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Not quite a Libertarian Saturday
Author: TriSec    Date: 06/14/2008 11:47:46

Good Morning!

I was looking over the ol' Boston Globe this morning, and there's quite a few stories to choose from, before I even get to my usual Libertarian haunts. Starting with politics this morning, John McCain is not focusing on his base...instead he's turning towards Hillary's supporters looking for votes. It's part of the game to court the other side, and every year a few people change parties and move on... But I'm betting Mr. McCain will find that most of these "disaffected Clinton supporters" were part of Operation Chaos to begin with....and if any registered democrats buy his spew, well don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. Change your registration and be done with it; you weren't democrats anyway.

Republican John McCain's campaign is aggressively targeting former supporters of Hillary Clinton, hoping to capitalize on their dissatisfaction with presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama and anger over how Clinton was treated during the Democratic primaries.

Today McCain will host a nationwide telephone forum aimed at Clinton loyalists with Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, who is emerging as McCain's chief messenger to women. On Thursday night, Fiorina spoke to dozens of disgruntled Clinton supporters in Columbus, Ohio, and during the next week she plans to visit a number of battleground states to speak to women voters. The campaign is betting that even women who favor abortion rights may be willing to accept a difference of opinion on that issue if they like what they hear McCain saying on broader issues such as national security, the economy, and healthcare.

But Obama is courting those same voters, and national women's organizations are trying to help him by smoothing over rifts that developed during the bitter primary battle. Prominent groups such as NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund are gearing up voter education and mobilization efforts focused on raising awareness of McCain's long record of opposing abortion rights.

Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which is running a $10 million grass-roots campaign to recruit 1 million voters for Obama in battleground states, today will kick off a weeklong series of more than 400 house parties across the country. Yesterday the group unveiled an Internet ad highlighting McCain's record on abortion rights and other health issues that it plans to send to 3.5 million of its supporters and the antiwar group MoveOn.org., urging each recipient to forward the ad to five people.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, said yesterday that even the most disaffected Clinton supporters are unlikely to defect to McCain, whose views on abortion and other reproductive health issues are diametrically opposed to Clinton's and Obama's. McCain favors overturning Roe v. Wade, the US Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide, then working to reduce the number of abortions and eventually end them.

"The media is trying to make a lot out of this 'disaffected women,' " Richards said in a telephone interview. "I'm not saying we don't have a lot of work to do, but I think women are going to move very swiftly to support Senator Obama. For some of them, they don't know him as well as they did her . . . and quite honestly, they need to find out more about John McCain."




Of course, turnabout is fair play, and the Republicans may be facing a nightmare scenario from an unlikely quarter. Word on the street this morning says the Libertarian candidate Bob Barr, and the Libertarian-leaning Ron Paul may be forging an alliance for the fall campaign. Both men have Republican backgrounds, and both have pitched themselves as 'true conservatives' in this race. Remember, Ron Paul polled close to 20% in some states this primary season. Some of us on this side blame Ralph Nader for splitting the vote in 2000 and 2004...it's very refreshing to see the possibility on the other side.
Signs are emerging of a possible alliance this fall between Ron Paul, the libertarian-minded rebel Republican, and Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party's presidential nominee.

Paul was the Libertarian nominee in 1988, and many of his supporters are libertarian-minded on economic and social issues. Just before formally ending his presidential bid Thursday night, the Texas congressman praised Barr, and in a statement yesterday, Barr reciprocated.

"Congressman Ron Paul has fought tirelessly in both the Libertarian Party and the Republican Party to minimize government power and maximize individual liberty," said Barr, a former six-term GOP congressman from Georgia. "I want to thank him for all that he has done for liberty in this nation, and encourage him to continue his fight through whatever avenues he sees fit."

The Libertarian Party plans to get Barr on the ballot in 48 states in November, and Barr could get a significant boost if a sizable number of the 1.1 million people who voted for Paul during the Republican primaries go his way. Some analysts say Barr could be a spoiler, taking votes away from presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in key swing states, including Colorado, Nevada, and his home state of Georgia.

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader also began courting Paul voters yesterday.

"Ron Paul was a lightning rod for millions of Americans against the war in Iraq and for the protection of personal liberties that the two major parties have turned their back on - by continuing to support the illegal criminal war and the PATRIOT Act," the Nader campaign said in a statement. "There is a clear choice for those who want to support a candidate who will stand up against the war and stand up for personal liberties and privacy."

On Thursday night, Paul told supporters attending the Texas Republican Party convention in Houston that he was ending his campaign and starting the group Campaign for Liberty to help elect libertarian-leaning Republicans.

Paul hopes that at least 11,000 of his supporters fill a Minneapolis arena for a counter-convention on Sept. 2, timed to coincide with the Republican National Convention in neighboring St. Paul.



Turning to the economy briefly...remember when you got your license and your first car? What did you do....pile all your friends in the back, head for the movies or the arcade, drive around aimlessly for hours? I fondly recall my first car, a 1973 Plymouth Scamp with 273,000 miles on it. I had it for 9 months before it was destroyed in a collision (I walked away; my only major accident). But do you remember how much you paid for gas? My Scamp took regular leaded gasoline that you could still buy in the mid-80s for less than $1/gallon. Teens today are facing the possibility of a disappearing rite of passage.
There was a time, not long ago, when 17-year-old Jennifer Ogle of Braintree drove her Mercury Mystique to her part-time job at a local CVS. Matthew Gill, 17, of Tewksbury used to drive his Chevrolet Blazer to school twice a week and would buy a soda every afternoon. Eric Warren, 17, of Burlington freely ferried friends in his Volvo.

No more. With the price of a gallon of gasoline having crossed the $4 threshold, teens are deriving less joy from riding around in automobiles. Ogle now walks to work. Gill takes the bus to Shawsheen Valley Technical High School in Billerica and has virtually forsworn those daily sodas. "I only drive to work," he says. "I bought myself a drink twice last week, and I paid with quarters and nickels." Warren now asks his passengers for gas money. "Back when I first started driving," he says, "it wasn't a big deal."

That classic icon of American youth, the teenager in a car, is a bit tarnished these days. Like suburbanites facing long commutes and families contemplat ing vacations closer to home, teenagers are tweaking their driving and spending habits in response to the high cost of fuel. Some barely have had time to savor driving on their own before they had to contend with rapidly rising prices at the pump. That time of being a carefree new driver that Warren remembers with such nostalgia occurred less than a year ago, in August 2007, when regular gasoline, self-served, ran about $2.70 a gallon.

"Sometimes, if we're bored, we'd go around and drive," says Colleen Casey, 18, of Braintree. "There's none of that any more."

Anthony Pagucci, 18, of Ashland, eating burgers with his best friend at the Natick Collection's food court, is worried, too. "I'm paranoid about it. It cost me $5 to come here," Pagucci says. "I have to make gas part of my budget. That's how bad it is."

Indeed, when pollsters asked teens what three issues most concern them this election year, the price of gasoline topped the list, followed by global warming and then the war in Iraq, according to a survey conducted this spring by TRU, a youth-focused market research firm in Illinois.

"The driver's license is an important milestone for teens," says TRU's Rob Callender. "It symbolizes freedom, fun, coming of age. With gas prices being as high as they are they feel their freedom is being eroded simply because they can't take advantage of it."

Not surprisingly, teenagers who pay for gasoline themselves feel the pinch more than those whose parents pitch in. Gayleen Conover, 19, drives her parents' car while she's home in Brookline for the summer. "If I really need gas when I'm in the car, I buy it," she says. "I don't buy more than $20 worth of gas."

In Braintree, Michael Ryan, whose parents gave him their old minivan, cringes whenever he goes to the gas station and anticipates riding his bicycle more this summer. "I find myself not offering to give rides home any more," says Ryan, 17. "I'll try to get rides." Sometimes, he adds, he drives his parents' car and doesn't fill the tank. "It's terrible to say, but it's true."

Casey's parents, on the other hand, have been asking to use her car lately. "I have a little Altima," she says, "and they have SUVs."



So....
We're driving today. It's Father's Day Weekend, and the Collings Foundation in nearby Stow is having their annual open house. My beloved B-17 will not be there. But if you like warbirds, check out the Wings of Freedom tour...the 'heavies' are on the West Coast right now and will slowly head east over the summer. Who knows, maybe you'll have a piece of history overhead one day soon!


 

38 comments (Latest Comment: 06/15/2008 12:03:24 by Random)
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