should we elimiate ballots?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

GEORGE BASH
JOHN F. CAREY
RAPHL NADER
GEORGE T. BUSH

eh, if people do this, like the first the vote will go to George Bash and not George Bush.  If they've not been blind and living under a rock in the last 4 months, they should have the common sense to spell their names correctly.  Stupidity should discredit a vote in this case.

This would be obviously unfair to candidates with foreign or difficult to spell last names.  I'll bet at least 20% of people would spell some names wrong, making it virtually impossible for these candidates to win.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

A name doesn't even have to be foreign or hard to pronounce to be hard to spell.  For instance, I could never remember how to spell the name of last Governor of Maryland, Parris Glendening (how many R's and how many N's?), even after he was in office for eight years.  I'll be the majority of Marylanders would get it wrong.  You are suggesting that a vote for Parris Glendenning shouldn't count?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

OK, ballot access is one of the least of the Libertarians' worries.  They seem to be on the ballot absolutely everywhere.  Yet, the never get more than 1% of the vote.  After 30 years, putting candidates on the ballot in what seems like every presidential, senatorial, and congressional race, it's 1% of the vote.  And you come up with every possible excuse for why didn't do better, and always claim that you'll win some race next time.

Guess what....next time you are going to get 1% of the vote, no matter what the ballot rules are.

Why?  First of all, your strategy sucks.  Quit trying to field candidates in every race, when most of those candidate are unknown, poorly funded, and many of them are really crazy.  Find a couple of quality candidates, fund them well, and let's see how they do.  Why don't you try to win one single congressional seat before you try to win them all?

But you probably couldn't even succeed at this because people just don't like your platform.  Even if you had the resources to communicate your message, you are not going to convince people that roads and schools and social security should be privatized. 

As a socialist, I know what it is like to have political views that are extremely unpopular.  Yet I don't delude myself into thinking that everyone would eventually agree with me if only we got some socialists on the ballot, or we were well funded, or we could get into the debates.  95% percent of people just don't like what I stand for, and they don't like what you stand for either, and it is probably going to take generations to change that.   And remaining a goofy fringe party that runs wackos in every race isn't helping your guys to move the ball.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

eh, local libertarians usually don't have a problem with getting elected so that's not the point.  TV is the main way to go.  I can't imagine a better way to connect with the masses.  The problem is putting your ad on at 1:30am on Foxnews (which is what Badnarik did).  If it's not gonna be on prime time, large ratings channels, you might as well not advertise on tv.  Thing is, media pretty much does the work for a candidate (like a lesser known libertarian).  Democrats and Republicans aren't gonna campaign against us because they don't want to waste their time.  However, they do ignore us completely and pass draconian ballot access laws.  This does kill us.  I remember hearing about Karl Rove saying Bush has to campaign in New Mexico "because we're not gonna lose this state because of some piss-ant libertarian".  Lol.  The thing is, in this case, any attention at all is good attention.  They won't even bother with neg ads or anything until we reach 10%

You must be talking really local, because as far as I know, the Libertarians currently don't even have hold a single seat in any state legislature.  Why not try to win a couple of these, or, God forbid, a congressional seat, before throwing all your funds at a joke of a presidential ticket that never had any hope of eclipsing 1%?