The Libertarian Down Ticket is the key to Liberty - Keith Komar, special to GDPA:
August 12, 2016 - With all the excitement around the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson has emerged as the third party alternative this cycle. What no one is talking about though, is the vast amount of candidates running down ticket for the party. The Libertarians have over 550 candidates running for various positions all the way from city council up to Governor. Electing Gary Johnson as president would be a major step towards liberty, but without support in the Senate and the House of Representatives, real change will be a very difficult battle.
As we draw closer to the presidential debates in September, there is an upward trend in the polling of the Johnson/Weld ticket, reaching as high as 26% in Utah's fourth district in a four way poll conducted by the Republicans internally. It will be impossible to keep them off the debate stage with those numbers and this will bode very well for the party's exposure, and a lot of attention is being paid to this by the party right now to ensure inclusion on the national debate stage, and rightly so. Inclusion in the debates is the number one way to gain national exposure and is paramount to the liberty movement happening right now.
That being said, the only way to truly make this change in sentiment live and grow is through electing as many people of principle into office as possible down ticket. As we have seen in the past in the third party runs of Ross Perot and Ralph Nader, without a ground swell of down ticket support, the message gets lost. This is exactly why the Libertarian movement is different from the aforementioned presidential runs. “It is the meat to go along with the potatoes” so to speak. The ultimate potential of this election cycle is to literally rout out the old guard. Electing a Libertarian Senate and a Libertarian House of Representatives would mean more to liberty than Johnson winning a Vegas-style million-to-one long shot at the presidency. With a solid down ticket of Libertarians to support a Johnson/Weld presidency, you would see a lot more of the policy changes that this ticket ultimately espouses. Without having Libertarians in congress you won't see any legislation to repeal income tax, or disband the IRS. Without Libertarian senators there won't be any true oversight of spending.
The alternative to that is voting for those people running in your district who embody these principles of liberty. Even with a Trump or Clinton presidency, that Libertarian minded legislation will exist and will have to be debated. Those people will be there as the checks and balances against the great fears people have in electing either of the establishment candidates. If you are truly scared that either Clinton or Trump will take the White House this election, you must then consider the Libertarian down ticket as the Praetorian Guard against the status quo.
True change this cycle isn't in voting for Johnson alone, but in finding your principled candidates down ticket and voting them into office as well.
August 12, 2016 - With all the excitement around the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson has emerged as the third party alternative this cycle. What no one is talking about though, is the vast amount of candidates running down ticket for the party. The Libertarians have over 550 candidates running for various positions all the way from city council up to Governor. Electing Gary Johnson as president would be a major step towards liberty, but without support in the Senate and the House of Representatives, real change will be a very difficult battle.
As we draw closer to the presidential debates in September, there is an upward trend in the polling of the Johnson/Weld ticket, reaching as high as 26% in Utah's fourth district in a four way poll conducted by the Republicans internally. It will be impossible to keep them off the debate stage with those numbers and this will bode very well for the party's exposure, and a lot of attention is being paid to this by the party right now to ensure inclusion on the national debate stage, and rightly so. Inclusion in the debates is the number one way to gain national exposure and is paramount to the liberty movement happening right now.
That being said, the only way to truly make this change in sentiment live and grow is through electing as many people of principle into office as possible down ticket. As we have seen in the past in the third party runs of Ross Perot and Ralph Nader, without a ground swell of down ticket support, the message gets lost. This is exactly why the Libertarian movement is different from the aforementioned presidential runs. “It is the meat to go along with the potatoes” so to speak. The ultimate potential of this election cycle is to literally rout out the old guard. Electing a Libertarian Senate and a Libertarian House of Representatives would mean more to liberty than Johnson winning a Vegas-style million-to-one long shot at the presidency. With a solid down ticket of Libertarians to support a Johnson/Weld presidency, you would see a lot more of the policy changes that this ticket ultimately espouses. Without having Libertarians in congress you won't see any legislation to repeal income tax, or disband the IRS. Without Libertarian senators there won't be any true oversight of spending.
The alternative to that is voting for those people running in your district who embody these principles of liberty. Even with a Trump or Clinton presidency, that Libertarian minded legislation will exist and will have to be debated. Those people will be there as the checks and balances against the great fears people have in electing either of the establishment candidates. If you are truly scared that either Clinton or Trump will take the White House this election, you must then consider the Libertarian down ticket as the Praetorian Guard against the status quo.
True change this cycle isn't in voting for Johnson alone, but in finding your principled candidates down ticket and voting them into office as well.
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