Campaign quick hits

The last two days, as the semester started at DSU, have been chaotic, and the run-up to that has precluded consistent blogging.  Apologies for that.  Now some quick hits:

1.  Paul Krugman discovers that Paul Ryan was influenced by Ayn Rand.  How did he find out this well-guarded secret?  From reading Ryan's speeches, where he talks about it pretty much all the time.  Next week Krugman may discover that the sun rises in the east, but I'm not holding my breath.

2.  Josh Barro at Bloomberg joins a growing list of people attacking Libertarian Presidential candidate Gary Johnson as doomed because he's not more like Republicans and Democrats.  This is a good thing, since we've moved beyond the "ignoring" phase into the "attacking" phase, but you have to love the money quote here:

Johnson won two solid victories in his races for governor; in 1998, he took 55 percent of the vote. With a similar agenda at the national level, a Libertarian candidate ought to be able to poll higher than 1 percent. But it would require the Libertarian Party to give up on being more extreme than Republicans and Democrats.

So if only the Libertarians would become less socially conservative to be more like Democrats, and less fiscally conservative to be more like Republicans, people would vote for them because--after all--people are only interested in voting for candidates who, you know, sound like Dems and GOPers.

3.  In Delaware, 32nd Rep District primary candidate Ellis Parrott says you can't just let anybody run for office or participate in debate--especially not Will McVay.  My two favorite quotes:

“He paid the fee as a candidate,” Parrott told the Dover Post. “That doesn’t make him a legitimate candidate. I have no problem debating any legitimate candidate.”

--snip--

“The problem is, where do you draw the line if you allow a Libertarian to debate? Parrott said. “You have two major parties in this state. Do you allow the other minor parties to debate as well? Nationally, there is the same question."

In other words, your opponent's sensibilities and not the Delaware Department of Elections now decides who is a "legitimate" candidate, and--you know--if you let Libertarians debate real candidates you never know what might happen.

The real laugher, Ellis, is your contention that we have "two major parties" in this State.  In case you hadn't noticed, the GOP is tanking as fast as it can manage, and you guys now consider a good statewide election one you only lose 60%-40%.

4.  And in an excellent piece I read several days ago but neglected to cover, at HuffPo Jonathan Turley makes the case quite convincingly that--as far as civil liberties go--Barack Obama is one of the worst presidents we have ever had in the Oval Office.  Here's just one Secret evidence

The government now routinely uses secret evidence to detain individuals and employs secret evidence in federal and military courts. It also forces the dismissal of cases against the United States by simply filing declarations that the cases would make the government reveal classified information that would harm national security -- a claim made in a variety of privacy lawsuits and largely accepted by federal judges without question. Even legal opinions, cited as the basis for the government's actions under the Bush and Obama administrations, have been classified. This allows the government to claim secret legal arguments to support secret proceedings using secret evidence. In addition, some cases never make it to court at all. The federal courts routinely deny constitutional challenges to policies and programs under a narrow definition of standing to bring a case.