Green Party Candidate Alan Augustson has made an announcement ending his Green Party presidential bid and beginning another:

Dear Greens, Friends and Allies:

As the heading above should make somewhat obvious, as of the time of this writing I will cease to actively pursue the 2008 Green Party nomination for President of the United States.

This is not an action I take lightly. The conditions that, I felt, forced me to run have not changed: Green Presidential candidates exist, but they are not waging visible, effective, issue-based campaigns. Some appear to be waiting for the endorsement of a bigger name; others for a big-name candidate to enter the race. I charge these people to remember: a big-name candidate may not endorse the whole Green Party platform. S/he may not be willing to run without the aid of PAC or lobby money.

And, worst of all, s/he may not run to win. I have said from the very beginning that a candidate who does not have an intention to win, nor a plan to govern thereafter, is not helping the Green Party. The time for symbolic campaigns is long past; there is simply too much at stake. There is no hope in the Green message if we concede that it is a losing message. The voters, the media, and your fellow Party members will not respect, contribute to, or vote for a candidate without the intellect, persuasive power or strength of will to win an election. I charge my fellow candidates to consider their commitment to change, and redouble their efforts as befits a Presidential candidate.

I may re-visit the possibility of a Presidential bid at some later time. For now, I am turning my attention to the pursuit of a different target: the Fifth Congressional District of Illinois. This, my home district, is currently represented by Mr. Rahm Emanuel (D), who is scheduled to run unopposed in 2008. Mr. Emanuel has also, unfortunately, failed to heed and obey the mandate of the American people in the mid-term elections. He has supported the reprehensible so-called “USA PATRIOT Act” through which we are made less free, though not one bit safer, with each passing day. He has also callously failed to support a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, and has not given Universal Healthcare the support it deserves.

This is a more manageable target, and a smarter, more efficient use of my time and energy. I believe the people of Illinois will stand up for a real alternative, and from this position I will be able to push the Green point of view more visibly and effectively than as a severely-underfunded presidential candidate.

I remain grateful for the friends I have made throughout this process, and hope that they will stay tuned as the Green Party continues the quest to heal America. You have all my best wishes.

Respectfully,

Alan Augustson, MPP

I thought Augustson carried himself with earnestness and dignity in his presidential effort. I also really like his idea of running for Congress against the thoroughly entrenched inside player Rahm Emanuel.

Alan, in case you’re reading: is it possible to donate to your congressional campaign via the website you used for your presidential campaign? We donate to progressive political causes, and you certainly qualify.

Before America elects a new President in 2008, we would all do well to examine the way in which the candidates treat the less powerful among us. Some candidates don’t stand up well to this test.

Take the story of Mitt Romney’s dog as an example. In 1983, Mitt Romney took his family on a trip to Ontario, a 12-hour ride from their home. When packing, Romney put the suitcases inside the car. He put the family dog, however, in a cage up on his station wagon’s roof.

The dog was terrified, but off drove Mitt Romney, and he wouldn’t stop until the dog’s diarrhea started flowing down the back window. After stopping to hose the car down, Romney drove off again, with the dog still on the roof.

That wasn’t just cruel. Mitt Romney broke the law. It is against a crime in Massachusetts to transport animals in a manner that is cruel or could endanger the animals.

Don’t let America become Mitt Romney’s new dog. Vote progressive in 2008.

(Source: Boston Globe, June 29, 2007)

Here is one indicator of a “snap” reaction to last night’s first debate between Democratic contenders for the presidency: the percent share of sales of our Democratic presidential bumper stickers, buttons, shirts and posters garnered by each of the Democratic contenders during the 24 hours following the closing of the third debate. The distribution looks like this:

There are three tiers of performance here. First are Al Gore and Barack Obama. Despite not actually being a candidate and not being in the debate at all, Gore grabbed nearly a third of all 2008 gear. Obama came in second place, as he did in the second debate. In the second tier were Hillary Clinton and Dennis Kucinich, in a performance that must please Kucinich but displease Clinton, considering expectations. Bill Richardson, Mike Gravel, Joseph Biden, and John Edwards defined the bottom…

… if you don’t count absolute zero. Where is Christopher Dodd in this graph? Nowhere: Dodd garnered no sales following his debate performance.

That’s our brief horserace coverage of the debate. Substantive consideration of what the candidates actually said is coming later today and tomorrow, taking up, we hope, many more inches of column and mental space.

Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson likes to portray himself as small government conservative. His record in the United States Senate, however, doesn’t support that claim.

For one thing, he voted in favor of the single largest, most wasteful, unnecessary and unpopular big government program in recent history: The invasion and occupation of Iraq. Hundreds of billions of dollars have already been thrown away into the misadventure, which is projected to add trillions of dollars to the federal budget deficit. Yet, Fred Thompson still supports the spending.

Fred Thompson’s big government spending ways go back a lot farther than that, of course. Back in 1995, he outdid every previous attempt at big government spending. Fred Thompson tried to put pork barrel spending into the Constitution of the United States of America.

The ultimate chutzpah of Fred Thompson’s attempt to create what another senator called “constitutional pork” is that he tried to insert that spending into a proposed Balanced Budget Amendment. The committee report on the proposed amendment shows that Senator Thompson wanted to create an exemption in the Constitution that protected the federal subsidy of his favorite homestate pet project from budget cuts, the Tennessee Valley Authority. The TVA was subsidized by about 70 million dollars in spending from the federal government every year.

When it came to the idea of balancing the federal budget, Fred Thompson expected budget cuts to apply to everything and anyone other than himself and his own projects. We can expect this same attitude from Fred Thompson if he becomes president: Sacrifices are for other people to make, not Fred Thompson.

(Sources: Boston Globe, September 28, 2006; Washington Post, February 23, 1995; Congressional Record, February 23, 1995)

Yesterday, I picked up some Orville Redenbacher brand popcorn at the grocery store. You know what it said on the package? “100% Whole Grain!”

Science entrepreneur J. Craig Venter announced yesterday that he had successfully transferred genetic material from one microscopic one-celled organism to another. As the New York Times reports:

His goal is to make cells that might take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and produce methane, used as a feedstock for other fuels. Such an achievement might reduce dependency on fossil fuels and strike a blow at global warming.

Er, hm. I like scientific research and all, and reading about new accomplishments is dandy. But the thing is, we already have cells that take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, and cells that produce methane. They do so efficiently and in operations that are largely self-sustaining. These cells currently exist in collections we call “plants” and “cows.”

Right wingers have failed so often that their vision of success has become frighteningly low. Years after promising a grand new blossoming of peace throughout the Middle East as a benefit of his Iraq War, George W. Bush now says that he is holding out hope for ongoing bloody violence for Iraq, but with a vote now and then.

No kidding. George W. Bush now says that his vision of success for Iraq is to have ongoing suicide car bomb attacks and violence in the streets, with elections. That’s the goal that American soldiers are now fighting for.

We wouldn’t accept that as a successful way of life here in the United States. We ought not to accept that as a new lowdown definition of success for Iraq.

(Source: Boston Herald, June 29, 2007)

The FBI is asking scuba instructors to be on the lookout for scuba diving students who are asking about how to drive underwater vehicles in murky water or go diving in sewer pipes.

Why is the FBI asking scuba instructors to be on the lookout for people asking for such odd sorts of information? Is there a plot by terrorists to attack America through scuba infiltration of sewer pipes or other murky water invasions? Does the FBI have any tips on people planning any illegal activities at all in such environments?

No. It turns out that the FBI admits that it has no reason to believe that any attacks using scuba gear in these situations is being planned. They just thought that scuba instructors ought to be on the lookout, just in case.

Well, has the FBI thought about asking electrical companies to be on the lookout for squirrels gathering walnuts, as if for throwing, around electrical transformers? Have they thought to ask people living near streams to be on the lookout for suspicious beavers chewing on the bottom of telephone poles? Have FBI investigators warned carnivals about people asking whether people could suffocate on cotton candy, or how much damage a ferris wheel could do to a small town if it became detached all of a sudden and started running around?

I can imagine these threats, but I don’t have any reason to believe that they’re real. Likewise, the FBI can imagine scuba diving attacks through sewer tunnels or other murky water, but has no reason to believe that such threats are at all real.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations ought to be investigating real crimes and real threats, not imagining outlandish crimes that might be planned by someone some time in the future, and going around the country warning people about the potential danger. Progressives recognize the difference. Apparently, the right wingers who currently control our government don’t.

(Source: USA Today, June 28, 2007)

Unity08 is a registered corporation which will nominate its own candidates for president and vice president a year from now, in July of 2008. At least that’s what it says it’s going to do. Will its claims match reality? No one can be sure, but we can check Unity08’s record of delivering on promises for a pretty good indication.

In the fall of 2006, Unity08 declared that a new website called American Agenda (at the web address of americanagenda08.com) would be publicly released in December of 2006 or January of 2007 in order to permit the American people to help draft a Unity08 platform.

What’s actually happened? Back in February, the promised website was hawking janitorial supplies. By March, americanagenda08.com had moved on to selling lawsuits about peanut butter. Halfway through April, Unity08’s American Agenda website is promoting online college degrees. Halfway through May, Unity08 had returned to peanut butter lawsuits and added claims about a “natural remedy” for “painful chronic fatigue.” Halfway through June, the American Agenda website offers visitors a 99 cent special on domain names. By last week, Unity08 had yanked the website altogether, and simply redirected traffic to Unity08.com.

Now, with the American Agenda project six months late and counting, Unity08 Vice President Bob Roth has let everybody know that when it comes to implementing the American Agenda project,

I don’t have a specific time line yet, but will let everyone how our discussion goes.

Maybe by next Christmas, they’ll have drawn up a flow chart for us that explains it all.

Would you like to know what Unity08 is? I would, too.

“Instead of a book I bring Unity08.com, which is the website that everybody from the Colbert Nation can go to and sign up and be part of this centrist party.” — Unity08 Founder Douglas L. Bailey, June 28 2007, on The Colbert Report

“Colbert: Now, Unity08, that’s the Party?
Bailey: That’s the Party.” — Unity08 Founder Douglas L. Bailey, June 28 2007, on The Colbert Report

“Voters may only register with one party, but since we are not a political party (and have never been designated as one by anyone) delegates are free and welcome and encouraged to sign up with us no matter what party they belong to, or if they don’t belong to one at all. This is not a matter of interpretation — …” — “Unity08 Moderator,” June 12, 2007, on the Unity08 discussion boards.

Now, either Unity08 does not know what it is, or there is a Unity08 civil war, or Unity08 occupies that divine status above petty either-or distinctions like “a party” versus “not a party.”

(Tip of the hat to Kacz for bringing this to my attention.)

When George W. Bush claimed that he was invading and occupying Iraq in order to spread democracy around the world, it was a load of bull, and reasonable people around the world could easily tell so. The invasion of Iraq by the United States has not spread democratic government as Bush predicted it would.

Unfortunately, what the invasion and occupation of Iraq did achieve was to give the cause of democracy a bad name. Bush used democracy as an excuse to wage an unprovoked and unnecessary war, and in doing so, he made it easier for other national leaders to dismiss democracy as nothing but a con.

Among those world leaders that took the cue from Bush’s phony democratic posturing was Russian President Vladimir Putin, who declared after the occupation of Iraq had decayed into a chaotic mess, “We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq.”

We need to restore the good name of democracy, and in order to do that, America needs to elect a President in 2008 who truly respects democratic values.

(Source: USA Today, June 28, 2007)

“Government is a failure at everything they do” — Libertarian presidential candidate Wayne Allyn Root, 6/27/2007

Getting lead out of our paint and gasoline was such a royal disaster, wasn’t it?

What else has government royally fucked up?

The following is a transcript of the Third Party Debate hosted by the young online radio guru Koko last night, June 27 2007. It is offered not necessarily in the spirit of agreement, but with the idea that adding more voices to the 2008 election campaign discussion is better for everyone, including voters. If you’d like to listen to the debate, please head over to Koko’s website.

Participants:

Koko, moderator
Numbered individuals are callers

Alan Augustson, Green Party presidential candidate
Steve Kubby, Libertarian Party presidential candidate
George Phillies, Libertarian Party presidential candidate
Wayne Allyn Root, Libertarian Party presidential candidate

---

Koko: Hi. Welcome to the Third Party Debate. George Phillies, gets the first question. One of the biggest challenges facing third party presidential candidates is ballot access. How would you reform ballot access laws to help third parties to get on the ballot while not making it lenient and have hundreds of candidates?

George Phillies: Of course, the one recent election in which we had over a hundred candidates, California Governor, and a ballot which was different all over the place, because of California law — the voters were not confused at all and had no trouble finding people. The general objective is to persuade states to reduce petitioning requirements, make it easier for candidates to get on, allow nomination by conventions for well-organized parties, and in general increase the number of people who are on the ballot. Certainly Massachussets, where most state senators and representatives run unopposed, is not the example to follow. That’s the example of the former Soviet Union.

Koko: Wayne Allyn Root, an essential part of the Libertarian Party’s success will come from electoral victories at local levels, like city council and state senator. How will a Libertarian nominee help candidates succeed?

Wayne Allyn Root: Well, the answer to that one is simple: credibility! You see me on TV. You see me, since I’ve now said I’m going to be running for the presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party just a month ago, literally so far have put minimal resources, minimal time and minimal money because I’m going to get started this fall, and yet I’ve been all over the media. If you go to my website, rootforamerica.com, nonstop radio, nonstop television, a reality show in the offing, a book deal in the offing, all of it to create national name recognition and credibility for the Libertarian brand. That’s what this is, and I’m not shy about stating it. I’m a marketer, I’m a salesman, I’m a television pitchman, I’m an infomercial expert — one of the best in America — and all of that is necessary to get the Libertarian brand on the radar screen of America. It is an embarrassment that this party got 300,000 votes in the last presidential election, and we’re headed in the exact same direction — 300,000 votes or less — unless you put someone at the top of the ticket who has credibility, who has name recognition, who everybody understands is a high-profile media magnet, and who can get on the news nonstop to promote this party. That’s what you need to help at all levels to help attract voters to the Libertarian brand.

Koko: Steve Kubby, do you believe that it’s consistent with Libertarian principles to sue for access to presidential debates? If you are the Libertarian nominee, would you use the courts to get access to the debates?

Steve Kubby: [Silence.]

Koko: Steve? Oh, he must not be there then. All right, I’ll go to Alan Augustson. Would you support Ralph Nader as the Green Party nominee?

Alan Augustson: I would not, actually. I revere Ralph Nader for what he’s accomplished in the past, but he has made it clear that when he runs a campaign he’s not running to win. I have to say I think there’s too much at stake right now. I think if we put another dangerous idiot Bush, or some other analogue thereof, in the Oval Office it could very well be our last free election in this country. I think we need to run a real campaign. I think that the time for issue campaigns, statement campaigns symbolic campaigns is long past. We need to run a campaign, and we need to run it with every intention of winning it.

Koko: All right. Steve Kubby, you can answer. Did you hear the question I asked you? Do you believe that it’s consistent with Libertarian principles to sue for access to presidential debates? If you are the Libertarian nominee, would you use the courts to get access to the debates?

Steve Kubby: Well, I might, and certainly Ron Paul is doing a good job of that right now. He is a former Libertarian Party presidential candidate in 1988, and I think he’s applying a lot of those principles now. But the real question is the access we’re looking for is only going to come when we have real choices on the ballot. My experience in helping to draft and pass Proposition 215, California’s Medical Marijuana Law, is a track record of actually passing something that benefits people’s lives and provides a real opportunity for government to help people by recognizing their rights. And you know in this country we don’t recognize rights. We don’t give liberty and recognition of freedom from government the importance that it needs. And that is where we need candidates that are willing to stand out for something different, for real choices. You know, they said that we’d never pass Medical Marijuana, but when we gave the voters a real choice on the ballot, that’s when we began to win. And that’s what has to happen at the party level.

Koko: All right, now we go to energy and global warming. Alan Augustson, there are many projects that, while they will reduce greenhouse emissions, will harm animals and ecosystems. For example, birds are often killed by windmills and hydroelectric dams can harm various types of fish. What is the Green position on this tradeoff?

Alan Augustson: The tradeoff on this is that living things are in continual interaction. Unfortunately… I have a great many friends who are vegetarians, and I have tried that lifestyle and can’t live with it, unfortunately. It simply doesn’t work. Living things exist in cooperative ways. Unfortunately, things die, other things live, and the tradeoffs are something that we’re never going to be completely free from, so I think all we can really do is to take alternative energies and to make them as safe as we possibly can. Once you get beyond that point, we do have a right to survive ourselves. I want very much to be as cruelty-free as humanly possible, but there are limits to that.

Koko: All right, Wayne Allyn Root, on your website you oppose the use of Yucca Mountain to store nuclear waste. Where should the waste be stored for the thousands of years it takes for the material to no longer be radioactive?

Wayne Allyn Root: Well, where it’s being stored right now is in each local area where they have a nuclear power plant, and by the way everybody thinks that’s an imperfect system. I think everyone agrees it’s an imperfect system. But I don’t think taking the nuclear waste and travelling all over the United States is a smart way to do it. I think it invites more terrorism. I think it invites a disaster, not only from a terrorist attack. I mean, many trucks travelling and many trains travelling are on roads and railways with nuclear waste on them, but on top of that it invites a disastrous accident which would have nothing to do with terrorism. And last but not least, Yucca mountain when it was first thought of in the 1950s, Las Vegas was literally a desert town with no one in it. It had a population under a hundred thousand, it meant nothing to America’s economy, as recently as a year ago, USA Today called Las Vegas the economic engine of the United States of America. As recently as a year ago, the Wall Street Journal called Las Vegas the stock market leader of America. Not even New York! Las Vegas! The stock market leader of the American economy. So I think that right now you’re talking about the town that is the symbol of America all over the world, to store nuclear waste from all over America, only a couple hundred miles from Las Vegas, is inviting a disaster of global proportions. It just doesn’t make sense. It’d be no different than storing nuclear waste outside a major metropolis like Los Angeles, New York, or Dallas Texas. We never would think of it. But in 1950, Las Vegas was a one-horse town. Today, to store it outside the tourist capital of the world, with 40 million visitors, makes absolutely no sense at all. We’re inviting a disaster of epic proportions!

Koko: All right, for all the people who are listening to the debate, you can call in now and ask your questions. Next question here for George Phillies. Most renewable energy sources can only complete with fossil fuels through government subsidies and forcing utilities to purchase the electricity. Under your energy plan would you subsidize these technologies and not hold them competitive in the near future?

George Phillies: The answer is that several of the renewable technologies are perfectly competitive without government subsidy. Tossing government money in doesn’t really make it competitive, it just hides where the money’s coming from. In particular, wind technology is entirely competitive. Solar concentrating technology — that’s basically a steam engine powered by the sun — is competitive and actually solves the energy storage problem in a relatively safe way, and therefore there are possibilities. But my plan is, the government should offer to buy its electricity at a competitive rate from new renewable sources, and we’ll let private enterprise solve the problem, which it’s going to do.

Koko: All right, Steve Kubby, if you accept global warming as real, then emissions must be reduced. Do you support a carbon tax or emission cuts that would encourage businesses and people to switch from fossil fuels? If not, why would people switch from fuel sources like coal to natural gas which is more expensive.

Steve Kubby: You know, that’s an excellent question, Koko, and I think it illustrates the difference between the Greens and the Libertarians, because I think the Greens would say that they’re for a carbon tax and they’d explain all the benefits and the reasons we should have it. Whereas Libertarians tend to view the government like the fox guarding the henhouse. We recognize that the U.S. government is the biggest polluter, we recognize that the U.S. government is driven by private interests, so why would we want a tax, why would we want money to go to an entity that has done, that has the worst record imaginable in terms of recognizing the need to protect the environment?

Koko: All right, 517, you’re on the air.

517: Hello. Now I know this is a little bit off-topic, but I want to hear you guyses view on violent video games and how it affects our youth. Because I’m tired of being told that me playing video games is going to end up with going on a rampage and killing several people in my school.

Koko: All right, George Phillies, would you like to answer that?

George Phillies: My answer is I am in complete agreement with the speaker. I am in complete opposition to press censorship. You can read the full details on my website, phillies2008.org, and I completely agree with the speaker that the notion that video games make people violent is just silly.

Koko: OK, Steve Kubby.

Steve Kubby: Well, you see, we Libertarians, we have a consistent philosophy. A level playing field with the best government being the government that governs least. So George and I are in total agreement with the speaker. We don’t think that there’s any reason that he should be should be limited in what he’s doing, so long as he’s not harming others.

Koko: All right. Wayne Allyn Root.

Wayne Allyn Root: Well, we’re certainly in agreement, Steve, George and myself. It’s not just a video game issue, it’s really a television issue. The federal government is trying to limit violence, not just in video games but on cable television, on satellite television, and they’ve been doing it on broadcast television. It’s all absurd! The fact is that the country — a study was done recently, and the country in the world with the most violent television is — three guesses, now — Japan. The country in the world with the lowest amount of violence in the real world in their streets is — three guesses — Japan. The most violent television in the world does not cause the Japanese to go out and kill people. The fact is, it’s all about personal responsibility, no different than guns. Guns don’t kill people — people do. Violent television doesn’t kill people. Violent video games don’t kill people — and, by the way, this issue ties in very nicely with probably what many people would consider my signature issue, online gambling, which doesn’t kill people and which doesn’t hurt people. The fact is, let people do what they want to do with their own time, their own choice of entertainment in their own bedroom with their own money on their own computer, on their own video game screen, on their own TV set. The end result is: get government out of our lives.

Koko: All right. Alan Augustson.

Alan Augustson: I don’t pretend to represent the Green Party or the global Green point of view on any issue. I’m content to let the delegates have their say on who their candidate is. I can really only speak for myself, and I have to say that in this regard, I really find that I have no essential quarrel with the Libertarians on the issue of censorship. I am entirely against censorship. When I was coming up, we had violence, we misogyny, we had all kinds of horrible things going in my junior high and in my high school, and this was long before Beavis and Butthead, which eventually became the local whipping post, long before superviolent video games. Personally, I think parental involvement is the answer to violent kids, certainly not government regulation and government censorship of games, television, the media and entertainment. No way.

Koko: All right. So I’ll go to the next topic here, which is Iraq. Wayne Allyn Root, your position seems to be very different from other politicians who simply want to leave Iraq. What is your plan? What could the U.S. do by simply staying to end the violence in Iraq that it’s not doing right now?

Wayne Allyn Root: Well, nobody wants to leave Iraq more than me. Republicans say, “stay,” and that’s obviously a horrendous answer. It’s a disaster. It’s a mess. We went for the wrong reasons. It was all orchestrated by George Bush and the neoconservatives. I’ll be the first one to admit it was a complete disaster and they made a mistake. Having said all that, Democrats say, “leave tomorrow,” and I’ve said on the record many times and will continue to say that you can’t just leave tomorrow. It’s a little more complicated than that!

First of all, there is a way to leave there tomorrow. We went there to institute democracy. My plan, which I’ve talked about on many different radio and TV shows in the last month, the very first thing I would do is prove that it is all about democracy. I would have a vote, tomorrow! Let the Iraqi people vote: should we stay or should we go? If the Iraqi people don’t appreciate what we’ve done, if they don’t appreciate three thousand of our boys dying on their land, if they don’t appreciate 30,000 being injured, many of them losing legs and arms and eyes, then I say we leave tomorrow. It’s not like I’m a pro-war guy who wants to stay forever in Iraq. No. I think it’s up to them to decide if they want us there to foster their democracy. If they don’t, we leave. If they say we stay, my only answer to this, and no one has an answer to this quagmire — not one Libertarian, not one Democrat, not one Republican, there is no good answer, it’s a disaster and it’s very complicated — but if they vote and they want us to stay, I think we owe it to then, because we’re the ones who got them in this mess. We owe it to them to stay for another year until they’ve built their army, their security, their police to the point where they can defend their own country, and then we phase out, and during the year we’re in a support role only. We’re not there to take the big hits, and our boys get killed. Their army has to take the support role.

Last but not least, the other thing I said about Iraq is, number one, recognize the folly of going around the world and doing nation building. It doesn’t work. George Bush was wrong, and I don’t support it ever, and last but not least, where’s the oil? George Bush said we wouldn’t be paying for this war. It’s cost a half-trillion dollars. I don’t hear anyone asking that question. I’ve been asking it again and again. Why are we not taking a certain percentage of the Iraqi oil for the next X amount of years — 5 years, 10 years, 20 years — to pay back the debt from Iraq to us, a $500 billion dollar debt for going there and taking out their dictator, a man who had killed, murdered, tortured, raped up to 300,000 of their own people? We went there. We did it. It is a mess, but we should be paid for it. We should take the oil — a percentage of it — to pay them back. That’s my only answer on Iraq. It’s a disaster, and I’ll take any one as a good answer.

Koko: 786, you’re on the air.

786: Hello. I have two questions for all the candidates. I’ll say them both and give them a chance to answer. Number 1, I want to say, who was that candidate who was just speaking about taking the oil?

Koko: Wayne Allyn Root.

786: Well, you’re the first one I heard that actually got me interested in voting for you. With all the candidates, Hillary Clinton included, what you just said about taking a percentage of the oil to pay back the debt, you sound like a man who wants to run a government on the principals of responsibility and accountability, and that’s something that America has never had. I don’t think practically it could work in a government such as ours, but I commend you for at least your policies. My first question for all is, number one, one of the candidates said in the beginning that they’re sick of, that they recognize that American government is run by political interest groups, and by support and donation and bribes. Are the candidates on today proposing that they could run a government in the United States that is not biased, that is not going to pander to lobbyists, that is not going to be biased in their policies? I would like to hear how practically they would implement such a government. And my second question…

Koko: All right, all right, first do the first question. Steve Kubby.

Steve Kubby: Well, it’s an easy answer for this really, because Libertarians believe in a level playing field, they believe in returning to the Constitution as it was written and ratified by the states, and so if a Libertarian administration is in power, any one else of any opposing political persuasion is going to be safe, because Libertarians don’t believe in initiating force, and we do believe in diversity, we do believe that the government can be run for a whole lot less money, if you confine it to its constitutional, enumerated powers. And if you read the Constitution, then you understand what Libertarianism is about, you understand why America would be safer, why it would be a better country under a Libertarian administration.

Koko: All right, Wayne Allyn Root.

Wayne Allyn Root: Well, pandering is pretty simple. It’s all about the fact that the only way that Republicans and Democrats run America, no matter what they promise — I’m a recovering Republican myself, a lifelong former Republican who believed that the Republican Party was Ronald Reagan’s party and Barry Goldwater’s party, a party of smaller government, a party of less spending, a party of lower taxes, a party of more individual rights and freedoms and individual initiative, and unfortunately they do talk Libertarian philosophy, there’s no question about it, but they don’t carry it out. The fact is, once they get elected, the caller was right, both parties run government the same way, the more jobs, the more spending, the more government they can grow, the bigger they get, the more power government has, the more bribes they give out, the more they assume they will be re-elected. The fact is, the Republican Party did all that. They grew government by the most of any modern president, far more than Bill Clinton, George Bush did. And yet, they were thrown out of office! Yet they lost Congress and Senate, which just goes to prove that the American public is not dumb, that they do listen, and they believe that the Republican Party made a gigantic error and was not the party they believed in. I believe the Libertarian philosophy is what most Americans believe in. Study after study shows when asked the question, “Do you want more government or less” the American people say they want less government. They want more individual rights and freedom. Government is a failure at everything they do, whether you’re talking about education, they have failed for the last fifty years to improve education, public education, whether you’re talking about border security, it’s worse now by far than it was when Barry Goldwater talked about it fifty years ago, protecting us from war, well, 9/11 proves the government didn’t do a good job of protecting us, and in the last six years I don’t believe our security’s gotten any better. When it comes to poverty, since Lyndon Johnson spent all those trillions of dollars with the Great Society, things are worse. So I think that the answer is you can’t pander any more. I think there’s a few politicians out there that prove you don’t have to. There’s a governor in South Carolina who’s done a fabulous job who has done nothing but say no to every spending increase, and everybody said he wouldn’t be re-elected. He was re-elected in a landslide. The fact is people appreciate a politician who is willing to take a stand and say no and veto spending increases and get a line item veto and stop earmarks which are destroying our government, billions of dollars wasted on earmarks attached to bills that have nothing to do with the earmark and that’s the kind of president I would be: line item vetoes, lots of vetoes, get rid of earmarks, and anything that smells of spending increase or a tax increase, I’d veto it, I’m against it.

Koko: George Phillies.

George Phillies: As long as there are government agencies handing out money, as long as there is government writing laws and regulations that benefit some people at the expense of other people, everyone who sees an opportunity is going to be there lobbying to see they get the money and they get the regulations to their advantage. So, for example, the people who want ethanol in the gasoline pay large sums of money in campaign contributions and if you’ve looked at your meat and milk bills recently you’ve noticed price of corn has gone through the ceiling, and milk and meat are following. The libertarian solution is the local solution. We take government out of the business of handing money out to people and special interests. We take regulations out. You can read more on my website, phillies2008.org, and as we take things away, gee, when government has nothing to sell, people aren’t going to try to buy it. Having said that, I want to back up on the first part of the question, which was referring to Iraq. I think the answer on why George Bush stopped talking about, “Oh, we’ll take some of the Iraqis’ oil to pay for the war,” is that his policy advisers explained to him, slowly and in words of few syllables, that this is a war crime. Taking another country’s, invading another country and taking its national resources is forbidden by American law and international treaty. You don’t do it. Nonetheless, the Democrats and the Republicans are both saying, Democrats: we need a bigger army to stay in Iraq, Republicans are just saying we’ll leave the troops over there longer and stay in Iraq. We are one of the parties that says we should bring the troops home. I believe the Greens will give us a similar perspective now, though.

Koko: Alan Augustson, your turn.

Alan Augustson: Now we’ve digressed to a number of different subjects since the question. Could I get it repeated just one more time?

Koko: All right, 786, could you repeat the first question?

786: The question was, how do you propose as a third-party candidate to change government in that as I heard someone propose, that they would take the problem of government is interest groups and the lobbying. I want to know are you going to run a United States government without all the lobbying, interest groups, and different political pressures that are present today?

Alan Augustson: Well, first of all, my intention is to restore a certain level of confidence and accountability to the cabinet. Currently we staff the cabinet entirely with political appointees. I intend to replace all of these, at the cabinet level and at the agency head level, with career long-term service professionals from the varied agencies. Who better to know realistically the mechanics of the organization? Now, it’s never possible to completely separate politics from administration. Unfortunately, they are hopelessly interwoven. But you can improve accountability by having professionals doing the job of heading their respective departments. To me, that is a key feature of a plan to get things done in the Oval Office. Now, lobbying remains a serious problem at the legislative level. It’s not going to be something we can phase out easily because basically you’re asking legislators to legislate themselves out of the perks and the trappings of office to which they’ve become accustomed, even addicted really. But what you can do is, well, if you’ll pardon the expression, trading influence. They have their priorities at the legislative level. You have the power of the veto as president. If I refuse to pass a budget that includes something that I know to be wasteful, or fails to include something that I know to be constructive and restorative of democracy, then once again we’re observing the check-and-balance system without overreaching your responsibilities and overreaching your authority.

Koko: All right, 786, did you have another question?

786: I did have a second question, but I think it was answered over the course of the first question. My question was, realistically, this is something I’ve always wondered about third party candidates including Ross Perot when he ran for office. I wondered, realistically, come on. In our history there’s always been a Republican or Democrat or some form of their party in the Oval Office. There’s never been a third party candidate, and a third party candidate never really came close.

Koko: Hang on, 786, wasn’t there the Whig Party in the early 1800s?

786: I think that was a forerunner of one of the present parties, wasn’t it?

Koko: I don’t know, Bob, but they weren’t the Democratic or Republican Party or the two party system. They weren’t part of it. Anyway, Alan Augustson, you can answer 786’s question.

Alan Augustson: You’re talking about the viability of a third party candidate? Well, it really depends upon the voters. It depends on how fed up we all are with business as usual in the White House. It depends upon whether we can rally the non-voters to get their butts out there to the polling stations. It depends upon whether we can unite the Greens and Libertarians and other people of reason who are sick to death of the two-party stranglehold. In other words, as I’ve said elsewhere you can say “No, Unless” or you can say “Yes, If.” I choose the latter. I choose to hope.

[Procedural talk on the quality of the phone connection]

786: Can I just make a point? What I’m proposing is that the reason why the Republican and the Democrats own the elections every single time that there’s an election, why they’re the frontrunners, is that they’re steeped in politics, they’re steeped in all kinds of issues that get away from the ideal, and what it sounds like to me is that most of the candidates on this debate are talking in the world of ideal. What American politics has borne out throughout our history is that government is far from ideal. And so I want to know how practically you propose to bridge the gap between your idealism and the practical
ities of winning an election here in the United States.

Koko: Steve Kubby, you can answer that question.

Steve Kubby: I’m not only the only member of this debate, but I’m the only … I’m giving my response. What I’m trying to say is that I have a track record of doing exactly this, of presenting a real alternative to voters, and getting that passed. I’m talking about California’s medical marijuana law. And the lesson from this is that people need a real choice. They haven’t had real choices on the ballot. One thing that’s going to change all this is the internet, because the internet changes everything. When the president
ial candidates are having their debate, people will be able to hear my response. You know, I gave my response on behalf of the Libertarian Party to George Bush’s State of the Union address this January, and we literally burned out a server. The server was overloaded. They couldn’t handle all the traffic of people who wanted to hear an alternative view. And now with the internet, we have an opportunity for that alternative view to finally get out, and we know, we know by the dismal turnout that we have on election day that a majority of citizens are disenfranchised and discouraged and disheartened by the abysmal choices that they’re given. You know, they’re really asked to choose between the lesser of two evils in the current process. And guess what? You’re still left with evil if you have to choose between those two. Voters want a real choice, and we have not had an opportunity as third parties to get our message out and to be heard. But now, in the age of the internet, voters are showing their sophistication. They can look up the entire voting record of any individual. They can google any individual and find out what kind of skeletons are in the closet, what kind of accomplishments are under their belt, what kind of track record they have in actually passing pro-freedom legislation such as I have done. So this is where third parties are gonna gain the recognition, the momentum, and the support needed to finally break through this deliberate logjam that has been created by Republicans and Democrats who consistency throw up barriers to third parties and call it some kind of improvement in the election law, some kind of advancement. It’s not at all that. But fortunately, the internet will empower voters. It will empower real alternative candidates and we will see dramatic changes now because people do not want what we have now. And they understand that America stands for something more.

Koko: All right. Wayne Allyn Root, your turn to answer it.

Wayne Allyn Root: Well, I hope Steve is right. I do agree with him that the internet gives us more possibilities than the third party candidates ever had, and I do believe there are many people who are disenfranchised. I do agree with that whole first part of what he said. Where I’m a skeptic is that in the end it still comes down to money. You can have no money and you can spend the rest of your life ranting and raving on the internet and you’ll get a following and you’ll get a lot of disenfranchised people, and you’ll get 1 percent of the vote. The end result is the person that’s gonna win this election is gonna spend hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps as much as a half billion to a billion if it’s Michael Bloomberg as a third party candidate, just to give you an example of someone that the media thinks has an opportunity here. The real truth is that Ron Paul has electrified a certain disenfranchised section of the electorate in his debate performances, and people are buzzing about him on the internet, and I’ve seen multiple internet sites that Ron Paul is one of the most googled men in the entire world in the last month, and he’s more googled than any other candidate running for president, so when you base it on that, Steve Kubby’s right. There’s no question the internet gets your message out. Having said that, I just went to the latest Rasmussen poll, well regarded, the poll that everyone assumes is right on the money for who’s going to win the presidency, and Ron Paul has 1 percent vote totals. Despite being the most googled man of any presidential candidate! The fact is the internet, I think, fools people into believing that you know with out $100 million you still have a chance! The end result is, the message gets out because of money. Ron Paul’s 1 percent puts him in a grouping with Tancredo, Brownback and Huckabee, three other people that nobody cares about, nobody’s voting for, they have absolutely no chance, and the reason why is that all four of them — Ron Paul, Tancredo, Huckabee and Brownback — have no money. The difference, I think, I can make is #1, I’m a media magnet, I get on Fox News, I get on CNN, I get on MSNBC, all the time, without running for president, and here I will be on non-stop. I’m fighting right now to get a reality show about my presidential run. If that happens I’ll be in Americans’ living rooms every single week leading up to the election. I’m fighting right now to get a major book deal in New York, my new book called The Conscience of a Libertarian, and I’m gonna rally, it’s estimated somewhere between ten and thirty million Americans are online poker fans, and online gamblers, and for those who don’t know my background, the media’s called me the King of Vegas and America’s Oddsmaker. I produced quite a few gaming television shows including King of Vegas on SpikeTV and Wayne Allyn Root’s Winning Edge on the Discovery Channel. Millions of American gamblers and poker players know my name, respect me, I have credibility with them, and I you know caught fire the same way. I guess Ron Paul caught fire with the disenfranchised; I caught fire with poker players. In non-stop articles for the last month, saying that we finally have a voice for Internet freedom with Wayne Root. And there’s thirty — up to thirty million people who love online poker and online gaming and I think I’m finally going to make a difference for that group. I can get them to come to the polls. I can get them to contribute money. I can get them excited. I can get their support. So I think there’s an opportunity for a third party candidate to you know finally make a difference, but again, not to win the White House, but to start a movement to catch fire to get in the news, to get people excited, to get credibility for the Libertarian Party in 2008 and have a real chance to win the White House in 2012 2016 or eve
n as far off as 2020. That’s the reality of how important it is to be able to raise $100 million or more. Even with everything I’ve just said, I don’t believe a third party candidate has a chance to win in this election. But if they build a name, then four, eight or even sixteen years from now, yeah, they might have a chance. And I think I’m the one who will.

Koko: George Phillies, your turn to answer the question.

George PhilliesWell, first of all, historically, we and most of the country, we have first past the post voting and that means you generally end up with either two parties or one party. Could be a different party in different states. That’s why we started out with the Federalists and the Whigs, the first presidential father-son team, the Adams father and son killed the Federalists. The Whigs fell apart in the 1850s and we picked up a third party, the Republicans. And the Republicans moved very quickly from a third-party status to a top-two party status. Now sometimes we do get a change you can’t see. The Republican Party of today is the opposite of the Republican Party of 1950. In 1950 Republicans didn’t get any votes at all in the south. Now the Republicans are dominantly a southern party. A Republican candidate in ‘52, if they had debates and he said didn’t he believe in evolution, would have been laughed off the stage. And that’s not what happened when we had our anti-evolutionist speak up in the recent Republican debate. You can build third parties into successful first parties, and if you look around the world it happens fairly regularly. What do you need to do that? #1, voter base, people who vote for you. #2, local organizations that do the hard leather to shoe work of voting and getting people out to the polls. #3, advertising and outreach and that’s where money comes in. But you can’t buy success. Ross Perot somewhat demonstrated this. You can use money to move a few people in the middle. You can use money to an extent to terrify your voter base so they show up, and you can use people, your money, maybe, to discourage the other guy’s voter base as the Swift Boat campaign demonstrated so dramatically. But money by itself does not buy you things. You need local organization. You need a strong party organization at every level. That is what I am running to do. To move the Libertarian Party to be far stronger in 2009 than it is now in 2007. With volunteer organizations, with a developed fundraising base that stays loyal to its party, with voters who realize that there is a reason to vote for Libertarians. Now Wayne raises an interesting issue with internet poker players. That’s why my campaign just launched a fundraising drive targeting specifically internet poker players. However the truth of the matter is, the Libertarian Party has been doing these special interest campaigns on a regular basis. We also have gone after marijuana smokers. We also have gone after gun owners. And you know, yeah, there are a hundred million or two hundred million gun owners. There are a hundred million people who smoke pot. There were 40 million internet gamblers, but you have to ask for how many of them is that the critical decisive issue that determines how they vote. I mean, there’s even a gay Republican group, and the Republican party loathes the GLBT community. They should be coming over to us. They’re as natural a target as internet gamblers are, and it’s very hard to get people actually to decide they’ll support a third party until they see a credible candidate in a credible profession, a longtime party activist, someone who has been around who you know you can trust. And you do this one step at a time, and that is how third parties succeed. The Greens were doing this with Ralph Nader until someone decided they should have a bad conscience about maybe causing Mr. Gore to lose. Well, those weren’t his votes. It was required for him to earn them, and we have people who are afraid we might cause a Republican to lose. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a great thing. Our third party succeeds by driving the Republican party into being a southern religious party with little influence in the rest of the country. And that is how a third party moves forward by becoming one of the two major parties.

Koko: All right, let me take someone here. 989, you’re on the air.

989: Hi, I have a really simple question. State the answer very succinctly. How much money is each candidate willing to personally commit to his race? What would the fundraising goal be for each candidate, and what is the minimum that they can guarantee they’ll be able to raise?

Koko: Alan Augustson, your turn to answer this question.

Alan Augustson: I’m simply in no position to be able to answer that at this time. The fundraising is simply not happening just yet. I’m getting the message out, people are responding, but they’re not responding with dollars at this time. That needs to change in order for us to make serious headway.

Koko: Wayne Allyn Root.

Wayne Allyn Root: Well, I think if you look at the major party candidates, John McCain is not putting his own money into the campaign. Rudy Giuliani is not putting his own money into the campaign. Hillary Clinton is not putting her own money into the campaign. I’m not sure about John Edwards. I know Barack Obama is not a wealthy guy and is not putting his own money… Mitt Romney is the only one who is putting his own money into the campaign; I think he’s putting about somewhere between $5 and $10 million so far, and of course he’s supposedly worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 to $400 million so who knows what he’s willing to put in, but my answer is I don’t think it is any candidate’s responsibility to guarantee a certain amount of fundraising. I don’t think there’s any possibility any of us on this phone now can guarantee a certain amount of fundraising and I don’t think anyone has any idea what they’re gonna come up with. I know people have an idea of what they think they’ll come up,