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WILMINGTON, Del. The teleprompters were set, the patriotic decorations assembled, and onlookers had been waiting for hours. Still, as the light faded behind an oversize American flag and the evening grew chilly, there was no sign of Joseph R. Biden Jr. on the elaborate stage from which his fans hoped he would declare victory.

And so last Friday concluded the way the previous three days had: After hours of anticipation among Mr. Bidens supporters, a flurry of preparations by his team and mounting Democratic hopes for Biden beats Trump headlines, everyone in the vicinity of the Westin hotel in Wilmington, Del., would be left waiting on the result of the presidential campaign, again.

Democracy is sometimes messy, Mr. Biden said last week. It sometimes requires a little patience as well.

Or, perhaps, a lot of patience. Certainly, some of Mr. Bidens earliest supporters had been waiting at least since his first presidential bid, in the 1988 campaign, to see him win the White House, so perhaps they were used to it. But not everyone had been standing by for quite so long, and the lurching uncertainty of what turned into an election week was an especially intense and vivid experience for Democratic staff members, Biden friends and family members, as well as journalists who spent much of the last week in Wilmington, near Mr. Bidens home.

For the second time in three months, international attention turned to this city of around 70,000 along the Delaware River, where the Amtrak station is named for the president-elect and seemingly everyone has a story about running into one member of the Biden clan or another.

Wilmington first readied itself for prime time in the presidential campaign in August. The city hosted the culmination of the largely virtual Democratic National Convention, featuring in-person fireworks and a drive-in rally here after Mr. Biden accepted the nomination, but the event was over as advertised after that.

Last week, the spotlight stretched on as one election night extravaganza turned into four days of waiting before a winner was called.

On the original election night, last Tuesday, longtime Biden fans and neighbors showed up to a drive-in rally hoping to watch him and Senator Kamala Harris declare a landslide victory. They left anxious and edgy as President Trump prevailed in Florida instead, with the presidential race uncalled. Biden staff members who had plainly been expecting a valedictory speech that night were terse with the reporters who chased after them in the subsequent hours.

As the vote count stretched on in key battlegrounds across the country, the days in Wilmington settled into something of a rhythm, much like a day spent waiting in an airport for a long-delayed flight.

In the morning, the Biden team would project confidence and sometimes preview remarks, of some kind, from Mr. Biden. Throughout the day, mask-wearing journalists would scramble after sources who walked through the lobby of the Westin, momentary bursts of physical activity in an environment where leaving the security perimeter even for a sandwich or a mandatory coronavirus test was risky, in case news about a state came in.

Yet if any members of the news media or campaign staff felt nostalgic for the rituals of pre-pandemic political reporting, which often involved waiting around to corner someone in person instead of on a campaign-managed conference call, the bonus days of the election offered glimpses of that era.

At night, everyone waited.

The home base for the festivities was the Chase Center on the Riverfront, an event center near the Christina River or, more specifically, the parking lot outside, which was transformed into the home of a drive-in gathering on election night, and then a second gathering on Saturday night once the race had been called by news organizations. Inside the center itself, Mr. Biden gave occasional remarks, urging patience and projecting calm even as his aides and donors grew increasingly impatient.

The lobby of the Westin next to the Chase Center became ground zero for spotting Biden aides and allies an unfamiliar activity, given the virtual nature of the campaign for many months. In Democratic politics, it quickly became the most famous hotel lobby east of the Des Moines Marriott, traditionally an epicenter of political activity before the Iowa caucuses.

Steve Ricchetti, a longtime adviser, whirled through on Friday evening. Anita Dunn, a senior adviser, and Bob Bauer, the former White House counsel, dipped in and out. Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware and a close Biden ally, regularly held impromptu news conferences. Members of Mr. Bidens team who typically sparred with reporters by phone or on television were swarmed for their latest in-person intel.

The entire area was turned into a fortified compound for election night and the days that followed, with imposing fencing keeping out the public. Outside the security barrier, Biden supporters sat on lawn chairs and at least one father and son slept in a car, hoping to get close enough to glimpse a possible president-elect. The onlookers traded Biden signs and shared doughnuts, and lucked out with unseasonably warm fall weather as the wait stretched on.

There was at least one casualty of election night turning into election week: an enormous American flag that hung from two cranes. After it had ripped and been mended once, it ripped again, and eventually a replacement flag was hoisted in its place.

On Saturday morning, 48 years to the day that Mr. Biden was first elected to the Senate, his sister, Valerie Biden Owens, walked through the Westin lobby.

Its wonderful, she told a small group of reporters as she walked out the door. Its a wonderful thing for us, but its a better thing for America.

A few minutes later, CNN called the race for her brother.

On the streets outside the security barrier, drivers leaned on their horns in celebration, passers-by responded with cheers and the smell of cigar smoke wafted.

And inside the Chase Center parking lot, attendees who had waited days to celebrate Mr. Biden at a drive-in rally were ready to display their joy. They waved glow sticks, affixed Biden signs to their cars and, in at least one case, left a Champagne bottle perched on top of a vehicle.

Mr. Biden opened his own remarks the most important speech of his life by giving the world an introduction to Delaware politics.

Delawareans! he said. I see my buddy Senator Tom Carper down there, and I think Senator Coons is there, and I think the governors around.

Is that Ruth Ann? he asked to cheers, referring to former Gov. Ruth Ann Minner.

At the end of his speech, the sky lit up with another name.

Biden, read the lights in the sky, courtesy of a drone light show. President Elect.

The rest is here:
Democracy Required Kind of a Lot of Patience, Actually - The New York Times

GREENVILLE, SC (WSPA)Were hearing from this years Libertarian presidential candidate, Jo Jorgensen, who lives right here in the Upstate.

She tells 7-news she will continue her movement, even after President-Elect Joe Biden was declared the presumptive winner on Saturday.

Voters in every state in America, saw Dr. Jorgensens name on their ballots as a presidential candidate this year.

Well the timing just worked out and I wouldve run earlier, Dr. Jorgensen said.

Little did they know, the Libertarian candidate lives right here in the Upstate and is a full-time professor of psychology at Clemson University. She has been a full-time Senior Lecturer at the university since 2006.

However, never mentioned to my students that I was running for president, but some of them of course had figured it out. And so, I would sometimes say, Im here from beautiful downtown Seattle or Alaska, but I wouldnt say why, Jorgensen said. In fact, I just had a student, two weeks ago emailed me and said, I just put two and two together and realized that my Psychology professor is running for president. And he said he and his girlfriend were both going to vote for me, she said.

Right now, Jorgensen has over one percent of Americas votes. She said this shows many Americans wanted another alternative.

I think if people, if wed had not such a contentious race, I think I couldve gotten a lot more votes, but despite the fact that so many people were angry, they said you know what, I dont want either one of them and they voted for us, Jorgensen said.

About 75% of Jorgensens campaign volunteers were from outside the Libertarian party. She now wants to continue the momentum and put the third party on the map.

I want to keep that momentum going and Id like to start keeping the democrats and republicans honest, and say hey, if youre not going to follow through with what you said youd do, then you going to start losing your votes. The votes that youre so arrogant enough to think you own, Jorgensen said.

While votes are still being counted, Dr. Jorgensen said she hopes her movement will continue to spread throughout the nation.

That voters understand that they know better how to spend their money and they know better that the decisions that their family needs than any special interest of lobbyist or bureaucrat in Washington and that people should be making their own decisions and not politicians in Washington, Jorgensen said. Right now, weve got a one size fits all, where from Washington, theyre telling us how to run our education, how to run our police, and everything else. These should be up to state and local communities, and then other decisions should be left up to the individual, she added.

Dr. Jorgensen was previously the Libertarian partys Vice-President nominee in 1996, with Harry Browne as her running mate. Jorgensen said shes unsure if she will run again, but will keep her website up and see what happens.

Read more here:
Libertarian presidential candidate reflects on 2020 election campaign; looks towards the future - WSPA 7News

Lots of people on the left and right found reasons to be a little unhappy, or downright miserable, about the election. The Republican Party lost the White House; Democrats have lost ground in the House, and their path to a Senate majority seems very narrow.

But there is one group of people unreservedly happy even ecstatic about the results: those who lean libertarian.

They got almost everything they wanted. On the one hand, Joe Biden has a friendlier record on trade and immigration, and on the other, they avoided the burst of spending that inevitably comes with unified control of the federal government.

Old-school debt and deficit hawks will also be pleased, too, but libertarians are ecstatic. As one writer at Reason wondered, perhaps speaking for many libertarians, Is this the greatest election of my lifetime?

In the early years of the Trump administration, with Republicans in control of Congress, the country saw a steady rise in spending and ballooning deficits and debt. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas might not have been quite right when he said that, after all, President Trump didnt campaign on cutting the debt. Actually, Mr. Trump did, but in a throwaway manner, while putting more stress on continued, even increased, big spending and debt.

And as is so often the case with one-party control, as in Mr. Trumps first years, big spending took hold. According to the Cato Institute, over Mr. Trumps four years, spending went up by a total of 10 percent. Something similar happened under George W. Bush: Spending shot up 24 percent.

But what really seems like an effective arrangement for controlling spending is a Democratic president with Republicans in charge of at least one body of Congress. During the first four years of the Barack Obama and Bill Clinton administrations, both of which included years of split control of government, spending was more restrained or even reduced. Under Mr. Clinton, spending inched up only 3 percent. In Mr. Obamas first term, total spending actually went down by 10 percent.

There are ways beyond the budget that a Biden presidency could be a boon to libertarians. Mr. Trump was a disaster when it came to free trade, kicking off a huge trade war with China and renegotiating NAFTA so that it contained more protectionist, anti-free-market measures like wage controls.

By contrast, Mr. Biden will probably cut a more pro-trade profile. Congressional Republicans and Democrats were reluctant to give Mr. Trump trade negotiating authority, but they are more likely to give Mr. Biden that authority than they are to withhold it (despite some pressure from the partys progressives like Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez).

Mr. Biden is likely to pursue pro-immigration reforms and policies, both in the realm of regulation and administrative practice as well as in terms of legislation. Libertarians never liked the mechanism by which President Obama established the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, but they also hated President Trumps dismantling of it as well as his major cuts to legal immigration, big spending for a border wall and more.

Libertarians view legal immigration, and especially high-skilled workers, as an economic boon to the country and like that free trade keeps prices down for American consumers and extends our opportunities to sell abroad.

And there is also Mr. Bidens record. Sure, he made campaign proposals for a health care public option and spending on climate programs. But he has a reputation for tough fiscal discipline relative to the rest of his party.

As vice president, he helped resolve spending stalemates and government shutdowns with that ultimate spending-slashing tool that big-spending Democrats and Republicans hated but libertarians loved: sequestration, or automatic spending caps.

As a senator, he worked hard to keep the deficit and debt under control. To take a couple of examples, in the mid-1990s, he voted for a constitutional amendment that would require the federal government to balance its budget a position that put him at odds with a majority of the Democratic caucus. In 1997, he voted yes on a Republican budget that cut both taxes and spending.

With a Biden presidency, a McConnell-dominated Senate and a less Democratic House, libertarians get the best possible outlook on spending, debt and deficits, and these other important policy areas while also perhaps preventing far-left nominees for important executive roles and dodging the specter of court packing.

The election will be deeply disappointing to die-hard Trumpers, Democrats hoping for a landslide and Never Trumpers eager to see the Republican Party burn. Thats a lot of people, probably even most voters.

But for some of us, it will be a win a silver lining out of the countrys political divisions.

Liz Mair (@LizMair), a strategist for campaigns by Scott Walker, Roy Blunt, Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina and Rick Perry, is the founder and president of Mair Strategies.

Continue reading here:
Why the Election Worked Out Well for Libertarians and Deficit Hawks - The New York Times

It has been a tumultuous week for all Americans, but conservative students at Seattle University have had a particularly interesting week.

The Seattle U Conservative Student Union (SUCU) held a watch party over Zoom Nov. 3 to observe the ballots roll in from across the country.

While the group was smallonly seven peoplethey were a tight-knit and consistent group of like-minded individuals.

The group was designed as a space for students with certain political viewpoints to come together in a city that consistently is more liberal-leaning. According to Matthew Wald, a third year nursing student and president of SUCU, the club is both welcoming of and open to communication with the entire Seattle U community.

As the ballot count began, several students pointed out that not everyone in the club was completely satisfied with the Republican party, nor candidate President Trump.

I think we are at a point now where tensions are really high. I think people are more likely to jump to conclusions and assume an extremist perspective of the other side, Wald said. People need to remember that this election is not the end-all be-all of our future.

Activism is activismno matter if you are left or right-wing, Wald continued. We have students that got out and helped for a variety of different elections, with canvassing or other volunteering. There are students advocating for tons of different causes, and I truly think that everyone wants the best, we just might not agree on how to go about fixing problems.

Seattle Us chapter of the Federalist Society, a group of conservative and libertarian students, hosted an event Nov. 6 with Dale Carpenter, a professor of constitutional law and LGBTQ rights. The Zoom event, addressed emerging threats to free speech on college campuses, enabled students to voice common concerns over potential university infringements on free speech rights.

President Donald Trump also signed an executive order March 22 of 2019 titled, Improving Free Inquiry, Transparency and Accountability at Colleges and Universities. In his speech announcing the decision, he specifically cited far-right activists who are increasingly popular amongst young conservatives, such as Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens.

Under the guise of speech codes and safe spaces and trigger warnings, these universities have tried to restrict free thought, impose total conformity and shut down the voices of great young Americans, Trump said.

Carpenter elaborated on these fears, and spoke to a small group of students who share President Trumps concern about free speech.

University policy should seek to establish an environment that is free of sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia and other kinds of prejudice, Carpenter said. But no person or group merely by claiming offense should be able to bring down the disciplinary machinery of the university.

Seattle Federalist Society President Afton Gregson expressed worry that conservative and libertarian students are being labeled in negative ways.

Everybody will say, well youre against this, youre against gay marriage, youre against abortion, and theres a centrist element here that people miss, and people are ultimatley alienated by the fact that people ascribe them labels that arent necessarily true, which has been a challenge on campus here too, Gregson said.

Isabell Rocha, a JD candidate for the class of 22 and Vice President of the Federalist Society, went to bed the night of the election stressed with little information as to who the next president would be. Although Rocha is glad the election is over, she felt as though it was a messy election, and would like to see what courts rule on the election allegations put forth by President Trump.

Washington State has always been mail-in for a few years now, and the fact that the Trump administration pushed back against states that also wanted to do mail-in [voting], I see that type of claim credible because it was being rushed, Rocha said. However, claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election are unsubstantiated at the moment.

In terms of moving forward, Rocha expects the country to stay politically divided throughout the next presidency, but hopes that President Trump will concede for the sake of the Republican party.

I think itll reflect really badly on the Republican Party if he doesnt concede and puts up a fight, Rocha said. I think right now, as a whole in the nation, Republicans really need to reevaluate who theyre putting up as candidates and how we represent ourselves. Because right now, it just doesnt look good.

While the election has been called by various news outlets, conservative, libertarian and non-left leaning Seattle U students are waiting to see how the rest of this transition will move forward, as is the rest of the country.

Originally posted here:
Conservative, Libertarian and Non-Left Seattle University Students React to Election Week - The Spectator

Hide the kids and liquor. Libertarians have been heard from again.

It didn't take long to figure out Arkansas' votes back on Tuesday. Before the night was over, folks here had given six electoral votes to President Trump, approved a permanent road tax, and rejected more restrictions for ballot measures.

Tom Cotton handily won re-election. As everybody knew he would. The Republican senator didn't have a Democratic challenger (or at least didn't have one for long). Democrats around Arkansans are still fuming that their guy signed up and then dropped out a couple hours later.

So folks of a certain political stripe--the stripe that would have liked to have sent Tom Cotton packing--turned their attention to a man who, in a frank acknowledgement, wouldn't have received that much attention if Joshua Mahony had stayed in the race.

The Libertarians across Arkansas are a rowdy bunch. And persistent. Which makes them true Arkansans. Libertarians have to get petitions signed to make it onto the ballot every election, and by golly, they show up year after year.

This year, Ricky Dale Harrington became Sen. Cotton's main opponent. He ran a campaign on a shoestring budget and came up just short of 400,000 votes, according to preliminary numbers. But you also have to acknowledge that he got more than 394,000 votes. That's pretty good for a Libertarian candidate. In any race. Ever.

It's also more votes than former Sen. Mark Pryor got running for re-election when Mr. Cotton first beat him in 2014. Mr. Pryor got 334,174 votes that year, and Libertarian Nathan LaFrance got 17,210. But there's no silver and bronze medals in political campaigns.

Even Libertarians will admit that they aren't exactly mainstream. Yet. (Then again, once upon a time the Republicans weren't a mainstream party, either. Then a man named Lincoln came along.)

Some ideas floated by our Libertarian friends are indeed strange, not to mention unworkable. But America needs them, bless their small(est) government hearts. They pull starboard even when the right leans left. Most of the time.

You see, right and left don't mean much to the average Libertarian. The glue that binds them together is that the government is best that governs least. The very, very least. They can make Republicans look like socialists. (And sometimes even say that.) And they can make Democrats look like arch conservatives.

Their position on the issues? Sometimes on target. Sometimes foolhardy. Like everybody's thoughts.

Legalizing all drugs? Well, we are looking at Oregon this election cycle, and that state has decriminalized the possession of small amounts of cocaine and heroin. So the Libertarian position is creeping up on the mainstream. If Oregon can be considered mainstream. Let's hope it's not, and that state doesn't come to regret its position.

On foreign policy, the Libertarians hold the Fortress America position. Which didn't work before Dec. 7, 1941, or before Sept. 11, 2001. But a particular incumbent, sitting president has moved in that direction for a couple of years. So it's catching on again. (Sigh.)

So are Libertarians malcontents, or ahead of public opinion by a few years? Why not both? For the record, malcontents have been making waves in United States politics even before there was a United States. And the country needs Libertarians. When Democrats are anti-choice on education but pro-choice on abortion, and Republicans are pro-government regulation on flag burning but anti-government regulation on gun registration, a body gets a little hungry for consistency.

Arkansas PBS held debates for the congressional candidates this year, and Tom Cotton didn't show up to debate Ricky Dale Harrington. Which made political sense. Tom Cotton is a smart politician.

Nonetheless, Mr. Harrington was there, and had some memorable quotes throughout the night, including:

"If you remember those who disagree with you are still human beings, we don't have to agree on everything. If everyone is thinking alike, then is there really that much thinking going on? Our differences make us stronger."

Every once in a while, the Libertarians are dead-on right. This was another one of those times. His comment reminds us of one of our favorite quotes from our favorite curmudgeon H.L. Mencken:

"What I admire most in any man is a serene spirit, a steady freedom from moral indignation, an all-embracing tolerance--in brief, what is commonly called good sportsmanship. Such a man is not to be mistaken for one who shirks the hard knocks of life. On the contrary, he is frequently an eager gladiator, vastly enjoying opposition. But when he fights he fights in the manner of a gentleman fighting a duel, not in that of a longshoreman cleaning out a waterfront saloon. That is to say, he carefully guards his amour propre by assuming that his opponent is as decent a man as he is, and just as honest--and perhaps, after all, right."

We'll keep an eye on Mr. Harrington's future campaigns if he chooses to run again. If the Libertarian stirred such a response with chewing gum and duct tape, it'd be fascinating to watch what he could do with some serious resources.

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OPINION | EDITORIAL: Libertarians in the spotlight - Arkansas Online