Liberty Alone

It seems that she is hated by Alaskan Republicans (the story about her child being her daughter’s originated with Alaskan Republicans).
She’s stood up to the oil interests in Alaska (prompting speculation that this is an attempt to move her on so they can get their way), which I think she deserves some respect for.

I rather like the sound of ‘Upper Wingnuttia’ (aka Matanuska-Susitna Valley) where she comes from, it sounds like a rather wacky place of free spirited individuals (even if they sound totally bonkersm, and a little bit scary, its a refreshing change from Washington lawyers).

As for the Alaskan Independence Party, they sound interesting. Small government and offering the people of Alaska a choice about their status.

She really is a maverick whereas McCain pretends to be one.

(this is not an endorsement of her. I just think there is some good mixed in with the plentiful bad)

Who are you to vote for?

McCain the mad war mongering authoritarian leads the GOP, a party of big government, interference in the economy and your personal lives.

Obama leads the charge for the Democrats with the rhetoric of hope but the same old politics. The Democrats wish to regulate your life and ‘fix’ health care by further destroying it.

Both parties seem keen on raising oil prices as a fix for high prices and they both engage in doublespeak and newspeak. The Republicans calling restricting freedom protecting it, the Democrats call moves to give unions more powers over workers freeing workers.

I pity the poor liberal in America, beset from all sides with special interests and having a choice of statist authoritarians on both sides.

In practice I think Obama has the edge, but not by much, but he at least ticks more of the anti-war and civil libertarian boxes.

Both provide predictions for the outcome. One based upon prediction markets, the other based upon polling.

First up is electoralmap.net which uses the state of play on Intrade’s prediction markets to generate a map of the likely outcomes in each state and overall.
There’s historical maps too so you can see how the market is changing over time.

Second is fivethirtyeight.com which is a really interesting take on poll analysis.
The polls are weighted based upon the track record of the polling company, sample size and how recent the data is. They then perform some regression estimates to reduce the effects of outlier polls and finally they simulate 10,000 elections based upon this data.
I’m not sure how well this works, not being a statistician or a polling expert, but its an interesting approach.

Both have shown a swing to Obama recently, although it is obviously still early days in the campaign (despite what it feels like…).

Its not just the Democrats who’re having an interesting race for presidential nomination. The Libertarian Party is too.

Various factions are up against each other (in what I’m sure is a fairly common scenario).
A lot of this is probably due to the candidacy of Bob Barr, a former Republican Congressman from Georgia. I share the view of many that he is not really a libertarian, but more of a small government conservative. The argument in his favour is that he would not be so extreme as other candidates might, but his candidacy is also seen as an attempt of the right to take over the party.

Personally my preferred candidate is Dr Mary Ruwart. She’s an impressively articulate libertarian and makes the left-wing case for libertarianism very very well (that is the policies will benefit the disadvantaged most). I do understand the reformists point, but I think that education and getting libertarian views heard is more important than just getting votes in an election you cannot win…

Mike Gravel is also standing, having left the Democrats, so in celebration of that fact, here’s another bizarre YouTube video from him…

Despite some serious misgivings about Obama’s economics and some of his domestic policy, I think he’s rapidly becoming my preferred candidate.
This is largely to do with his foreign policy. McCain and Clinton are both militaristic in outlook. They are concerned with perception of strength and the use of force.
Obama on the other hand appears more willing to negotiate and to talk:

“Here’s the truth: the Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons and Iran doesn’t have a single one. But when the world was on the brink of nuclear holocaust, Kennedy talked to Khrushchev and he got those missiles out of Cuba. Why shouldn’t we have the same courage and the confidence to talk to our enemies? That’s what strong countries do, that’s what strong presidents do, that’s what I’ll do when I’m president of the United States of America.

“So, you know, for all their tough talk, one of the things you have to ask yourself is what are George Bush and John McCain afraid of? Demanding that a country meets all your conditions before you meet with them, that’s not a strategy; it’s just naïve, wishful thinking. I’m not afraid that we’ll lose some propaganda fight with a dictator. It’s time for America to win those battles, because we’ve watched George Bush lose them year after year after year. It’s time to restore our security and our standing in the world.

“And you can vote for John McCain and nothing will change.”

One of the biggest problems the US has is foreign perception. Already many outside the US view Obama as being the best candidate for foreign relations, this sort of rhetoric will enhance that view and will be a great asset even if he doesn’t fully follow through on it.

(HatTip: The Art of the Possible)

This article over at The Free Liberal (a rare use of the term liberal to mean liberal and not socialist in the US there) talks about the way Republicans and conservatives are seeking to divide the Democrats even more by voting for Clinton to keep her campaign going all the way.

It also highlights the way the Republicans are relying on Clinton to attack Obama in ways they dare not for fear of being branded racist.

The other aspect of the article is the troubles within the Republicans and the conservative movement. Many conservatives do not like McCain and would actually prefer a Clinton administration as that would allow conservative Republicans to open up and attack the administration and pursue their agenda whereas if McCain won they’d be attacking their own party and would be far more reluctant to do that.

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.

The Grateful Dead that is…

Here’s some classic Dead from 1969:

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)