Mediaboss Marketing

Almost no one seriously thinks that Sean Haugh will be the next senator from North Carolina. But political observers in both major parties are worried that the pizza deliveryman and Libertarian candidate could siphon enough votes to sway the election, likely to be one of the closest in the country on Tuesday. And stakes couldnt be higher: any one election could determine control of the Senate in 2015.

But which party has more to fear from Haugh? Kentucky Senator Rand Paul campaigned for Republican nominee Thom Tillis in early October, a move seen as an attempt to shore up Libertarian-leaning Republican voters. More recently, the American Future Fund, a conservative outside spending group, bet $225,000 that Haugh could flip the election in the Republicans with an ad campaign focused on his unembarrassed enthusiasm for marijuana, aimed to draw away younger supporters of Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan.

Though Haugh is currently polling at around 5 percentmore than the margin between Tillis and Haganhe is very unlikely to spoil anything other than the hopes of a few misled pot smokers. While the threat of spoiler candidates makes for breathless headlines and titillating front-page reads, the real odds of this happening are extremely slim.

For starters, it is very rare for a Congressional contest to be decided by a margin small enough for a third-party candidate to make a difference. Of the 1,873 elections that TIME examinedevery House and Senate race going back to 2006, not including special elections and runoffsonly 70 were won with less than 50 percent of the vote. A Libertarian candidate ran in 46 of them.

The threat of a spoiler candidate is further exaggerated by the common assumption that third-party voters would otherwise turn up at the polls at all.

Thats the old style to think about voting, says Stanford professor Jon Krosnick, a social psychologist and polling expert. Weve now come to recognize that the candidates influence turnout. The presence of the third-party candidate can lure people to vote who otherwise wouldnt have voted at all.

Its impossible to know with any precision how people would have behaved without the presence of a third-party candidate. Even asking them in polls is unreliable, given that pollsters typically report unrealistically high turnout figures when they ask people if they voted.

The picture is confounded yet further by the fact that a distaste for the major parties is often the motivation that draw a person to a third-party candidate in the first place.

Thats a view shared by Emily Salvette, who drew 10,630 votes as a Libertarian in the 2012 race for Michigans 1st District. I do honestly think that a lot of people wouldnt have voted, she says. Theyre not engaged anymore because they dont like the choice. The Republican in that contest, Congressman Dan Benishek, edged out his Democratic challenger by 1,881 votes.

Depending whose base you think Salvette drew from, you might call her either a spoiler or nearly one. But Salvette says she saw support from voters with a variety of viewpoints, including people who supported her views on everything from medical marijuana to gun rights.

Follow this link:
These 9 Slides Show the Surprisingly Low Impact of Libertarian Candidates

Blair YankeyWestern Herald Intern

Libertarian candidate Scotty Boman will make his second run for lieutenant governor alongside running mate gubernatorial candidate Mary Buzuma in the Nov. 4 election.

Scotty Boman Photo Courtesy

Boman is a Detroit native and a Western Michigan University alumnus. He earned his bachelors degree with a double major in physics and philosophy and a minor in mathematics in 1985, followed by a masters degree in atomic physics in 1987.

In 2006, he was gubernatorial candidate Gregory Creswells running mate in the gubernatorial election.He has been a candidate in every statewide partisan election since 1994 when he ran for State Representative in the seventh district.

Boman currently serves as a physics and math instructor at Wayne County Community College and an astronomy and physics instructor at Macomb Community College. He also substitute teaches in a few suburban districts in the Detroit area.

Below, Boman answers questions on topics regarding his qualifications, his plans to keep college graduates in Michigan and the importance of voting among young college students.

Q: What qualities do you believe you have to be lieutenant governor?

A: A passion for individual liberty and an understanding of what that means. I recognize that there is a great abyss between the government Michiganders have and the one [Mary Buzuma and I] would like to see. So I am willing to work with people who dont share our political belief in areas that can move us in the direction of a smaller, less intrusive, government.

I also have some administrative experience on a much smaller scale as former chair of the Libertarian Party of Michigan and as vice chair. I have also served on my student council when I attended graduate school at Wayne State University. These are small scale examples and we would appoint people who were experts in state government to whom we could delegate tasks.

Read the original:
Libertarian candidate to make second run in the November election

CLEARWATER (FOX 13) -

While Florida Gubernatorial candidates Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Democrat Charlie Crist made their final stops around the state on Monday, Libertarian Adrian Wyllie spent a low-key day at home in Palm Harbor, gearing up for Election Day.

You may not have heard his name as often as Scott or Crist, but for the past two years, Wyllie has been criss-crossing the state, shaking a lot of hands and sharing a couple beers along the way.

"It's been a lot of time on the road," Wyllie said.

He's traveled 100,000 miles to be exact, with just a handful of paid staff members.

"Win or lose, we really think that we've shown the people of Florida that it is a three-party state. The two-party duopoly is over," Wyllie said.

The latest Quinnipiac voters poll projects Wyllie at seven percent, with Crist at 42% and Scott at 41%. That last nine percent goes to the undecided voters.

Monday night, Libertarian groups around the country joined together to drop a "Twitter bomb, flooding the internet with tweets in support of Wyllie and other like-minded candidates.

"We have seen so many people who say they are coming out to vote for the first time, specifically because they feel like they have something to vote for, instead of having to vote for the lesser of two evils," Wyllie said.

Though Barbara Davis of Clearwater is a registered Republican, she finally got fed up with the attack ads -- so she's switching up her vote.

Visit link:
For Libertarian Adrian Wyllie, victory in offering an alternative

Why are progressives so blithe about pressuring Christians to act like non-Christians?
Why are progressives so blithe about pressuring Christians to act like non-Christians?

By: Nj89121

Original post:
Why are progressives so blithe about pressuring Christians to act like non-Christians? - Video

I was born to parents who believed if you didnt vote Democratic you couldnt be buried in the Catholic Church. A family joke is that my first word was vote. The Church would later switch parties. Not me. On Tuesday Ill stand at the polls as I do every year and say that if Democrats win, peoples lives will be better.

Each year its a harder case to make, even to other Democrats. Each year the middle class grows smaller, the democracy grows more corrupt and the chance of stopping global warming in time to save ourselves or our planet grows dimmer. You cant run forever on the slogan Die Slower! Vote Democratic! Times running out on the democracy and the middle class, just as it is on global warming.

In the words of political upstarts everywhere, its time for a change. If it comes, it will be from within the Democratic Party, or rather from the progressives who still reside there. But for all the talk of a populist revolt, progressives have yet to spark one. If Democrats win the Senate on Tuesday, thats unlikely to change. If they lose, progressives might wake up, which would be the best thing to happen to the Democrats in a long time. It may not feel like much consolation, but its true.

Let me be clear. There may be scant evidence of it lately, but it matters who runs the Senate. You dont throw away a race on a theory; who knows if even losing the Senate would be a shock sufficient to revive Democrats? But we do know our politics grows ever more vicious and empty and that we are in desperate need of serious political debate. We know Wall Street colonized the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party colonized the left, and that well have no such debate without a stronger, more independent progressive movement to help set its agenda.

This election has been an insult to democracy. The $4 billion spent on it has tightened the grip of the powerful without moving the needle on a single issue. Its ceaseless squalor has startled a public that thought politics hit rock bottom in the last election. The explosion of Super PAC and 527 dark money is one cause of it, but it only strengthened what is by now a 40-year trend.

Rail all you like against the Supreme Court or the Republicans. It isnt just them. If you ever gave money to a Democrat you get the emails that read like pleas from phishing friends robbed in Majorca who need only your bank routing number to get home: Bill, its seconds till our filing deadline. Our extreme Tea Party opponent has Congressman Bob locked in a basement. Theyve shot Fido. So much is at stake. Please send

Most days thats all you get. October marked the first anniversary of the last government shutdown. Ashamed to find themselves tied with a party so recently found in the throes of lunacy, Democrats kept mum. They routinely fumble issues they once owned. Their spring crusade to raise the minimum wage petered out by fall. They cant talk about corruption on which they feast. They cant talk about climate because they shun topics that require any explanation. So they talk of saving the sensible center from extremists, a familiar line for being the central trope of the Obama administration and the very same promise Republicans make.

Democrats call the election historic but cant say why. Its hard to enlist people to an agenda you cant articulate, or make them care who runs a government that has stopped working. Voters see politics as a cesspool and Congress as a sideshow. So do progressives, yet they act as if the next Democrat in line will get us where we need to go. Heres some really good news: the merry-go-round on which theyre trapped cant run without them. Not only can they get off, but if they do, it stops for good.

Regardless of how Democrats do on Tuesday, many progressives will rush to hop on another horse. Someone should stop them. The time has come for progressives to hit the pause button on electoral politics, to take some time to reexamine their agenda, rethink their strategy and recognize their power. Some thoughts for them to ponder if they do:

Focus First on Policy

The rest is here:
Heres how we beat the right: How progressives withstand Fox News, blast Obama defenders, and chart a new future