Blogging about blogging from the Libertarian convention

Philosopher Daniel Dennett is fond of saying that people don't necessarily believe in God, but that they believe in the belief in God.

In that spirit (so to speak), instead of asking people with only slightly more than an idle interest in the Libertarian Convention (hello, Waldo) to delve through the myriad blogs to find out what's happened so far, here's a few of the highlights:

At the Libertarians for Justice event (our favorite 9/11 truther squadron):

Long-shot presidential candidate John Finan spoke for a bit and was then asked to sign the L4J pledge demanding a full investigation into the 9/11 attacks. I guess the group is a “9/11 Truthers” organization or whatever… I’d only heard of them a couple times in the past.

Anyway, Finan did not react well to being “ambushed” by this pledge and he and group leader Jim Duensing started to get into it.

Observers are telling me that Finan was ranting and raving and refused to return some sort of fancy marker that Duensing had given him to sign the pledge with.

Eventually, it got so heated that Finan was actually escorted out of the area.

And this is only the first night.

At the same event:

Starchild asked presidential candidate Mike Gravel how he could support coercive taxation for things like education and healthcare, while still claiming to support the core libertarian idea that people should be able to do whatever they liked with their own property, so long as they did not initiate force against others.

A lengthy exchange ensued, with Gravel becoming increasingly angry. At one point, a frustrated Gravel asked if what libertarians wanted was voluntary education. The crowd responded affirmatively. Gravel said, “Fine! Let’s go back to the 18th century.” Well-known libertarian activist Andy shouted from the crowd, “It’s not going back to the 18th century, it’s going back to freedom.” The crowd of delegates cheered.

Meanwhile, there is evidence that the Bob Barr juggernaut might not be as overwhelming as advertised:

I just heard from someone that Bob Barr defeated Lee Wrights, of the Mary Ruwart campaign, for a seat on the Libertarian National Committee. The margin of victory was pretty close, apparently Barr won by only 2 votes.

There’s also talk of some friction within the core members of the Barr-Viguerie group, although it’s totally unconfirmed at this point.

The Ruwart campaign is obviously a little disappointed by their loss, but the close margin must make them feel somewhat better.

The afore-mention excerpts are all from Independent Political Report.

And from Last Free Voice:

Mike Gravel may be falling short of the support needed to get in the big debate (or why else would his people be trying to change the rules?):

About an hour ago, one of the Gravel guys made a motion to expand the amount of time for Bylaws debates until later on in the evening. I raised an eyebrow, but that motion failed and I didn’t think any more of it.

However, we’re running close to the end of the session, and now the Gravel folks are scrambling around like crazy (Gravel himself’s on the floor)… and made a motion to skip directly to a proposal for changing the threshold for Presidential candidates being entitled to give nominating speeches and/or enter the debates. From the chatter I’m overhearing from his volunteers, they don’t yet have enough delegate tokens to get in the debate under current rules.

Meanwhile, the Barr people are apparently exploiting a loophole in the rules to scare up some more votes:

Robert Stacy McCain reports that delegates are being seated for states other than their home states, noting that Libertarian Party convention rules allow for this.

Note: This is pretty significant. Most state LPs do not fill all of their delegate slots for the national convention prior to the convention. This means they have extra slots to give away at the convention, if they so choose. If a candidate can convince one or more existing state delegations (or just their chairs?) to seat additional delegates, the candidate can effectively stuff the ballot box with extra voting delegates who favor that candidate.

From notes on the by-laws committee meeting, there are these two important notes:

Richard Viguerie is giving the Keynote Address. He kinda oscillates between appeals to the base and to disgruntled Republicans, saying “We libertarians…” in one sentence and “We conservatives..” in the next. Still, the crowd has been surprisingly positive. Turnout is not as high as it was for other morning sessions, but the rumored “protests” haven’t happened....

We spend what feels like forever arguing about this [the Statement of Principles]… the Reformers clearly don’t have enough support to change the SoP even with parliamentary tricks.

The new, Viguerie-owned Third Party Watch reports that Mike Gravel might not be the only candidate worrying about getting into the Presidential debate:

Four LP candidates (no, I’m not naming names) have privately indicated that they are not certain they will get enough tokens to qualify for the “C-SPAN debate” because the current rules require the number of tokens to equal at least 10% of the number of delegates.

There's a lot more at all three of these blogs, but this gives the flavor of the coverage. Nobody knows what's about to happen, and indeed anything could.