I’m not doing this every time someone drops out of the Presidential race. Well, maybe I will, particularly since I have an intense dislike for most of those candidates still in the running for the Democratic and Republican nominations. In most cases I might use a post for gloating purposes, but as far as Kucinich’s involvement in the Democratic race, there are a number of points of interest.
According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Kucinich will announce he’s ending his Presidential bid tomorrow. There seems to be a number of reasons for this. First, his campaign has not really gotten the traction that many of his supporters had hoped. Second, it seems things are getting more urgent in his congressional re-election race. Third, he’s out of cash. This issue of campaign cash affects a lot more than just his campaign, but also the funding for the Democratic recount efforts in New Hampshire, which stopped today, according to a message posted on the New Hampshire Secretary of State website.
This year I tried doing something a little different with my support for Presidential candidates. I looked at having some level of support for the Democratic and Republican candidates closest to my beliefs as a Libertarian. The Republican side was easy since 1988 Libertarian Party candidate Ron Paul was seeking the Republican nomination. I was quite a bit more tossed up on the Democratic field, since I saw a lot of candidates who at least said they were going to bring an end to the war, and even some that attempted to open a dialogue on the issue of civil liberties — my two biggest issues other than economic and fiscal policy knowledge. No Democrat came even close to earning my full support on economics since Democrats tend to talk about such things as if they failed Economics 101. As far as the quick rundown on Democratic contenders that I was tossed up about:
- Obama: occasionally hinted at libertarian-esque concepts every once in a while, but I couldn’t think he was anywhere near close if he was considered a front-runner for the nomination.
- Richardson: a lot of people told me he was the closest to being a libertarian Democrat. I was aware of his efforts in pushing for less restriction on marijuana in New Mexico, which is good, but I would be hard pressed to define the majority of his policies.
- Dodd and Biden: were probably well prepared for a promotion, but they were kind of, errr boring. And since I have a touch of the ADD…
- Gravel and Kucinich: yeah, this is my neighborhood of the Democratic field. Again, they were never going to come close to understanding economics, but they might do something right in this regard by accident. Gravel supported the Fair Tax (a national sales tax with a cash back option for the poor) and Kucinich strongly opposed NAFTA and CAFTA (because he wrongly believed them to be agreements that advocate free trade).
No one saying they voted for the war before they voted against it or trying to claim they voted against the war but wrote the check (such as Clinton and Edwards) was even considered.
But very importantly because Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul share similar positions on the war and civil liberties, I had eventually (like, just a few days ago) officially half-committed to support Dennis Kucinich for the Democratic nomination. Oh well, I’ll work my way back up the list starting with Gravel and then Obama. But again, I’ll never support Clinton or Edwards for any reason.
In the end, though, I’ll be supporting the most libertarian candidate for the job. This will probably mean that I will be casting my vote for the nominee of the Libertarian Party. There are a number of candidates seeking to be the Libertarian Party’s Presidential nominee. As a Libertarian Party member and possible delegate to this year’s national convention, I will seek to support someone who is 1) philosophically libertarian AND 2) someone who is able to present libertarian solutions to the masses AND 3) raise the visibility of the party. While I’m perplexed by who this person may or may not be at this time, I’m sure a clear answer will come to me in due time. And if I don’t, the Libertarian Party always allows none-of-the-above (or NOTA) as one of the voting options.




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