Politics & Other Mistakes: Return of the mothership

6 mins read
Al Diamon
Al Diamon

Imagine a political party that welcomes extremist kooks, convicted felons and space aliens, while promising to solve our problems by taking wishy-washy stands and promoting unworkable solutions.

In Maine, we already have the Democrats, the Republicans and the Green Independents for that. If there’s pent-up demand for additional groups offering more of the same, I’m missing it.

In spite of this lack of interest, the Libertarian Party is launching another drive to gain official ballot status in the Pine Tree State, which would entitle its candidates for major offices to spots on TV debates, thereby demonstrating conclusively they’re every bit as wacky as other politicians.

I’m not enrolled in any party, but I admit to libertarian (note the lower-case “l”) tendencies. I think government is too big, too expensive and too incompetent to accomplish most of the tasks it takes on. I’d like to see more self-reliance and individual initiative, not to mention lower taxes and fewer regulations. And I don’t want the nanny state meddling in my life in matters of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.

In much of that, I’m firmly in line with the official positions of the Libertarians. Where we part company is at the intersection of politics and reality.

Although the national Lib party was formed in Colorado in 1971, I first encountered it in 1982, when it burst upon the local scene by running candidates for governor, the 1st Congressional District and the Legislature. Their platform called for eliminating taxes, raising the speed limit, free trade, legalizing drugs and avoiding foreign wars. I was ready to sign up – until I met some Libertarians.

The congressional candidate ran a porn shop. There was a guy who’d resigned from the John Birch Society and another just released after two years in prison for burglary and criminal mischief. The party’s hat of choice was made of aluminum foil.

It felt less like a political gathering and more like the Monday morning docket call in Portland District Court.

Like lots of crazies, the Libs were persistent.

In 1988, their presidential candidate, Ron Paul, got 2,700 votes in Maine, sufficient for last place among semi-serious contenders (Mickey Mouse finished just behind him). In 1990, the Libertarians ran three legislative candidates (they all lost) and launched a drive to collect signatures to become an official party (it failed). Things were looking grim.

Then came 1991. Andrew Adam had run an independent campaign for governor the year before, and finished with nearly 10 percent of the vote, even though he was off the charts for weirdness factor (he sometimes campaigned with a goat for reasons that were never clearly explained). Adam declared himself a Libertarian and signed papers giving the party a spot on the ’92 ballot. All the Libs had to do to keep that status was get 5 percent of the vote in the presidential race.

They didn’t. A few weeks after declaring himself a Libertarian, Adam quit and endorsed Ross Perot (more pro-goat?).

From there, it got ugly. A 1993 petition drive to pass a law requiring voter approval for all tax increases garnered a tiny fraction of the needed signatures. In spite of a promise to rebound in the ’94 gubernatorial race, an estimated 14 people showed up for the party’s state convention. In 1996, the Libertarians took stands against referendums for term limits and public financing of campaigns. Nobody noticed, and they both passed. In 1998, the party couldn’t decide if it was for or against gay rights. In the 21st century, the Libs continued to run the occasional unsuccessful candidate for various offices, prompting then-party chairman Mark Cenci to tell the Portland Press Herald, “I’ve seen steady, incremental growth.”

Maybe he was discussing his waistline.

Now it’s 2015, and GOP Gov. Paul LePage has co-opted much of the Libertarian agenda (abolish the State Planning Office, eliminate the income tax, cut welfare), so the Libs have concluded the political climate is ripe for a resurgence. Although technically, a resurgence requires that sometime in the past, there had to have been something resembling a surge.

Nevertheless, the party has launched a drive to register 5,000 voters as Libertarians. If they meet that goal by December, they’ll again have official status, and their nominees would appear on the 2016 ballot alongside the donkeys, elephants and Furbish louseworts (if that plant name rings a bell, you’re officially old).

As Shawn Levasseur, a Lib candidate for a state House seat in Rockland in a special election being held next month, put it in a recent press release, “A different voice, independent of the battles for the legislative majority, can be of great help.”

Levasseur seems to be laboring under the misconception the Democrats, Republicans and Greens have run short of kooks, criminals and space aliens.

Might be time to revive the Keg Party (motto: We too dunk to worry ‘bout ballot stashus). Register by emailing aldiamon@herniahill.net.

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22 Comments

  1. Per Al: “Imagine a political party that welcomes extremist kooks… while promising to solve our problems… and promoting unworkable solutions.” (I’ll admit to using Fox News tactics to make my point.)

    Must be talking about our Dear Leader in Augusta and his Tea Party supporters who just can’t get thru that “intersection of politics and reality.”

  2. Oh gawd..here we go again with the recycled “spin”
    Yes…this means YOU..
    Anything original?
    If not please spare us…
    Oh,,, I see it’s already started.
    Ugh….

  3. Dear Elmira,
    Your comment was based solely on bias and was fallicous in itsunami appeal. Your comment did not facts or examples of his policy. Simply stating he is an “extremist kook” is just mud slinging. Without a fact based argument you make yourself look like an “extremist kook”.

  4. frost,since you brought up Will Rogers,I’m going to hazard a guess that you two haven’t met.

  5. In real news what if LePage could just instruct the maine internal revenue service to do his bidding how would liberals feel about that?

  6. Don’t you like how anyone with factual, well documented and fully disclosed essays or reports such as the articles provided for us by Al, or that of actions and positions presented by our Governor habitually get verbally assaulted by someone on the political left with a ferocity you didn’t quite understand? And moreover, the attacks are designed not to elucidate facts, but rather to paint him or her as a villain with a series of smears. What the kooks, leftist is creating is a narrative. As any marketing guru will tell you, Facts tell, but stories sell. It’s a lesson these leftist have learned so well.

    Also predictable is when the world refuses to conform to their utopian vision. The dilemma they are confronted with and refuse accept is that world isn’t the neat and tidy place they want it to be. However, they still hold onto the childlike belief that there can be goods with no tradeoffs, and this world of endless tradeoffs proves them wrong every day, mocking their childishness in the process. Once exposed or made to face the “reality” they get very very angry and the hate speech begins…

  7. His own words say volumes about LePage, but this is no secret, everybody already knows this. But oh, yes, he’s sooo “real”.

    • March 1, 2013: “I don’t care if it’s my bills. I’ll veto my own bills.” — LePage promises to veto any bill that comes across his desk until the Legislature passes his plan to repay $484 million owed to the state’s hospitals.

    • Nov. 9, 2012: “ If you want a good education in Maine, and I get criticized by my opponents because I’m hard on education, but if you want a good education, go to an academy. If you want a good education go to private schools. If you can’t afford it, tough luck. You can go to the public school.” — LePage discusses school choice during an “Eggs ‘n Issues” talk at York County Community College.

    • Jan. 14, 2011: “ Tell them to kiss my butt.”

    • February 2011: “The only thing that I’ve heard is if you take a plastic bottle and put it in the microwave and you heat it up, it gives off a chemical similar to estrogen. So the worst case is some women may have little beards.”

  8. Really? That is your “factual,” “documentation…”, for your basis to support your position opposing a candidate or political figure? If we all follow that course, then our president and almost every political person alive should be booted out of office. In what naïveté world are you living in? Also, “Cliché, what you do is more significant than what you say”…heard this before?

    I quoted Ms. Alder’s comment on another blog I was on once, and makes more sense then you.

    “I am tired of people saying that poor character is the only reason people do wrong things. Actually, circumstances cause people to act a certain way. It’s from those circumstances that a person’s attitude is affected followed by weakening of character. Not the reverse. If we had no faults of our own, we should not take so much pleasure in noticing those in others and judging their lives as either black or white, good or bad. We all live our lives in shades of gray.”

  9. Wow, Elmira, your quite the fan of Gov. Lepage. I mean how many people other that some political writer like Al can remember all those quotes and dates?

    I think you have a crush on him or something. Lol

  10. Elmira… one of these days you and I will meet for lunch and discuss some of the things that our other elected leaders… including Prez Obama has said and done…… and if you are not in too much of a hurry we will move on to VP Joe… that would be more interesting…

  11. Be still my fluttering heart! And “shades of gray”, JL? Don’t even go there!

    Poor manners, being a bully, lack of anger management skills, tactless: all these flaws are too pronounced to ignore or excuse. But that’s me, you go right ahead and defend your guy. It does nothing to change my mind.

  12. “Poor manners, being a bully, lack of anger management skills, tactless: all these flaws are too pronounced to ignore or excuse. But that’s me, you go right ahead and defend your guy. It does nothing to change my mind.”

    Of course we know you won’t change your mind, if he was a Democrat, you see all those same qualities in a more positive light but he’s on the other side of the aisle, enough said.

  13. david firsching: frost,since you brought up Will Rogers,I’m going to hazard a guess that you two haven’t met.

    Your guess is correct. I also have not met Al, Gov. LePage, Pres. Obama, or you. Do you have a point?

    Quoting another comedian …

    Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.
    ~ B. H. Obama

  14. You may have to risk expulsion from the tea party but sneak into a library and open a book of w Will Roger’s quotes. It won’t take long to find the one I alluded to. It is his most famous one.

  15. The laugh of the week..

    Elmira (or any of her adversaries) saying the other sides arguments on here “won’t change their minds”.
    “”””(( AS IF))”””” all her lobbying will ??
    Just noise.

    Hilarious !!!
    Priceless..

  16. Who is trying to change anyone’s mind? The liberalbots are already programed, thought they’d been stating the facts, not revealing programmed beliefs.

    “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” ~Buddha

  17. Firsching, I recall a few old sayings about the word ‘assume’. Obviously they’re still correct.

    I can only assume that your editorial writer tripped over the First Amendment and thought it was the office cat.
    ~ E. B. White

    It’s not the Tea Party or other conservative groups who want to strangle the internet and shut down all media that doesn’t toe the party line. If the other side wins and Rogers were alive today, he would be among the first to be purged. Along with places like this.

  18. Kudo’s Al,
    You started a firestorm of debate. What is needed in politics today is wisdom and balance. Generally speaking we can have neither without peering into each others minds. I have been a registered Democrat, Republican, and Independent. In fact all my voting choices have been pretty much across party lines and based on the issues and of course how our elected officials handle them. In a nutshell I just have to admit I’m a Libertarian because the left and the right most often remind me of a puppy dog chasing it’s tail and all the while being a tool used by special interest groups to manipulate policy. So far as I can see Le Page has been good for this state and to me it is refreshing to see a no BS approach .

  19. “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” ~Buddha

    How true! My condolences to JL et al.

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