Doug Eberhardt

Voting Fourth Party
by Sandra Hamilton

Most of the people that I know are not happy with the political choices they have for President this year. I hear lots of talk about voting against one guy or the other, but not so much talk about voting FOR anyone. There is one man, however, that a great many people wish they could vote for and that is Ron Paul. His supporters have their news page set to pick up all stories about him, they go to rallies thousands of miles away to support a man who is not even in the running anymore, and his support is not waning, in fact, it is growing.

Recently, Ron Paul held a news conference and suggested that people vote for a third party candidate. Notably absent from his side, was the third party candidate Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party candidate. Despite the snub, Ron Paul still stood up for Barr and others in an effort to stop the insanity. If you want change, then you have to change the way you vote. Repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

I spent the day reading articles about Ron Paul’s historic speech. I found it strange that the pundits, who once ignored Ron Paul completely, suddenly were terribly interested in his opinions. It seems that as soon as Ron Paul says something that might affect the anointed ones, they must report. Would Ron Paul’s words make his supporters more or less likely to vote for McCain? Obama? Who will this affect more?

Meanwhile, the comments from Ron Paul supporters were all about which third party member to vote for, who should they support now? Reading between the lines it appears that his supporters are still loyal, only now they are not sure how to remain loyal.

If we are to accept that voting for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil (and I do accept that premise), then why throw your vote around willy-nilly? Voting for a third party candidate simply because they are a third party candidate makes no sense. You still have to use your mind in this election. You still have to choose a candidate to vote FOR.

At this point in this article I had intended to tell people that wish to vote for Ron Paul to do so by writing his name in on the ballot. I have bad news. Research revealed that in most states, a candidate must jump through a bunch of legal hoops to have their names counted as a write-in. The supposed argument is that you are never actually voting for a candidate, just a slate of electors who will go to the Electoral College to vote for your candidate and if those electors are not registered ahead of time, then in fact, you are not voting for anyone.

However, some states have managed to do away with all that nonsense. This is a nice page that breaks down the rules state by state, but as rules are constantly changing, I ask that you please check the rules for your state and not rely on the information in that link. My question is, if some states can allow you to vote for whomever you wish why can’t they all? What is so difficult about allowing the American people to pick the person they want to be President? Why is this so dangerous?

Every year we get these huge get-out-the-vote drives that are designed to legitimize a system and to make you think you have a choice. If you knew you did not have a choice you might balk a little. So they pretend to give you a choice between a statist and another statist and do everything in their power to prevent you from hearing the non-statist point of view and if you dare to learn of it on your own, they will stop you from being able to vote for your particular candidate. They are good at it.

This year I find myself with a huge dilemma. I typically vote Libertarian, but this year I cannot. I do not like the candidate. I choose not to support that candidate. I also do not like the other third party candidates. If I vote against a guy, then I am telling the guy I voted for that I like him. That would be false and I do not want to send that message. If I similarly vote Libertarian no matter who the candidate is, then I am telling the Libertarian Party that I do not care who they choose, but I do care. I do not want this year’s candidate to be President. I initially thought I would just write-in Ron Paul and feel good about myself. It turns out, much to my chagrin, that my state has one of those laws that will not count write in candidates unless the candidate filed certain papers and has not already lost a primary. (They call it the sore loser law. But if the people later discover they like the loser better than the winner, where is the harm in letting them choose?) So if I vote for Ron Paul, it will be counted as a “write-in” but not as a vote for Paul.

I have gone over this multiple times. Do I support the Libertarian Party even though I do not support the candidate? That goes against my principles. Do I choose any other third party to send a message? Again, that goes against my principles. I choose not to vote against people but to vote for them. Therefore, I am left with the decision to write in the name Ron Paul. I think he would make a great President. I know my vote will not count as a vote for Dr. Paul, but it will be counted in the generic category of “write-ins.” When they show the total of people in my state who do not like the choices they were given I will be among them. And that is the message I truly want to send with my vote. I do not accept your chosen few. I am an American and as so I believe I have the right to vote for whom I choose.

Perhaps if enough people also wrote-in their vote, these draconian write-in laws will be removed. In Delaware, for example, (correct me if I am wrong) if you write in a candidate, that vote will count, period. I think we all have that right.

I thought about not voting at all because I do not want to legitimize the system, but those non-votes are simply seen as apathy. I am not apathetic. I am passionate: Extremely passionate for liberty.

So this election, I will be making a statement. I will vote for the man I believe to be the best candidate, I will do my best to expose a corrupt system that prevents most of us from making a real choice, and I will sleep well. If you feel the same way, I ask you to join me. Even writing in “none of the above” sends a message. I ask you to think about the message you wish to send with your vote. If you want change then change.

Peace.

September 13, 2008

Sandra Hamilton is a retired attorney.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/hamilton4.html

Here is what I wrote Sandra in reply to her article:

Hi Sandra,

I think this is a perfectly written article that Lew Rockwell posted!  I wrote an article on another website back in March that Ron Paul should leave the Republican Party: http://www.nolanchart.com/article3131.html – I keep wondering why he won’t make the move to run, but he still thinks he can make a difference in the House being the minority vote against the evil duopoly (even though we know he’s almost always right!).

While the revolution will evolve, and I am writing to further the cause, I just wish I could have my vote count for Ron Paul, but alas, will “feel good about myself” by voting for whom I want to be President, just like you!  Maybe by next election we can get the write-in candidate approved in advance, but then we have that electoral problem whereby Ross Perot received 20% of the votes, but received ZERO electoral votes.  Like “not voting for anyone” indeed! Ugh!

Peace!

Doug Eberhardt

Related posts:

1. A Solution for Ron Paul Supporters?
2. Ron Paul Should Leave The Republican Party
3. Ron Paul Needs to Hire Britney Spears!

I’m mixing up my normal type of support article for Ron Paul….frustration sometimes does this to me! I want to see if just by adding the name “Britney Spears” to a Ron Paul article if viewership will increase by any significant amount. But in writing the article, I actually have come to like the idea it represents!

Britney Spears and Ron Paul should be hooked at the hip like the two actors, Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear, in the movie, “Stuck on You.”

This will accomplish one of two things. It will either stop the media flurry over Britney Spears where she can lead a normal life again as the paparazzi won’t follow her around any longer or it will cause the media to report on the every move of Ron Paul.

I don’t write this article in a “Spoof” or “Wonkette” mocking manner. There is a degree of seriousness to it. I do realize it is “somewhat” far-fetched or wishful thinking, but desperate times call for desperate action! Nothing has worked so far right?

TMZ, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, you know…what America watches each night for an hour, along with the regular media’s consistent reporting, would give Ron Paul all the coverage he needs between now and November.

Seriously, what do you think would happen? The media can’t get enough of Britney Spears! Ron Paul would finally get some coverage!….except on Fox News of course…but only war loving neocons watch that channel anyway….

Imagine that…Britney Spears would become an American Hero! The headlines would be; “Britney Spears Helps Save America!” or “Britney Spears Helps Save the Dollar!” But the best aspect to it all is Ron Paul would finally get the media coverage that is coming to him. As a matter of fact, it would make up for all the media coverage he HASN’T received over the last year! His “message” would finally get through to the masses!

Take that biased MSM!

Now all we need to do is draft Britney Spears into the rEVOLution! She may not be the perfect campaign spokesperson, but we’d put a gag order on her and just use Britney for her uncanny ability to draw media attention. It would probably keep her out of trouble having a good fatherly figure around her and she would have some appeal to the youth vote! Hey, we need the votes!

Anyone have her number?

Doug Eberhardt

Related posts:

1. A Solution for Ron Paul Supporters?
2. It’s Not Too Late For Ron Paul!
3. The Ron Paul rEVOLution, Super Tuesday and “The Message!”

Sure revolutions take time. The American Revolution lasted eight and a half years, while the French Revolution went on for ten years.

Unfortunately, America doesn’t have that much time and if we want to make a difference in her future, NOW is the time to act. Like any great revolution, you need a great leader, and we have one in Ron Paul.

But I don’t believe that even Ron Paul understands how he can best take this movement forward. According to the latest message to his supporters, he said that “elections are short term efforts and revolutions are long term projects.” He then goes on to say he wants to “plan for the next phase” and that this phase would be “grassroots, not top down.”

His solution seems to be twofold at present (I’m not including an analysis of his book as it hasn’t been released yet and will address the “march” later in this article).

First, he wants to get people elected who share the “Liberty” vision as outlined in the Liberty Political Action Committee whose mission is “to help fund and elect conservative, pro-Constitution, pro-liberty, pro-American sovereignty candidates who share Congressman Ron Paul’s commitment to the values and principles our nation was founded upon.”

That’s fine, and of course needed for the revolution to succeed.

Secondly, he directs us to the F.R.E.E. Foundation which according to their website; “is a non-profit, non-partisan, educational foundation dedicated to public education on the principles of free-market economics, sound money and limited government.”

Again, sounds like it fits right in with the revolution.

But when you look further at this site, you see that it’s not well organized. For example, the National Endowment for Liberty (NEFL), a separate project of FREE, “was established in 1989 to develop programs that take advantage of the enormous potential of electronic media to pursue the mission of FREE. We believe that through mass communication we can attract public interest and significantly strengthen awareness of the moral, cultural and institutional foundations of the American political system.”

When you go to the page describing this project here, you find that NEFL “developed and produced the “At Issue” television series that was seen on the Discovery Network and CNBC national cable television networks. “At Issue” examines American public policy and how political, economic and social institutions interact with the principles of American constitutional government, and does so in an entertaining and fast-paced, commercial-television format, while remaining commercial-free and entirely educational.” These videos are great titles! The problem is that you can’t find any of the videos available on the site.

This group has been around since 1989 and there is no access to their work on their own site?

This leads me to the conclusion that Ron Paul isn’t ready for the revolution to continue via his “next phase” quite yet and also leads me to the conclusion that he needs to continue the first phase and that is continue his run for the presidency!

Before I address that, I’d like to discuss the proposed “march” on Washington D.C. tentatively planned for June 21st.

Many of you may not know, but there was already a rally across America by the truckers as they were opposed to the “NAU (North American Union) and NAFTA’s demand for us to allow tens of thousands of Mexican truckers and their trucking companies into America.” I monitored the media after their first event in April of last year and didn’t see or hear anything about it. Evidently there was another rally in June of last year that I didn’t even hear about anywhere.

If we are to use the time of the weekend of June 21^st to march on Washington D.C., what guarantee will there be of media coverage? Hasn’t the media already proven to us that they won’t give Ron Paul or his supporters any press time (unless it is negative of course).

What happens if a whacked out Ron Paul supporter (or neocon infiltrator disguised as a neo-nazi Ron Paul supporter) did something unthinkable during the march and opened fire on the Whitehouse? What would this do for the revolution and the message?

Wouldn’t the time spent traveling to, the day of the march, and traveling home after the march be better spent talking to 1000 people in our own backyard? Imagine if all of us would just go talk to more people what an impact that would have where media would be a non-factor! Isn’t word of mouth how many of us first heard about Ron Paul to begin with? We need to turn ignorance into enlightenment!

Even with all of our current efforts in getting the message out, the results were about a 5% nationwide vote for Ron Paul. This clearly shows that the revolution will take time, but to expect it to continue based on this “new phase,” is hopeful at best. Ron Paul needs to run as a 3^rd party candidate and garner eight more months of attention from the grassroots efforts of all the Paulites going door to door or calling the lists provided by the campaign.

Phase one is still alive and we must market the message of “Individual Liberty, Free Markets, Private Property, Sound Money, and A Non-interventionist Foreign Policy, ” all the way to November!

Ron Paul can run as the candidate for the Libertarian Party or Constitution Party, it matters not. The way the system is set up with delegates, he more than likely won’t stand a chance of being elected, but he could very well win the popular vote if enough of us go out and do our job! This would result in having to bring about a change in our electoral college farce of a system where only a few really decide who gets elected. And we still do have some hidden delegates that can show support….AND eight more months….so you never know!

Call me a dreamer, but the marketing of the rEVOLution couldn’t have a better time frame in which to get “the message” out to the masses. Americans are “Fed Up” and only “You Can Make A Difference!”

Time is of the essence! Don’t give up the ship!

JMHO and open to support, ridicule, praise or abuse by all as we still live in a Free America! Tomorrow we might not be able to speak our minds!

Doug Eberhardt

Related posts:

1. The Ron Paul rEVOLution, Super Tuesday and “The Message!”
2. Ron Paul Should Leave The Republican Party
3. Ron Paul Needs to Hire Britney Spears!