Archives for 2008

Things are going to be fun the next few months:

Former Republican Rep. Bob Barr has announced that he’s running for president as a Libertarian.

His candidacy would be a wild card in the White House race and many believe it would hurt Republican Sen. John McCain.

Barr made the announcement Monday at a news conference. He first must win the Libertarian nomination at the party’s national convention that begins May 22. Party officials consider him a front-runner thanks to the national profile he developed as a Georgia congressman from 1995 to 2003.

Barr, 59, helped lead Bill Clinton’s impeachment. He quit the Republican Party two years ago, saying he had grown disillusioned with its failure to shrink government and its willingness to scale back civil liberties in fighting terrorism.

As he has announced as a libertarian, I will use some libertarian speak and give this news a hearty “Heh.” Also today, we see this:

Virtually all the nation’s political attention in recent weeks has focused on the compelling state-by-state presidential nomination struggle between two Democrats and the potential for party-splitting strife over there.

But in the meantime, Texas Rep. Ron Paul and his libertarian-minded GOP backers are collecting delegates at the local level and planning a revolt against Sen. John McCain at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul in September, quietly, largely under the radar of most people, the forces of Rep. Ron Paul have been organizing across the country to stage an embarrassing public revolt against Sen. John McCain when Republicans gather for their national convention in Minnesota at the beginning of September.

We will give this a “Double Heh” with a twisting “Indeed” dismount. A wry observer might note that they are not only against you, they are working for the other side.

And while I cheer this chiefly for the mayhem, the simple fact of the matter is that either Ron Paul or Bob Barr would be better than John McCain. I am still pretty convinced that Bob Barr is batshit crazy, but at least he has been right on some pretty important issues, and right on some trivial ones as well.

You have to love it, though, and while it is a used and worn observation, Bush really was a uniter- everyone hates Republicans.

Ayn Random RatfuckeryPost + Comments (82)

I didn’t think it was this bad:

Clinton aides continued to insist that she will remain in the race even while confirming that she is $20 million in debt. “The voters are going to decide this,” senior adviser Howard Wolfson said on “Fox News Sunday,” acknowledging the $20 million figure. “There is no reason for her not to continue this process.” Wolfson said he has seen “no evidence of her interest” in pursuing the second-place spot on the Democratic ticket, contrary to rumors that she is staying in the race to leverage a bid for the vice presidential nomination.

Pretty soon we are talking about big money.

BrokePost + Comments (128)

Shameless cheerleading:

Image lifted (shamelessly, no doubt) from this GOS diary.

100 Kinds of AwesomePost + Comments (137)

Obama has launched a nationwide effort to register people to vote in all 50 states (not, as you might think, all 57, however), that started just this week:

Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama kicked off a voter registration drive in Birmingham on Saturday, joining volunteers holding similar events in 100 other cities nationally.

Two dozen Obama’08 volunteers visited store parking lots and neighborhoods across metro Birmingham, passing out voter registration forms. It was part of a Vote for Change mobilization drive in all 50 states.

The Obama volunteers registered 92 voters as of late Saturday afternoon, said volunteer Melissa Thomas. She said the registration drive will continue until the deadline before the Nov. 4 presidential election.

Meanwhile, via the GOS, we see that “Women’s Voices. Women Vote” has had another “unfortunate accident.” This “unfortunate mistake” happened in WV right before the primary, just like the “accidentally misleading” robo-calls in NC:

A group called “Women’s Voices. Women Vote” sent out more than 16,000 mailers to unmarried women in the state after April 22, the last day to register in time to vote Tuesday. …

Page Gardner, president of the women’s organization, said in a letter that:

“West Virginia residents will receive this mail after the deadline for registering to vote to participate in the upcoming primary election. Please be aware that the mailing is not intended to encourage registration specifically for the primary, but simply to encourage voter registration in general.

The mailing clearly indicates that the deadline to register to vote by mail for a particular election in West Virginia is 20 days before the election … We hope that this unfortunate coincidence in timing does not lead to any confusion or aggravation for either your state’s voters or registrars.”

***

Ireland’s office said it received a batch of voter registration forms as a result of the group’s mass mailing, and many of them were from people already registered.

Ireland said she wants to assure already registered voters that they do not need to register again to vote in Tuesday’s primary. However, those voters who used the women’s group’s registration form to update their address should contact their county clerk’s office to determine their proper voting precinct.

“I do not want registered voters to be confused by this mailing,” Ireland said. “If you were already registered to vote, you do not need to re-register.”

Noted without comment.

Compare and ContrastPost + Comments (145)