about half an hour and I will provide you with the reason why I am proud to be a Libertarian, even if--as is the case with Bob Barr--I am less than overjoyed about some of our candidates.
(But what the hell, that puts me in good company. Roughly half the Democratic primary voters are going to be at least a bit ticked no matter who wins, and as for social conservatives and John McCain--whooo.)
What I want you to do first is listen to both of these clips about Mike Munger, my party's candidate for Governor of NC (who is, according to the polls, taking more votes from the Democrats than the GOPers):
Mike Munger's radio appearance on the Brad and Britt radio show (about 16 minutes). The really good news in this piece is that Mike will be appearing in the NC Gubernatorial debate in October.
Mike's recreation of his keynote address at the Libertarian National Convention (longer, but worth it). In this clip, Mike answers the question, not what are Libertarians against, but "What are Libertarians for?"
In North Carolina in the 2004 general election, roughly 3.55 million people voted. If Mike's 4% holds up, that equates to 142,000 votes. There are reasons to be optimistic that he might even do better than that. Reason number one is that Mike is articulate, funny, addresses the issues, and is such a good public speaker and debater it is impossible to dismiss him into the kook category no matter how much you disagree with him. Reason number two is that Bob Barr is now polling at 6% in the Tarheel State, and the two candidacies may well be synergistic (as Barr pulls more from GOPers and Munger from Dems). Finally, there is the recent massive drive to put the Libertarians on the ballot in NC, where some of the most restrictive ballot access rules in the nation required 70,000 signatures. In the drive headed by Munger and the NC Libertarian Party, our folks raised $200,000 and turned in 108.000 names.
But--and there is always a "but"--for Mike to get his message out in the face of the huge Demopublican machine (which is sure to be in high gear as NC is fully in play between McCain and Obama), he's going to need money.
Mike has stolen a small part of the page from Ron Paul's playbook: instead of a Money Bomb, he's aiming for a Money Hand Grenade of as many small donors as he can muster. For the first time, Delaware Libertarian is carrying the Money Hand Grenade widget down under the blogroll.
I think Mike's worth the support, and I hope you will, too.
You don't even have to be a Libertarian to contribute. If you simply believe that a healthy democracy requires as many good candidates, good parties, and good options as we can get out there, support the idea of a citizen governor like Mike Munger, and I promise not to tell your party bosses.
Comments