Good News For Iowa Third-Party Supporters

Starting in January '08, Iowa voters will be able to register as members of a third party. This comes as a settlement after the ACLU of Iowa slapped a lawsuit on the Iowa Secretary of State, on behalf of the Libertarian Party of Iowa and the Iowa Green Party. (I guess the ACLU doesn't suck ALL the time.)

The parties will still face certain hurdles to qualify. Each party will have to collect at least 850 signatures in at least five counties. For the Libertarian Party that will be no sweat. The old standard, to be recognized as a "legitimate" party by the State of Iowa, was that a party's candidate must earn at least 2% of the vote in a statewide race (Governor, U.S. Senate or President). So a third party could have swept every single seat in the Iowa state legislature but not be recognized as a party by the state. (That's why we Libertarians allowed the other two parties to hang on to the Iowa legislature. Wasn't worth our effort.) The Iowa Green-Wienies had a brief stint as a major party in Iowa after their dark horse candidate Ralph Nader garnered the required 2%, in his run for president, to qualify them.

It will be nice to finally register as a Libertarian. I'm still registered as a Republican, but I'm not going to change my registration until after I vote for Ron Paul in the primaries.

PAUL IN THE POLLS

Recently I received an email from some GOP group or another, the National Republican Senatorial Committee. I guess I didn't contact each and every Republikrat group and tell them to get stuffed when I got sick and tired of their big government, big spending, reduced freedom tickets. I was glad that this one slipped through the cracks, however. It was a straw poll just for, supposedly, the GOP faithful regarding their choice for a Republican Presidential candidate.

Really, I figured it was a lost cause among such a group, but out of my usual cantankerousness I tilted at the windmill and cast my ballot for Ron Paul. I was very pleasantly surprised when the results of the poll popped up. Fred Thompson, who still hasn't really "officially" declared, was running in first place, but good old Ron "Dr. No" Paul was in second place with a very nice showing. The "Big Three", the Rudy McRomney Show, the "Ted Kennedy Wing of the Republican party" that the GOP had hand-picked to serve to us were all half or less of Ron Paul's numbers!!! The Manchurian, or perhaps I should say the Michoacan Candidate, John McStain showed up in sixth place, nearly tied with Tom Tancredo, and finishing behind "Other".

I noticed in the fine print at the bottom that a new straw poll will be conducted after every Republican Presidential debate. This tells me that the mainstream media and GOP power-mongers are going to be moving heaven and hell to keep Ron Paul out of future debates. After all, what gives us (the people) the right to turn down the neatly-packaged "offerings" we have been presented with? As one wag I know put it, "I sure wouldn't want to be on an airplane with Ron Paul in the near future."

Keep the pressue on, people. We are making progress.

Ron Paul Spanks McCain

A couple of interesting developments on Dr. Ron Paul's presidential campaign:

Firstly, the Paul campaign announced that they now have $2.4 million on hand, beating out Republicrat-extraordinaire John McCain. Unfortunately, Ron Paul still won't be able to buy the kind of press coverage that McCain gets for free. Also, keep in mind that Dr. Paul still has a long way to go to catch up with the deep pockets of Rudy Giuliani, who has $18 million in the bank, and Mitt Romney, with $12 million, so anything you can give will be put to good use by Dr. Paul.

Secondly, after being dissed by the Iowa Christian Alliance and Iowans for Tax Relief who excluded ONLY Ron Paul and invited the other GOP presidential candidates to speak at their forum, the Paul campaign held its own rally right next door. Despite being thrown together in less than a week, Dr. Paul's event ended up having several hundred more attendees than the other forum with its 6 GOP candidates. Some believe that this event was the biggest rally for a Republican candidate in Iowa during this campaign cycle.

No doubt, despite this good news, the media and the GOP leadership will seek to downplay the significance and chances of the Paul campaign. Apparently, only "we the people" are excited about Ron Paul's candidacy and the chance to restore the Constitution and repair liberty in this land. Let's show the entrenched elites that having the people on your side still matters by getting Dr. Paul on the ballot!