Election time is coming up quickly. Let us know who you are supporting this November.

His name is Bob Barr, not Bill Barr.

I am picking my nose for President. I am bound to get a better booger than either party offers.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I will vote for McCain. Contrary to some opinion I believe it is the only possible vote that has a chance of a positive result, howsoever small.

I reside in NY and had decided I was not going to vote. In the past I have voted Independence Party, Perot, Perot, and Nader, in order to keep it at the 5% threshold which gives it an automatic plavce on the ballot. I had decided not to vote this year, but have just registered as Republican and intend to vote for McCain, whom I see as important for the military and the Supreme Court. I have detested McCain since the 1980's. But he is not a communist, just a fool. I shall be voting fool.

A chance for this Golden State voter to put choices on record, anyway, and to think out loud ...

For the first time in 28 years, I am not voting for the Libertarian Party nominee. I am, however, also not voting for anyone else for President.

~ Ron Paul, my LP choice 20 years ago, the only principled individualist and anti-statist in Congress, would have been my vote as a write-in. He was my choice when I re-registered as a Republican this Spring — for only one month — so I could take part in the primary.

Unfortunately, he is not a "qualified" write-in candidate under the California election laws, so it would not be counted if I did so now. I'm not going to make this choice if it isn't even going to be counted. (By the way, those electronic-voting roulette machines have been tossed aside in California.)

~ Bob Barr is barely a Libertarian, only by dint of persuasion of enough ambitious types on the National Committee to have put him there, a mere two years after his saying that he'd left the Republicans. He is not articulating any clear opposition to the current unconstitutional wars of place (Iraq and Afghanistan) and type (drugs and personal freedoms).

His recent dissing of Paul's seeking of common anti-State-Establishment third-party ground puts Barr, in the heights of this year's parade of viciousness, up with Robert Bidinotto.

Barr was nominated by an LP that I don't recognize any more, certainly not from the days of my being Illinois state chair a decade and a half ago. It's one that now has most of its higher echelons whoring after anyone who promises "respectable" vote totals, rather than using the party for its inevitable and only feasible role in a first-past-the-post electoral system: ideological education.

Barr, and the crude semi-neocon running with him, are getting some attention, but only for his being able to pry enough voters away in many individual states to create horseraces. That is not enough of a role of principle for an LP that's rightly called itself "the party of principle," and whose national platform I helped write. I cannot vote for him.

~ Chuck Baldwin might have received my reluctant vote, despite my disagreeing with him (as I do with Paul) about abortion. Also, partly as a gesture in Paul's direction, with his own choice to cast his vote for Baldwin this Fall. At least Baldwin is uncompromising about the overriding issue of importance in our time, that of dismantling the Empire before it destroys us — militarily, financially, and morally.

Baldwin, however, is not on the ballot in California. His activists contended in court with another group that sought the American Independent Party line, since that is an established party in the state, and the Constitution Party is not. The other faction, led by empty-headed neocon Alan Keyes, won the lawsuit and the ballot line.

~ McCain and Obama are, of course, essentially identical and both unprincipled statists. McKinney and Nader have shown some anti-statist principle on several issues (brought out by Paul's seeking of common ground), but they are utterly noxious on their favorite concerns, especially environmental coercion and all that it entails.

So no vote for President, from encountering both ballot circumstance and political perfidy. Obama is going to win California's electoral votes, whether I take part or not.

Who could I "live with" otherwise? Although I detest Obama's professorial, condescending socialism and Biden's long trail of warmongering, I am genuinely frightened by McCain's repressed insanity behind his fascism — and the demagogic female Buzz Windrip at his side.

With Obama having won, I might actually be alive four years from now, though utterly impoverished. (That's inevitable, in different ways, for both of them.) Still, I'd prefer that to being turned into a cloud of radioactive dust.

I still vote on other matters:

~ Propositions (12 of them *weary sigh* this election), from the petition-initiative process. I vote against all state bond issues, period. Against the schemes for state economic "planning" — this year, about energy. Occasionally for a reasonably positive functional reform, such as a better-than-nothing change in redistricting, taking it partly out of the hands of the crony favor-peddlers in the Legislature. For any victory of common sense over statism, such as an effort to release non-violent offenders in the War on Some Drugs. And against sheer absurdities, such as the current effort by the religious Right to dump medieval bigotry into the state Constitution.

~ For state and national legislatures, and for local councils and boards, I vote against all incumbents. (Though "my" member of the U.S. House, Lucille Roybal-Allard [D], at least voted twice against the bailout-bill abomination. Kudos to her ... yet, still, that ain't enough.)

~ For judges, I vote for any candidate who is not a former prosecutor. Those types, who rarely seek justice rather than "the kill" in court, seem, sadly, to run for every such position.

~ And no local issuance of bonds or raising of taxes (including another half-cent on sales for the mass-transit sinkhole out here) ever has received my "yes" vote, nor ever will.

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for the suggestion.

I have another voting line in Austin. I almost always vote against any candidate that has the endorsement of the local newspaper, Austin American-Statesman.

Chris B,

I'm pleased to see that, after all these years, the American-Statesman's endorsements continue to function as a guide to the discerning voter.

Robert C

The "alternative weekly" Austin Chronicle is probably as bad, however. There were some council elections earlier this year, and they simply ignored quite a few of the candidates. One race actually had six candidates, and they focused on three "major" candidates. What was the criteria for determining the "major" candidates? Nobody knows.

Another council race had three candidates and went to a runoff. The Chronicle was extremely upset with voters, as apparently the third-place candidate had actually dropped out before his name could be removed from the ballot. I wrote them a letter--that they actually published--declaring that I had voted for this third-place candidate simply because the media (including them) had ignored him. The Chronicle had also ignored two other council candidates that I had met and liked quite a bit.

So-called journalists are the real enemy. They have been for years. Fortunately, they are losing grip. It's also scaring them big time.

When the Statesman endorsed Bush in 2004, people actually protested outside their building. Kerry took about 70% of the vote in Travis County.

I bet you aren't the only one who has said this. I am not sure what I will do. Texas only has Barr, Obama, and McCain on the ballot.



In Texas, you just show up and vote. Then I went to the caucus that evening.



Regrettably, I have never been to National. It's quite obvious considering the Portland Plank Massacre and the Barr Blowup that I should have attended them. Life circumstances intervene in many cases.

People can change. There was certainly a possiblity that Barr could have changed. Since his nomination, Barr has shown that he is simply an agent provocateur. And there was never any doubt at all about this regarding Wayne Root.



Then he made a phony offer to Paul to be his VP. He couldn't do it anyway. In many states, the ticket had already been submitted and locked in on the ballots.



I predicted a few months ago that Barr would not get 800,000 votes. I think he will get about half that now. I never dreamed that he would be stupid enough to snub Ron Paul. That almost shows that he is trying to lose.

I also had a long phone call with a paid petitioner who told me how the campaign lost the ballot in West Virginia. He was preparing to swap signatures with the Green Party. A guy named Shane Cory said no to the swap. Nader got on the ballot, and Barr did not.

The last time an LP Presidential candidate was on every ballot was 1996. In 2000, it was 49 states. In 2004, it was 48 states. It looks like it will be even less this year. This is not progress.

I can also tell you that many of the people who supported Badnarik in 2004 supported Barr in 2008. Badnarik was about as weak a candidate as you could have found, especially when David Nolan and Aaron Russo were also running. In light of the LP's treatment of Mary Ruwart this year, I fear that the LP is going to have even more trouble attracting quality candidates. L Neil Smith once wrote that he has considered running on the LP ticket and has bowed out largely because he doesn't want to deal with many of the idiots who run the LP.

I chose "Not voting" but it means "Not voting beyond the local level."

Even most of the lcoal races are unopposed incumbants.

I will show up, sign for a ballot, and turn in a ballot.
It won't take long.

Two statewide issues will be up here in Michigan:
Medical marijuana
and
Stem cell research

The stem cell issue is a proposed constitutional amendment. As well as allowing such research, it prohibits the sale of embryos for this purpose. All in all, this is a mixed-premise muddle, starting with the fact that it is a constitutional amendment. My philosophy of government makes the constitution more than a reed in the political wind. Also, I understand the slippery slope fallacy, but I do not like taking those first steps toward the medical use of human beings. There are other sources of stem cells.

I have given this a lot more thought than the Presidency because I believe that it is more consequential.