From MichaelDuchemin.com : Another case where the Republican and Democratic candidates are not even worth consideration. Dole is horrible, and Hagan will be worse. I spent a long time researching Chris Cole. I do have some serious reservations about voting for him in that he is openly homosexual and supports gay marriage. In looking at his positions, he believes that abortion is a state issue and opposes any federal involvement in the issue at all, whether it is funding, promotion, or banning at the federal level. He does not disclose what he thinks the states ought to do. As such, I think he would be far more likely to help end federally protected abortion than the “Pro-Life” Republicans in the federal government who want to keep abortion an issue forever by not stopping it. He is really solid on everything a senator might vote on. He wants to eliminate the fed, just about every federal department, and the income tax. He essentially has the same positions as congressman Paul...

Here's the new low in socially conservative GOP attack advertising, from the Fayetteville Observer : Sen. John McCain has figured out that when it comes to campaign strategy, bigotry is a cross to bear, not burn. He came to the defense of his opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, last week. During a town hall meeting, a McCain supporter said she was afraid of Obama because he was an Arab. Taking the microphone from the frightened woman, McCain said her fears were unfounded, Obama is not an Arab. He’s a decent American, a family man, with whom McCain just happens to have differences. Honesty like that has earned McCain respect from both sides of the aisles. Sen. Elizabeth Dole should take a lesson from McCain. A broadcast ad targeting her opponent, Democratic state Sen. Kay Hagan, shows Dole ratcheting up her rhetoric, and probably winning the honor, so far, of fielding the nastiest, most misleading, negative ad of the campaign. Here’s part of the ad that portrays Hagan as a godless liberal:...

... that jason over at Delawareliberal keeps imputing to us regarding eight years of Dubya shredding the US Constitution, bloating the budget, and engaging in imperialistic foreign wars: As Steve moans and winges for the next 8 years I’ll laugh my ass off recalling the utter silence created by high mineded “Libertarians” during Bush’s term. OK jason, the current LP archive for press releases only goes back into 2007, but let's see what we find: September 25, 2007: The Libertarian Party rejects President Bush's claims that the "Protect America Act" needs to be made permanent, citing that the bill fails to live up to its name and only limits American civil liberties. The controversial Act that was passed by Congress last August altered the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and legalized the Bush administration's warrantless wiretap program, which many civil liberties organizations had strongly protested.... Here's part of the note of condolence t...

... could best be found (or lost) in the Bobster's home state. Insider Advantage had him at 7.6% in May. Insider Advantage had him at 5.6% and Zogby had him at 8% in June. Rasmussen had him at 5% in mid-July; Insider Advantage reported him at 5% by month's end. Rasmussen had Barr dropping to 3% in August. The highest Barr appears in any September polls is 3% in Strategic Vision and 1% in Public Opinion Strategies. Rasmussen, Insider Advantage, American Research Group, and Survey USA all found that Barr had completely disappeared from the radar , polling at less than 1% where he show up at all. This is clearly a Bob Barr collapse, and not a Libertarian collapse in Georgia, as the countervailing case of Libertarian Senate candidate Allen Buckley proves: Buckley was not even included in polling questions until August, when Mellman Group showed him at 3%. During the month of September (aided by a series of debate and forum appearances), Buckley has been placed at 2% (Rasmussen), 4%...

...and also points out that negative campaigning is actually benefitting the Libertarian candidate for North Carolina's Senate seat: “Despite relentless negative TV ads attacking her accomplishments in Washington, Senator Dole is able to hang onto a slim, two point lead. It appears that all of the negative attacks on Senator Dole have aided Libertarian Chris Cole not Senator Hagan ” said Francis De Luca, Executive Director of the Civitas Institute. This is critical: a Libertarian Senate candidate who is now both (a) outside the margin of error; and (b) being credited by a major polling organization as a factor in the race. Cole's numbers: May – Dole 45, Hagan 43 June – Dole 48, Hagan 38, Cole 1 July – Dole 47, Hagan 38, Cole 2 August – Dole 44, Hagan 41, Cole 4 September - Hagan 41, Dole 40, Cole 6

...demonstrate that the message appears to be breaking through for Michael Munger and Chris Cole. Public Policy Polling's latest numbers show both the Libertarian Gubernatorial and Senatorial candidates drawing 6%. In the Governor's race, the difference between Bev Perdue and Pat McCrory is 1%. In the Senatorial race the difference between Liddy Dole and Kay Hagan is 1%. The devil, naturally, is in the details. Munger is pulling down 10% of all male voters; Cole draws 8%. Cole, an openly gay candidate, draws 8% of the GOP vote. Both Munger and Cole are scoring 16% of the critical young voter 18-29 demographic. On specific issues, Munger gets 21% of those who think taxes are the most important issue; Cole gets 23% [Dem Kay Hagan only gets 4%]. Munger gets 13% of those who think health care is the most important issue: Cole gets 22% [GOPer Liddy Dole gets 26%]. Munger gets 12% of those who think the War in Iraq is the most important issue; Cole gets 23%. These are impact number...

Where Bob Barr promises, Chris Cole is delivering--at least in the Tarheel State. The Libertarian candidate for Senate is posting 5% ( PPP ) or 7% ( Survey USA ) in a race between Liddy Dole and Kay Hagan where the numbers for both women keep jumping around in the mid-40s. This despite the fact, as I have noted before, that there appears to be virtual in-state news black-out on Cole's candidacy. Moreover, Cole is giving the lie to the idea that Libertarians are some sort of Republican lite party. The openly gay candidate is drawing 11% of the male vote in North Carolina, and polls have consistently shown him drawing as many--if not more--votes from Dems as GOPers. In the same polls, Gubernatorial candidate Michael Munger is holding steady at 5%, despite being closed out of the WRAL debate. But Munger is included in three upcoming forums/debates; I'm waiting to see if this has an impact. [One thus far unnoticed factor in the gubernatorial race: Munger is the only candidate wh...

Yesterday I reported on Meck Deck's observation that the NC media now seems to be operating under some sort of gentleman's agreement not to notice Libertarian Senatorial candidate Chris Cole, even though his 5% standing is larger than the difference between Liddy Dole and Kay Hagan. Chris responded in the comments section, but his words deserve to appear on the front page: The situation has gotten more bizarre than Meck Deck lets on. Public Policy polling issued the results of a poll that included me (at 5%, compared to a 3% margin between Dole and Hagan). I found the poll reported in four NC news sources, all of which REMOVED my name from the report. When I tried to contact the reporters, one didn't respond, a second said that she didn't know about my candidacy. a third said that he FORGOT about my candidacy, and a fourth admitted that it should have been a "no-brainer" (his words) to include me. Yet, I also found the poll reported WITH my name in the New Yo...

....particularly when the race between Liddy Dole and Kay Hagan is all knotted up and he holds the key votes : Now that we’ve moved past Labor Day, the local news blackout on Libertarian Senate candidate Chris Cole from Huntersville is getting down right odd. The Washington Times has no problem calling Cole a potential “spoiler” in Elizabeth Dole’s re-election bid, a notion that Democrat Kay Hagan of course happily amplifies. Yet News14 has not done one of those lengthy, somnambulant interviews with Cole while the Uptown paper of record omits any mention of his candidacy even when reporting poll results that include him. Just weird. As I do not think there is any secret pro-Dole bias at work, it must just be that including Cole in the story messes up the clean woman vs. woman narrative editors and reporters want to present to the public. Well, sometimes life is a little messy and the big picture more complicated than the pitch. Now that voters are paying attention, let’s see if those c...

. . . is because he is making substantive statements on real policy issues. Here's his take on the recent request by university presidents that the Feds consider lowering the national drinking age to eighteen years: Christopher Cole, Libertarian for US Senate, agrees that such a move should be a no-brainer: If 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds are trustworthy with automatic weapons, driving tanks, or standing toe-to-toe with terrorists in Iraq, only a deranged busybody could claim that they are unable to handle a beer. However, Cole believes that, while the academics are right about the problem, they are wrong about the solution. He points to three dirty little secrets about the Federal drinking age. Dirty secret #1 : There actually IS NO Federal drinking age. Rather, Congress put a limitation on Federal transportation funds, cutting disbursements to states that had a drinking age LOWER than 21. They understood that they had no authority to set a standard directly, so they used money as...

CarolinaDem (from whom some other Dems who have attached state names to themselves could learn a bit about logical thinking) has posted one of the best analyses to date on the North Carolina governor's race that actually quantifies the impact that Libertarian Mike Munger is having on the contest: I n an election for North Carolina Governor today, 08/12/08, 12 weeks to the vote, Democratic Lieutenant Governor Beverly Perdue and Republican Mayor of Charlotte Pat McCrory finish effectively even, neither gaining ground, with Libertarian Mike Munger siphoning votes from both , according to this latest SurveyUSA election tracking poll conducted exclusively for WTVD-TV in Raleigh. Today, it's Perdue 47%, McCrory 44%, within the survey's 3.9 percentage point margin of sampling error. When Duke Professor Munger's 5% is added in, and combined with another 5% who are undecided, Perdue's slight advantage is not significant, at this hour. The contest is fluid. Compared to an ide...

Yesterday I noted that Libertarian Chris Cole had scored 7% in the North Carolina Senate race, and suddenly his numbers are a very hot topic in the Tarheel State.... From Poll Tracker Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole's leads Democratic challenger Kay Hagan 46 percent to 41 percent with Libertarian Chris Cole drawing 7 percent and 5 percent undecided in a SurveyUSA poll conducted Aug. 9-11. This is the first time SurveyUSA included Cole in its poll, and it observed: "Hagan is flat, Dole is down. Cole gets 11% of male votes today, siphoning key votes Dole needs to win. Cole gets 12% of young votes today, siphoning key votes Hagan needs to win. Cole gets 9% of the white vote today, cutting Dole's lead from 30-plus points to 20 points. " SurveyUSA had Dole 12 points ahead in a mid-July poll without Cole. From the Raleigh News & Observer : Advertising is having a huge effect in the Senate race. With Democratic candidate Kay Hagan on the air during the May primary, her ...

This is huge. Survey USA shows the Liddy Dole-Kay Hagan face-off at 47-41% in favor of Dole, with Chris Cole taking 7%. For the first time the Libertarian candidate for Senate in North Carolina is capturing larger numbers than the distance between the two Demopublican candidates. Moreover, as we have consistently noted here, contrary to conventional wisdom , Cole continues to draw more support from Democrats than Republicans . He is also currently drawing an amazing 11% of male voters . The same survey also shows Mike Munger at a solid 5% in the gubernatorial race, also well inside the Bev Perdue (47%)/Pat McCrory (44%) split. These numbers have not only held steady for 2-3 months, they have continued to edge up for both candidates. When you consider that Cole has raised only hundreds of dollars versus the Dole/Hagan millions, or that Munger has been forced to scramble for any publicity at all after being shut out of all but one debate, there is every indication that in the Tarheel S...

This is the platform statement of Libertarian US Senate candidate Chris Cole : Unlike my opponents, I have never been for the war, until I was against it. I have always been against it. Democrats and Republicans always promise to "keep taxes low", while I understand that they are already outrageously high. I will never promise you gifts from other people's money, while silently taking your money to give to others. I will give you an opportunity to vote for the liberty we all cherish instead of voting against one evil or the another. Cole is now scoring 4-6% in polling against the well-funded campaigns of Liddy Dole and Kay Hagan. Recently, I had the opportunity to pose five questions to Cole, and these are his responses: 1. Libertarian candidates have been polling pretty well in NC this year. What one or two specific items from a Libertarian agenda do you think is resonating with voters strongly enough to make them > consider abandoning both the Republicans and Democr...

North Carolina's Libertarian Senatorial candidate Chris Cole sits down to answer a few questions for Delaware Libertarian. Nothing if not outspoken, Chris has a hard row to hoe in between Liddy Dole and Kay Hagan, where there is little love lost and the millions are flying back and forth. Nonetheless, Chris manages to hang onto a 4-6% share in the polls, a share that could hold the balance in a tight race. What's on the Chris Cole agenda? We'll find out tomorrow.

According to the latest Public Policy Polling report , Libertarian Chris Cole is pulling down 4% in the North Carolina Senate race with Elizabeth Dole and Kay Hagan. In one sense this is down from the 6% he scored last month, but not really. When you're running in the 4-6% range and the margin of error in a poll is 3.5-4.5%, you have to expect some significant volatility. Nonetheless, two successive polls in the 5% range matches what other Libertarians are currently pulling in North Carolina statewide races, and--as the race between Dole and Hagan has apparently closed to single digits--that 5% again looms larger and larger. So we've now reached the point where--even if his funding is non-existent compared to the millions raised by the Demopublicans--when Chris Cole speaks, there are people out there starting to listen. And when he speaks into one of the obvious controversial gaps [energy and offshore drilling] between Dole and Hagan, it has the potential to . . . well, sha...

When you're running on a shoestring in the margins between Libby Dole and Kay Hagan, any notice is good notice, and I can only hope that Chris Cole's piece in the Huntersville Herald gets picked up by more North Carolina media. Not being a gold bug, I am ambivalent about Cole's belief in the gold standard, but his analysis of the current Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac bail-out is right on point: No wonder the government no longer issues gold certificates, and no wonder our savings rate has fallen to about one-half of one percent. It is against self-interest to hold money that is worth less the longer you hold onto it. Thus, we have the setup for our current credit and foreclosure crisis. When money is saved, its owner intends its use in the future, and the bank uses it to make loans, which are used for tasks such as the creation of new businesses. More savings mean lower interest rates, which, in turn, send a market signal for businesses and individuals to invest for future demand...

"Too sane" to be governor? I think I'd take it if I were Michael Munger, Libertarian candidate for governor of North Carolina. Here's Ed Cone of the Greensboro News-Record : An update on Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Mike Munger, described last year in this column as "maybe too sane for high office": North Carolinians put the Libertarian Party on the ballot for November, but Munger still is excluded from the gubernatorial debates. Munger's party has earned the right to compete with the entrenched duopoly in this marketplace of ideas, but the debate sponsors are ignoring their obligation to the public. Beyond the issue of fairness, it would be entertaining to watch Munger take on the professional politicians; he's smart, informed and funny, and he's got nothing to lose. Last week, Munger took his case directly to the people, buying radio ads in the Triangle, Triad and Charlotte markets (sample line: "I'm not even asking for your vo...

The Tarrance Group now reports Libertarian Senate candidate Chris Cole running at 6% in North Carolina, thoroughly disrupting the Libby Dole-Kay Hagan race, in which the margin separating the two candidates is . . . only 7%. Put this together with Bob Barr reliably polling around 5-6% for President and Mike Munger showing up at 3-6% (depending on the poll and the day), along with the fact that the Libertarian Party of North Carolina raised over $200,000 and collected 108,000 signatures for ballot access, and if this holds up.... You've potentially got the beginnings of real three-party politics in North Carolina. [h/t Independent Political Report --whose site registration technical foul-up still won't let me post comments there.]

As Demopublicans Elizabeth Dole and Kay Hagan square off in the Senate race in North Carolina, it is intriguing to see that the Tarheel State's media coverage of the election season continues to refuse to allow Libertarians to be ignored . Today it was the Greensboro News-Record that offered the opportunity to Libertarian Chris Cole to comment on the latest accusations and counter-accusations between the Dole and Hagan camps regarding who had raised more money: Chris Cole , the Libertarian in the race, said he would not be trying to do the kind of fundraising that Dole and Hagan are pursuing. Although he doesn't think donors should be restricted , Cole said Congress' ventures into unnecessary regulations, "corporate welfare" and land management have prompted the big donations. "If Congress was sticking to the constitution, there wouldn't be all this need for influence by (interest groups)," he said. North Carolina is going to be an interesting case ...