Libertarian Party Excludes Candidates From Debate

[The Central Scrutinizer]

http://www.lp.org/media/article_586.shtml

The same clowns who whine every four years about being excluded from presidential debates, actually exclude people from their own debates!

Odd, that.

[Cain]

Well, any political party will have to restrict candidates somehow. What's most interesting here is that Give'em Hell Gravel is running as a Libertarian. He won't get the nomination, of course, but if he did...

[UserGoogol]

I would like to point that George Phillies is a Physics professor at the college I just graduated from, and taught me one of the introductory physics courses. (Specifically, Newtonian mechanics for people who have already taken Calculus.) So if he were to win the nomination, that would be neat in a purely "hey, I know that guy" sense.

Also, yes, Mike Gravel going for the Libertarian nomination completely baffles me. Although he spins his leftness in a way which makes him more marginally compatible with libertarianism, (he backs the FairTax, for instance) but he still supports a bunch of "big government" things like single payer healthcare that should by all rights make the Libertarian party run him out of the convention with pitchforks.

ETA: Also, I feel that it's not that hypocritical. The Libertarians (and Greens and the rest) are not saying that all parties should be able to have access to presidential debates, (that would be a very big stage indeed) but merely that there should be some standard which ideally would include them. (Libertarians and Greens generally have enough ballot access that they could theoretically win without writeins, which seems like a plausible standard.) If there were seven people at presidential debates, that would presumably make the third parties very happy.

[varwoche]

http://www.lp.org/media/article_586.shtml

The same clowns who whine every four years about being excluded from presidential debates, actually exclude people from their own debates!Bravo! Just think of all the future inane quibbling discourse that this one event can nip in the bud.

[UserGoogol]

Also, it turns out that those debates are happening right now (9:00pm EST) on C-SPAN if you're curious. C-SPAN streams online, so it's quite convenient. Should be interesting if only to see if they ask Gravel what the hell he's doing there.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

ETA: Also, I feel that it's not that hypocritical. The Libertarians (and Greens and the rest) are not saying that all parties should be able to have access to presidential debates, (that would be a very big stage indeed) but merely that there should be some standard which ideally would include them. (Libertarians and Greens generally have enough ballot access that they could theoretically win without writeins, which seems like a plausible standard.) If there were seven people at presidential debates, that would presumably make the third parties very happy.

Therein lies the hypocrisy.

[CFLarsen]

An old thread on Libertarian access to the debates. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=26505)

Priceless.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I wonder if the current crop of Libertarian loonies....errr....candidates....ever thought that Hawaii had seceded from the union?

[CptColumbo]

I watched a little of it last night on one of the C-Span channels. It was like a watching a Comicon panel discussion on LOTR.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

That previous thread brings back a lot of memories. It was at 8th August 2004, 07:26 AM that Shanek put me on pretend ignore. And I was the first one! I am so proud.

Reading that thread is perfect reminder of why Shanek was laughed off the forum.

[Cain]

Looks like Bob Barr is their candidate. Good for them. Libertarians are OK... until you talk to one on the Internet.