Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Yes, Virginia, There Still Is a Libertarian Party

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by

James A. Bacon
in ,

And in other news largely ignored by Virginia media over the weekend… The Libertarian Party of Virginia nominated Matt Waters, an Alexandria fund-raising consultant, as its candidate for U.S. Senate. Waters will run against Democratic Senator Tim Kaine and whoever wins the Republican Party free-for-all.

In his speech to LPVA delegates, Waters said his biggest concern is the unsustainable national debt. He characterized the $21 trillion debt as the United States’ biggest national security threat, greater than ISIS or China, and he called for an end to the failed war on drugs, the war on terror, and the war on poverty.

Vowing to campaign under the Virginia flag, the motto of which is, “Thus always to tyrants,” Waters said:

My campaign will call fellow Virginians to remember who we are, and why we fight. The tyrant today is not the king of England. It is our $21 trillion debt. The tyrant is a massive welfare-warfare state funded by the Federal Reserve that is completely unaccountable, unauditable, and 100 percent  responsible for killing the value of every single dollar we earn in this room. The tyrant is invasive. The tyrant is corrupt. The tyrant is bankrupting this country. … The tyrant invades pulpits, businesses, families, laptops, and smart phones.

It doesn’t have to be this way. I say it’s time to crush the tyrant and restore our liberty now.

Waters’ immediate challenge is collecting 10,000 signatures of registered voters, always a big hurdle for third-party candidates. Beyond that, he faces the perennial Libertarian Party obstacle of gaining media recognition. Libertarians’ traditionally low vote percentages make it difficult for candidates to get reporters to take them seriously.

One outside factor might help Waters. The Republican Party of Virginia seems to be in the process of imploding. Mini-Trump candidate Corey Stewart seems best positioned to capture the Republican party nomination, although his victory is far from certain given the number of other candidates also vying for the honor. If Stewart is nominated, he is so polarizing that he will drive many mainstream Republicans out of the party. While Kaine is widely regarded as a genuinely decent guy, he is a cog in a Democratic Party machine that is tilting farther Left every day. Homeless Republicans may well seek refuge with the Libertarian Party.

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7 responses to “Yes, Virginia, There Still Is a Libertarian Party”

  1. Steve Haner Avatar
    Steve Haner

    I keep looking at them hoping to see something that attracts me, but Libertarians are to politics what Unitarians are to Christianity. There is no there there.

    1. TBill Avatar
      TBill

      As a Unitarian Universalist, I ask you to repent that statement. Actually we have not been active since moved to Virginia. but some of my best friends…

  2. TooManyTaxes Avatar
    TooManyTaxes

    If we had a real media in Virginia, we’d be seeing it ask about Kaine’s fitness for office in might of #MeToo. Measured by any responsible standard, the mainstream Democrats would have totally rejected Bill Clinton for his past conduct of sex abuse – Exhibit A – Juanita Broddrick — and Hillary Clinton for attacking her husband’s accusers as “trailer trash.” What other woman could have gotten away with such attacks on other women? Especially, when her website said woman making allegations about sexual abuse should be believed.

    So the official Democratic Party cheats so that Hillary Clinton gets the nomination. And potential candidates Martin O’Malley and Joe Biden are out of the process.

    Enter Tim Kaine. Instead of taking a principled stand and refusing the VP nomination, Kaine accepts the VP nod and stands by the Clintons. His conduct effectively says: “Sex abuse and personal attacks on accusers is OK when done by the Clintons.” The facts and logic are compelling, but will be ignored by the MSM, especially by America’s S^&* News Source, across the Potomac.

    Having supported former Governor Johnson in 16, Steve’s comments are pretty close to the mark.

  3. Steve Haner Avatar
    Steve Haner

    There are a long list of policy reasons to disagree with TK but if we hold him responsible for silence on Bill Clinton’s adultery, who stands in line to share the blame for the Current Occupant? It has to work both ways….Hypocrisy rules in both parties.

    Not libertarians but both libertines, those two, obviously. Yet the voters seem not to mind. Kind of cancelled each other out in ’16. I cannot see a libertarian making THAT an issue! Not lecturing us on sex is a good argument for the libertarians (that and legal pot.)

  4. V N Avatar
    V N

    Senator Kaines’ office has been notified of a problems with a federal agency. He does not believe that’s an issue for him. Knows that people are actually violating the law, a federal agency in charge of doing something about it is doing nothing. Right there, he’s not fit for office.

  5. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Geeze Kaine is a bad guy because he ran with a woman who had been cheated on by her husband and she had the temerity to call the women trailer trash?

    Good LORD!

    I think Kaine is basically a decent guy myself and so do most Virginians who are not partisans.

    He’s made mistakes but overall he’s done a decent job as Gov and now as Senator.

    And these days , I’m not sure what party a Libertarian concerned about deficit and debt would caucus with.

    And I have a big quibble with ANY politician NOT recognizing that we spend well over a trillion dollars , half of the total budget – on “National Security” – twice as much as we spend on “Defense” AND we’d not have a deficit at all if we did not subsidize employer-provided health insurance and Medicare.

    The GOP has lost all moral authority on the deficit/debt… if you wanted to design a budget to cause inflation – you’d not do any better that funding a tax cut with debt….and the GOP is dang proud of it!

  6. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Perhaps – there should be a level playing field for Libertarian as well as other would-be-elected who are not affiliated with neither the GOP nor the Dems and who.. once they have a few more seats – would further the idea of “coalition government” where neither the Dems nor the GOP would have enough votes to do anything without some kind of coalition that requires others from the other parties to find some level of agreement on compromises.

    Would such a thing actually, eventually, lead to better governance or would it lead to even less effective governance we sometimes see on display in other countries that have 3 or 4 different factions in their legislatures?

    What we DO KNOW is that the current two-party stranglehold on our politics is rancid, beholden to special interests – and just plain corrupt at times.. Would more elected Libertarians change this dynamic?

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