LIBERTARIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE BOB BARR
Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party candidate for president, says Texas shouldn’t get to cast ballots for Republican John McCain or Democrat Barack Obama, because the state deadline to qualify for the ballot passed before either major party officially nominated their candidates.
And in fact, Texas law does say parties must submit names of presidential candidates 70 days before the general election, which this year was Tuesday, Aug. 26. Obama was formally nominated Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. McCain will receive a similar acclamation next week in St. Paul, Minn.
The major parties have been holding their conventions later in the summer in recent years, so I don’t know why Texas hasn’t corrected this legal snafu. But of course, Obama and McCain will appear on the November ballot in one of the country’s biggest states. Texas law also has a provision that essentially allows established state parties to nominate their candidates at times other than the written deadlines.
Barr knows this, but he wants to call attention to the challenges that most states place in the path of third-party candidates to protect the dominance of Democrats and Republicans. The two-party system remains in control, despite the rising tide of independent-registered voters. Barr can only hope voters who talk about wanting change this year are really serious.
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The two major parties have always been corrupt when it comes to third parties attempting to gain access to power in government. When it happens in Zimbabwe or China the party in power cries foul, yet it happens in America each and every day even to the extent of legal lines being crossed (Texas).
As a fellow libertarian (although I think Bob Barr is an interloper) I believe that we are the only party that can quash both the Dems ever expanding social agenda and the Reps ever expanding moral and anti-privacy agendas.
As more Americans are thrown into the “giver, sucker, high tax” category with fewer and fewer benefits personally, they will begin to rebel (with or without force) against those Americans in the “taker, free-rider, non-taxed” category. You can see this effect now with Illegal Immigrants. It may take another 20 to 30 years for Americans to rebel against Americans, but it will happen.
Libertarianism is the legitimate answer to runaway government (that and a lot of guns)!