One thing I know: Demopublicans really, really hate it when the media treats Libertarians like they were legitimate candidates for public office. One thing I don't know (among many): precisely what city in Indiana's 9th Congressional District is the home base for the Evening News and Tribune . But I know that this is paper with some intellectual integrity, as Daniel Suddeath proves in his article on how the price of gas has come to dominate the three-way race between Democrat Baron Hill, Republican Mike Sodrel, and Libertarian Erich Schansberg. The Demopublicans don't want to appear on the same stage with the Libertarian, and certainly don't want the news coverage of the issue to be framed around a third-party candidate, but hey.... When the Libertarian in the race is also the only candidate with a PhD in Economics , I guess you end up getting lectured: When Eric Schansberg decided to run for Indiana’s 9th District U.S. Congress seat, he had “no idea” gas prices wou...

. . . about my endorsement of Dr Eric Schansberg, Libertarian candidate for Congress in Indiana's 9th District. Dr Schansberg is an evangelical, anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage Libertarian, leading Waldo to this conclusion about why the LGBTQ community doesn't flock to the LP : I read Schansberg's personal blog- as if, somehow, he can compartmentalize his thinking between what he believes as a citizen and what he peddles to the public on his congressional blog. He's a mainstream homophobe.... If one of the Schansberg boys sits Mom and Congressman down one day in the future and says, "I'm gay," we can imagine what the reaction will be from the member of the Core Leadership Team for the Men’s Ministry at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville- and it won't be a Libertarian response. Schansberg Libertarians are just a greedier version of everyday Libertarians. The everyday variety preach a vague sort of live and let live doctrine; the Schansbergers- l...

Headlined from the Libertarian Party of Indiana [with h/t to Last Free Voice ]: Schansberg congratulates President Bush and Democratic Congress on world-record budget deficit JEFFERSONVILLE, IN -- Just in time for the Olympics, the White House has predicted a $482 billion deficit for 2009—which if successful, would allow the President and the Democratic Congress to set a new world record. A $482 billion deficit would smash the current record of $413 billion in 2004. The 2009 deficit will extend the current national debt to more than $10 trillion. On top of that, unfunded liabilities—most notably, for Social Security and Medicare—add tens of trillions of dollars in debt. Dr. Eric Schansberg, a professor of Economics and the Libertarian candidate for the 9th Congressional District in Indiana, noted that current debt necessarily leads to higher future taxes. And Schansberg pointed to massive increases in spending as the cause: "Tax revenues, as a percentage of GDP, are well within ...

Survey USA has Indiana 9th Congressional Libertarian candidate Dr Eric Schansberg moving up from 5-7% in the latest poll . This is an interesting development as the incumbent Democrat Baron Hill is now up 53-38 over former GOP Representative Mike Sodrel, meaning that the seat is no longer seriously in doubt, which may be freeing some people to vote their conscience rather than party lines. Here's the response from the Schansberg campaign: Schansberg said: "We're glad to continue building support. In the past month, we've run a lot of radio and TV commercials. And we've had many opportunities to meet voters, talk on the radio about the bailout, and give speeches to groups throughout the District." On progress by Hill and his own campaign, Schansberg remarked: "It makes sense. Baron and I have been running more active campaigns, especially with paid media. Our commercials seem to have been effective in drawing people to our efforts." On the impact of H...

In Indiana's 9th Congressional District, Dr. Michael Schansberg is doing something unprecedented: he's appearing statistically in polling for a US House race. Current polling gives Schansberg 4% in what is an admittedly safe Democratic district , with Dem Baron Hill at 51-40 over GOP candidate Mike Sodrel. So skeptics can, I suppose, dismiss Schansberg as a fairly meaningless protest vote totaling only about 40% of the margin separating the Demopublican candidates. On the other hand, Dr Schansberg isn't a lightweight, either. He's Professor of Economics at Indiana University at New Albany and an anti-abortion Evangelical Christian candidate all at the same time. This leaves him pretty far to the right of me, at least on social issues, but it appears that he's making his stand on basic economic issues, and he does it with some rare humor : Baron Hill is a fiscal conservative — for a Democrat. (But that’s like saying that he’s among the best students who earned a D...

The Jackson County [Indiana] Banner recounts the town meeting recently held by 9th Congressional District Libertarian candidate Dr Eric Schansberg at which he (gasp, sputter) actually stood up and just answered people's questions. After his prepared statement, Eric threw the floor open to the voters: The first question Dr. Schansberg fielded was about illegal immigration. Though not his “favorite issue”, he said policy should be to deal with the reason immigrants enter the country illegally. “We need to penalize employers who hire illegal immigrants,” he said. He went on to say that he’s a fan of legal immigration, though the process often deters people from legally moving into the country. “I’m for a high wall and a large gate. We need to streamline INS procedures. If you want people to do the wrong thing, make the right thing hard to do,” he said. He was questioned about the Fair Tax and the flat tax, both of which he said are “improvements”. Another person asked about opening a...

A round-up of Libertarian electoral news pieces too brief for me to post individually (at least this late at night): Deathwatch North Carolina notices (without endorsing) North Carolina Gubernatorial candidate Mike Munger in a positive way: DW was recently contacted by the Delaware Libertarian blog with a request to spread the word about NC gubernatorial candidate Dr. Michael Munger, who opposes the death penalty. DW does not endorse candidates for political office. It gets him on the record with death penalty opponents. In Georgia, S enatorial candidate Allen Buckley takes incumbent Saxby Chambliss to task for supporting earmarks and other pork: Buckley said: “If elected, I’ll take a no earmarks, no pork, no subsidies pledge, and I will fight to permanently eliminate these wasteful expenditures from federal budgets. I would not vote for a bill such as the housing relief bill that Saxby Chambliss has voted for, as it rewards irresponsibility and increases the debt burden on future ...

From the IndyStar's election round-up: 9th District Given the prevalence of gerrymandering and a campaign financing system that favors incumbents, it's uncommon for voters to be offered a choice between two well-qualified candidates in congressional races. But three strong candidates competing for one House seat? That's unheard of. Or at least that's the case outside this southeastern Indiana district, where for the second time Democrat Baron Hill, Libertarian Eric Schansberg and Republican Mike Sodrel face off. Schansberg, an Indiana University Southeast economics professor, is a prime example of how far the Libertarian Party has advanced in Indiana. He's thoughtful and well versed on core issues. So too is Sodrel, who lost the seat to Hill in 2006. Sodrel brings a business owner's experience and expertise to issues such as energy and health care. His previous stint in Congress gives him a depth of knowledge rare among challengers. And the past two years outsi...

How often do Libertarian candidates actually get real , substantive news coverage as anything but curiosities? Well, apparently it happens in Indiana's 9th Congressional District: After I recently published a post about Eric getting similar coverage in the local newspapers , I wrote the Daniel Suddeath (the author), complimenting him on his even-handed treatment of all three candidates. His response was informative: Our editors insist we provide equal coverage, which is what we should do. Dr. Schansberg is a great guy and has some good things to say. Maybe, just maybe, there is change in the wind.

When I first mentioned Eric Schansberg, Libertarian candidate for Congress in Indiana's 9th Congressional District, I didn't feel like I could give him a whole-hearted endorsement (and, damn it, I can't find the post right now to link to) because he is socially considerably more conservative than I am. Yet I really found myself wanting to like him , even if we differ on abortion rights or (I suspect) gay marriage. After all, we're both academics (he's an economist; I'm a historian), both built our families in part through adoption, and both share a commitment to civility in political campaigning (although I suspect I'd be a bit more in-your-face than he is). But it has been the experience of reading Eric's personal blog that has convinced me that I unconditionally support his bid for a seat in Congress, even if I'm a pro-abortion rights Catholic (don't tell the bishop) and Eric is an anti-abortion rights Evangelical. Because Eric is a thinking ma...

[h/t to NC Senatorial candidate Chris Cole for alerting me to this ] Thanks to NC Legislative gerrymandering, the part of Iredell County included in State House District 95 is about as Republican as you can get. In 2002 , 2004 , and 2006 , GOPer Karen Ray ran unopposed for the seat, usually picking up about 11-14,000 votes. In 2004, although I can't find the exact number in the time I'm willing to spend tonight, she certainly got more, as Bush bashed Kerry 38,674 to 18,065 county-wide. This year, Ray succumbed to a primary challenge by attorney Grey Mills, who garnered 3,613 votes to Ray's 3,499. Here is how Mills describes himself : A staunch fiscal and social conservative, Mills supports the right to life, the protection of traditional marriage, and the protection of our Second Amendment rights of the Constitution. He believes that our state government must curb its wasteful spending, and do a better job in setting priorities. Additionally, Mills believes that Iredel...

I probably shouldn't write this post while I am standing for election as an At-Large member of the National Committee of the Boston Tea Party, but--what the hell--I believe in truth in advertising. People checking out this blog should actually know what I think. And what I think is that I've noticed a strange paradox in Libertarian thinking, one that sometimes confuses the distinction between having a strong opinion and wanting the State to use its power to enforce those strong opinions on everybody else. A few months back I wrote a post endorsing Dr Eric Schansberg, the Libertarian candidate for the US House in Indiana's 9th District. Eric is an economist, and he's also an evangelical Christian who is anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage. I disagree with both those positions. But I have spent enough time either reading Eric's material or conversing with him to convince myself that he's not out to legislate the particulars of his morality into law--that he in...

While we're all waiting for the Libertarian Party of Kentucky to finish shooting itself in the foot, and in the head, and in the chest, and in the groin over its idiotic waffling on the question of withdrawing its support of Sonny Landham, I thought maybe you'd find this entertaining. Kevin Craig is running as a Libertarian candidate for the US House of Representatives in Missouri's 7th Congressional District. Classically Liberal takes on his platform in detail, but I think you can get all you need to know in about four sentences from Craig's website : The entire creation is God's enterprise. God is the Boss. Homosexuals are disobedient employees. God hates them. But at least he's not calling them anti-Christ yet. Sad to say, the same thing can't be said about Dell Schanze, Libertarian candidate for Governor in Utah, as (again) Classically Liberal points out: According to news reports the Libertarian Party candidate for governor of Utah, Dell Schanze, was...

The current venal and moronic conduct of the Libertarian National Committee and the Bob Barr campaign make it patently clear that this incarnation of the Libertarian Party is on the brink of disintegration at the national level. Ironically, there are more potential Libertarian voters out there than ever, and in states like North Carolina, Texas, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and--yes, even Delaware, the State parties are growing and earning both media attention and voter support. Isn't it time to take back national control of the Libertarian movement from a group composed primarily of self-serving parasites? How would this be done? As I pointed out in an email answer to George Donnelly, the Libertarian Party does not--indeed, cannot--have a lock on the term Libertarian . In multi-party European democracies, for example, there are often distinct parties in existence as Social Democrats, Liberal Democrats, Christian Democrats, and/or Progressive Democrats . A Libertarian Alliance [...

Clue number one would be if you've sent money to the Bob Barr campaign. Clue number two would be if you've recently sent money to the LNC's mismanaged ballot access campaign (also known as the other part of the Bob Barr campaign). At least you didn't fall for the dead Nigerian prince who left money in the International Bank of Southern Lagos. Did you? So you wasted money on Bob Barr up until the point that he: Reneged on his position on DOMA Led a PAC that gave money to the opponents of Libertarian candidates Considered bailing out Freddie and Fannie Spent thousands of your bucks installing air conditioning in his headquarters Filed suit to get into the Saddleback forum Tried to dump his own VP candidate Badmouthed the man who wouldn't replace the VP candidate he was trying to dump I could go on, but you get the picture. What to do? What to do? How about what Libertarians claim to be good at: think for yourself. There are at least a solid dozen State and local Lib...

The most amazing thing about political polling is that it is now also principally a tool of the Demopublicans and the Mainstream Media, which means it has a defined interest in keeping the two-party narrative alive everywhere except the Presidential race. That's presumably why, even though there are numerous Gubernatorial, Senatorial, Congressional, and State races across the country where the Other category is garnering as high as 6-9% (I counted nearly sixty such races in a brief run through the DC Political Report ), there are only six that actually have named Libertarian candidates attached, even though Libertarians are running in dozens of those races. (The same can be said, on a slightly lesser scale, about the Greens.) These races are: Indiana House District 9: Eric Schansberg --4% Montana Senate: Stan Jones --3% North Carolina Governor: Michael Munger --8% North Carolina Senate: Chris Cole --1% North Carolina State Senate District 36: Thomas Hill --7% Utah Governor: ...

UPDATE/CORRECTION : Due to a screw-up in my source material I mistakenly listed Dave Krikorian as running in Oklahoma, not Ohio; it has been corrected. I've just done a state-by-state run of most of the more recent polls, and I have excerpted general results below. I have learned several things by doing this. 1) Adding actual third-party names (Barr, Nader, etc.) as Zogby does, really changes the response pattern. Not only did it break out that Other category, in many cases it caused a dramatic shift in the Obama-McCain numbers at serious odds with other polls. Usually this effect hurt McCain more--but not always. The question then becomes, which type of polling is more accurate? Polls that focus on the big two, or polls that add in all the other names and potentially sway voters with that choice? I have no idea. 2) Forget the confident projections of any particular outcome: several battleground states are swinging back and forth like crazy; where they swing in November, n...

Recently, in an attempt at clarifying dialogue [which is a good thing], Delawareliberal ran a post on Some Basic Principles , that offers a viewpoint on exactly what liberal principles mean. This was, at least in part, a response to a top-of-the-head definition of liberal objectives that I proposed to a libertarian-leaning conservative in a different thread that went like this: Liberals define freedom differently that you do; neither side has a monopoly on the word. Liberals view individual liberty as freedom from want, hunger, and lack of medical care, with the best possible remedies coming from an enlightened public policy that manages the necessary redistribution of some of society’s excess wealth to insure that all people start with a foundational basis of security and prosperity. I was not--as DelawareDem acknowledged--trying to lampoon liberalism, but to make a point to another blogger that if you want to talk with people of different beliefs you have to make a good faith effor...

... have little to do with charged political rhetoric, but resids rather in who should be taking responsibility for not having him in jail or a mental facility a long time ago. Arrested in 1996, after a traffic stop based on his sovereignty license plate caused police to look in his trunk and find ... explosives. The DA was pretty explicit : Roeder had associated with the Freeman movement - a right-wing, anti-government group - causing then Shawnee County assistant district attorney James Brown to label Roeder a "substantial threat to public safety." "This defendant has chosen to exempt himself from our laws," Brown said during the August 1996 sentencing hearing. "He doesn't recognize your authority." Unfortunately, the officer who stopped Roeder apparently did not follow the rules: an Appeals Court over-turned his sentence based on an illegal search. Roeder did time again for parole violation [refusing to pay his taxes]. He visited the man in priso...