Liberty Alone

In a move which, whilst its perfectly legal, promises to make a mockery of the whole primary process, Hillary Clinton’s campaign has declared that it will seek to persuade (aka bribe) pledged delegates from Obama if she doesn’t have enough to win.

This completely goes against what most see as the idea of primaries and caucuses which is to select delegates for the DNC who will vote as they have pledged to.

Given the depth of feeling which the prospect of the Super Delegates deciding the candidate in opposition to popular vote has drawn this is a potentially explosive scenario.

Of course, the Republicans will be rubbing their hands with glee. Their problems seem tiny compared with the potential chaos of the DNC. McCain will be praying that Hillary will do this, given her lower ratings against him already and the dislike she evokes, plus the dynasty aspect she’s already the Republican’s favoured candidate. If she wins by alienating a large proportion of Democrats and independents and it looks to be a far easier run for McCain against the Clintons than against Obama.

Reason brings some speculation over less well known pardons by former president Clinton to my attention.

President Clinton pardoned some Puerto Rican terrorists for no apparent reason. It is claimed that the reason was to boost Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Senate.
Pardoning terrorists, outside of a peace deal, is a worrying event and doesn’t exactly give good signals to other terrorists, but to do so for electoral reasons is very worrying.

Clinton’s pardons are recognised as sleazy, along the lines of Bush’s pardon of Scooter Libby, but this stretches my cynicism of politicians to the limit… do politicians really play games like this for electoral advantage?

Thankfully, it seems as though Clinton won’t be benefiting from this largess now as Puerto Rico looks set to pledge all its delegates to Obama.

Hillary Clinton seems to be embracing the dubious ethics which have dogged the Clintons for years.

One of her campaign co-chairs is former judge Alcee Hastings. Hastings was impeached and removed from his position as a Federal Judge for taking bribes.

Former President Clinton then pardoned William Borders who was convicted and gaoled in relation to the Hastings affair.

Considering the long running rumours and allegations which have dogged the Clintons, you’d have thought it might not be her best plan to associate with those impeached and convicted on ethical grounds, but it seems that it doesn’t matter to her.

(Hat tip: Cato-at-liberty)

Its good to see Hillary in third place. Its no secret I cannot stand the woman. Her moralising over the gambling and computer games, her willingness to use government power to ‘help’ people whether they want it or not. This will all lead to more executive power, less oversight and more abuses of power.

Obama is definitely my preferred Democratic candidate (not just because he’s from Chicago), and its good to see he also won most votes from Independents. He’s still not much of a liberal, but he seems to have less of the messianic zeal which Clinton displays. His plans for healthcare are just as bonkers though.

On the Republican side. Well, I’m disappointed with Huckabee winning. He, as others have pointed out, is not a very savoury character and I disagree with everything I’ve heard from him.
Ron Paul getting 10% was nice, even though I increasingly find things I really disagree with him over, he’s still the closest to a liberal candidate there is in the race. He also garnered most independent votes, polling a few percent more than McCain.

It will be interesting to see how this all pans out. I think the most likely outcome I could feel reasonably happy with would be Obama with a Republican congress so they can keep checks on each other.

Ideally I’d love to have a liberal in power with a liberal congress, but considering there’s no liberal candidates, there’s not much chance of that…

She’s no friend of freedom.

She is no liberal, even when you take into account ‘New Liberalism’. Her language is the language of a totalitarian. “There’s no such thing as other people’s children” she asserts - presumably the state should look after all children.

Trifling things like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Throw them out of the window. The poor are incapable of that anyway. (Funny how the poorest in the world are considered ‘happy’ but relatively well off people in the west are somehow incapable of pursuing their own happiness…)

I’m afraid that I simply cannot join the big Hilary Clinton love in. For the simple fact that she is not a liberal.
She’s far more akin to Tony Blair than a liberal and is a big fan of big government (She’s even confessed she’s addicted to government) wants to meddle in people’s lives (for their own good of course) - for example ‘There’s no such thing as other people’s children’.
As with most politicians she’s beholden to special interests (her call for 108% tariffs on chinese candles to protect NY candle makers is as far from liberal as you can get).

Whilst she may want the government out of your bedroom, she wants it well and truly in the rest of your life.

The Democrats are not liberal - they are a party which contains some liberals, just as the Republican party is - unfortunately the liberals in both parties are for the most part ignored by the rest of the party.

I shall be hoping that Ron Paul R-TX, a libertarian can do very well. A long shot perhaps, but he’d be a great breath of fresh air. He’s a liberal in the original US sense, in the tradition of Jefferson. He believes power should rest with the States. On issues like abortion and same sex marriage, he is against them, but wishes each state to decide, who is he to regulate people’s lives like that?
Whilst I do not agree with all his beliefs, he at least holds the fundamental tenets of liberalism at his heart - that individuals should be free to pursue their own destiny (not withstanding harm to others) and that state interference should be minimal.