LYAN: Live-blogging LP Prez Nomination

[redneckgaijin]

Here.

I'm pretty much ignoring the nominating speeches, which will end in about another fifteen minutes as I type this. They're pretty much boring and repetitive- and far, FAR too long at sixteen minutes per candidate. With eight candidates, that's over TWO HOURS...

EDIT: Bob Barr wins narrowly on the sixth ballot. Over the course of the weekend, he's apologized for USA-PATRIOT Act, for prosecuting marijuana users, and for authoring the Defense of Marriage Act- the last he did during his own nomination speech before the first ballot. I have to wonder how many Presidential campaigns have the unofficial motto, "Mea culpa."

Comments

[nsingman.livejournal.com]

How many? Too few, I'd say.
:-)

[omorka.livejournal.com]

Ah, so the man who wanted to drum all the Wiccans out of the US Army is the Libertarian candidate? Good to know. Did he, by any chance, apologize for that one, too, or can I assume he still holds that position?

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

He hasn't apologized for it that I know of, but it's also not safe to assume he's still anti-pagan. He's moved more and more towards a general civil rights and freedom position on general principles over the past five or six years.

Of the eight candidates who officially made the balloting today, he was the sanest and most reasonable of the lot, though. Gravel was probably the only one you might prefer- the two female candidates were both running as pure-anarchy candidates, and the others were Gravel (who defies brief definition when "nut" is not definitive), a third-party fusion advocate, an LP reformer college prof, the definitive free-marijuana advocate, and a truly annoying gambling infomercial maven.

(Who, by an extremely narrow margin, won the VP election, largely on Barr's support. The two combined to beat Mary Ruwart, a long-time LP activist and anarchist whose conduct at the convention, I'm sorry to say, was pretty Clintonesque- "pick me or my voters don't support you come November." In her concession speech she said nothing whatever about Barr- who she'd badmouthed without restraint all weekend- but she didn't bolt the party, either.)

Anyway, I shouldn't worry, unless Obama self-destructs between now and August. In fact, with Barr polling at 4% (Nader at 3% in the same poll), might just be that the LP candidate hurts McCain enough to swing a state or two Obama's way...

... especially Georgia, Barr's home state...