If You Live In Virginia, Read This Post

Checking the recent polls in Virginia’s governor race are interesting.  Terry McAuliffe is looking like he can pull a 1992 version of Bill Clinton.  In that election, Ross Perot took voters away from incumbent George Bush and won. Assuming the majority of voters left Perot to go to Bush, Clinton wouldn’t have become President until 1996.

There is a Libertarian candidate.  He shows the emerging strength of the libertarian ethos in both political parties.  Republicans have an easier time of capturing that voter than Democrats.  That’s why we have to work internally to fundamentally change the Republican party.

Both parties are out of step with the mainstream.  Republicans are out of step when it comes to gay marriage, immigration, the war on drugs and choice.  Many Republicans are really big government politicians in different clothing.  By the way, in Democrat locked Illinois, they can’t pass a gay marriage law so I suppose the Democrats are no better than Republicans on that issue.

The long term battle isn’t this simple election. It’s for the soul of a party and that’s where we need to concentrate our efforts.

The Virginia libertarian, Sarvis, has 10.375% of the vote, with standard deviation of 2.  At a minimum, 8.375% of Virginia voters will vote for him. That is enough to sway the election.

In Chicago, the Democrats run shill candidates all the time.  They put up intentional patsies to fill out ballot slots.  It helps break up any momentum the opposition has.  That’s but one way a machine holds power.

I am not intimating that Mr. Sarvis is a shill, but if you vote for him you guarantee that you will get an advocate for things like Obamacare in the Virginia governor mansion.  While he differs on some things, he has no chance of winning and no chance of governing even if he miraculously won. Libertarians in Virginia should hold there nose and vote for Cuccinelli.

Democrats hold their nose and vote for their candidate all the time.  Do you think anyone in their right mind thought Congressman Jackson played it straight?  They cast their votes for him knowing full well that he was corrupt, but it was more important to hold power.

Freedom loving libertarians would like change to happen quickly, and radically.  I empathize with that sentiment.  It bugs me to see so many of my tax dollars wasted day after day, minute after minute.  It angers me to hear all the lies about policy.  Benghazi, Obamacare, and all the rest is just one big lie.  Disgusting. Can’t we just make it stop?

But mainstream America doesn’t like radical change.  It’s too easy to fear monger and scare them.  That is the way big government has won.

Currently, we libertarians don’t have the upper hand.  We need to win the hearts and minds of a political party, and that happens between elections not during them.  It’s going to happen, but it’s going to take time.

We can’t change the party if we don’t have a power base to change it from.

Change can only happen with assumption of power.  To assume power, we have to win elections.  By voting for a third party candidate, we guarantee a loss.  It’s a kamikaze election strategy.

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