Bacon's Rebellion

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Yes, Virginia, There Will Be a Third Party Choice this Fall

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by

James A. Bacon
in

Cliff Hyra

The major media took absolutely no notice, but over the weekend the Libertarian Party nominated a candidate for governor: Cliff Hyra, a Richmond-area patent attorney. His top three issues are economic growth, criminal justice reform, and adding choice to the education and health-care systems.

Rick Sincere, a libertarian blogger, covered Hyra’s nomination for Bearing Drift.

Hyra’s advocacy of cutting taxes and regulations echoes the national priorities of President Trump. But he has a very different approach to law-and-order issues. Virginia should de-criminalize marijuana and stop arresting 35,000 to 40,000 people a year for victimless drug crimes. He also would “introduce elements of competition and choice” to education and health care, he says.

Hyra’s first challenge is obtaining 10,000 valid signatures of registered voters, including a minimum of 400 from each of the eleven congressional districts, in order to get on the Virginia ballot. The deadline is June 10. Bo Brown, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Virginia, said that he had about 7,000 signatures in hand or turned into the State Board of Elections.

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9 responses to “Yes, Virginia, There Will Be a Third Party Choice this Fall”

  1. Acbar Avatar
    Acbar

    Please, someone, post a link so we can help get the LP over the top for its 10,000 minimum valid signatures to be on the next gubernatorial election ballot. The Virginia major parties need to deal with candidates like Sarvis and Hyra regularly nipping at their heels. One day, they may not just nip, but bite hard.

  2. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    These folks have no chance to win and more often than not cause someone to lose who would have won otherwise.

    I’ve seen this happen locally when the incumbent fearing a loss will encourage another candidate to run thus siphoning on support for the primary opponent.

    If I had a wish – it would be to get outlaw the de-facto “laundering” of money through PACs and other methods of hiding the identity of the donor.

    And I’d outlaw ANY money from Dominion and others and other shady but legal practices in Virginia that are illegal in other states.

    I watched McDonnell on 60-minutes and to this day he defends his actions including claiming that when he got the rolex that he did not know the value of it.. so therefore did not question where his wife got the money for it.

    We don’t need to vandalize and destroy govt itself because of skullduggery – that’s even worse than the skullduggery.. we need to outlaw skullduggery itself.. and get rid of those who get elected but have no intention of actually representing constituents but rather their party ideology and/or corporate interests.

    All 3rd party challengers do in the current corrupt environment is distract from the reality that elections are all about influence money in elections.

    1. djrippert Avatar
      djrippert

      By any reasonable definition Donald Trump was a third party candidate.

      While I completely agree with you on the issues of money in politics – especially Virginia politics, I don’t see any harm in third party candidates. As the Bearing Drift profile demonstrates Hyra has his own platform – separate and distinct from the candidates running under the banner of the two major candidates.

    2. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      Let’s see if I get this right, Larry. You want to clean up elections by getting rid of the corrupting big money…. and by protecting the two-party duopoly.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        what? get rid of the money – and especially the de-facto money-laundering PACs and let anyone run and yes I much prefer true independents than anyone associated with an ideology.. We don’t have a free-market economy and people running on that basis are bogus candidates.. in my view.

        you’re wasting your vote on them but be my guest.

  3. Steve Haner Avatar
    Steve Haner

    I agree that Trump was just as much an outsider candidate as anyone in recent years, although to win he also needed the GOP establishment (enough of which went along.) I think an untold story is how the new French president copied the playbook. He was a member of the cabinet, a member of the establishment if there ever was one, but cleverly packaged himself as a renegade. There was much discussion of possible parallels between Trump and Le Pen on issues, but on tactics I think the parallels were Trump and Macron.

    The problem the libertarians face is that only a small percentage of voters really agree with their positions. They only do well when the voters are upset at the mainstream candidates but want to vote for someone. Whether that describes Virginia come November remains to be seen.

  4. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    re: ” The problem the libertarians face is that only a small percentage of voters really agree with their positions. They only do well when the voters are upset at the mainstream candidates but want to vote for someone. ”

    100% correct.

    Here’s my take on Trump and LePen voters.

    They do not believe the “establishment” party(s) – and govt in general benefit them anymore and they are willing to see damage done to govt in a belief that that’s the only way to change it.

    They don’t believe in science, in immigration, global trade – or education. They think those things harm them.

    and here’s the scary part. They are not only not going to go away. their number may well expand as automation starts taking even more jobs away not only from the lesser educated and skilled but up the ladder.. to many other jobs as AI starts moving into areas that used to require a human in the process.

    More and more people are going to get left out, in no small part, because our education system is not equipping people with the level of education they will need to be employed in the 21st century.

    and the irony here is that these same folks OPPOSE more rigor in education – they oppose standardized testing.. and Common Core and in general the govt setting standards… for education.. They want “local control”.

    Who would have thought in the age of the internet that luddite ism would not only return but run amok on steroids?

    Not even our kids headed to college really want the rigor required for degrees that have demand in the workplace. Too many want a degree LITE and hope that diploma will get them in the door at some company that offers on-the-job training to a career. Too many with generic college degrees now FAIL in the 21st century workplace – and even MORE will fail as AI goes forward.

    FINALLY – educated and employed urban folks in France saw the danger and turned out…but LePe STILL got a significant number of disaffected voters and STILL has significant opportunity to affect the candidates in the legislature.

    Same thing in England with Brexist and the US with Trump.

    Bacon worries about quantitative easing and boomergeddon.. I worry about this… the unravelling of our society.

  5. CrazyJD Avatar
    CrazyJD

    >>FINALLY – educated and employed urban folks in France saw the danger and turned out…but LePe STILL got a significant number of disaffected voters and STILL has significant opportunity to affect the candidates in the legislature.>>

    Larry me boy, you got this one wrong. The “disaffected” voters simply stayed home or spoiled their ballots. Paris had the largest number of abstentions and spoiled (read, left blank or marked with protest) ballots in years. Your “urban folks”, Paris, Lyon, and Marseille, all had the highest abstention rates in the country, along with Lille in the north. Le Pen only carried her home territory of Picardie.

    25% of registered voters abstained from voting altogether. Another 8% filed blank or spoiled ballots as a protest. The press widely reported that Le Pen got 35% of the vote, but this was only of those who actually expressed a preference. It amounted to only 22.38% of registered voters. Thus, “screw you very much” got a much higher percentage of votes from registered voters than Le Pen.

    The French vote. Maybe they should only be allowed to cook or paint, but they do vote. When they don’t, it means something. The disaffected did not vote for Le Pen. They voted “none of the above” Le Pen’s votes came from her hard core.

    Check the maps from the Guardian:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2017/may/07/french-presidential-election-results-latest

    and the results from the Interior Ministry:

    http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/Actualites/L-actu-du-Ministere/Resultats-globaux-du-second-tour-de-l-election-du-President-de-la-Republique-2017

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