Adrian Tymes wrote:
> Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> > Jesus, this is frustrating. What do you think we've been doing for
> > 20 years? Do you think we haven't been trying like hell to be
> > _allowed_ in the debates? Do you think we haven't been sending
> > releases to the press every week for years? Do you think we haven't
> > been using paper, the web, and every other medium available to get
> > the message out?
>
> >From personal experience? No. Or rather, yes, but ineffectively
> enough that it might as well be no, which is part of the problem, and I
> have seen how these media are used. See below.
>
> > It doesn't matter that nearly every radio talk show host in the
> > country hs called or including the LP in debates. It doesn't matter
> > that most newspapers have as well. It doesn't matter that the
> > league of women voters (who used to sponsor the big debate) called
> > for inclusion. The Ds & Rs took over the process and created the
> > "non-partisan" commission on debates specifically for the partisan
> > purpose of keeping out the LP, and as long as the television network
> > media let them get away with it, it will work.
>
> It sounds like the ones you need to work on here aren't the D/Rs, but
> the television networks themselves.
The TV networks are right in bed with the Republicratic power clique. The only
tv that has given anywhere near a fair level of coverage consistently is C-SPAN.
The dems know that if the LP got anything like decent coverage that they'd lose
a lot of voters, the types who are fiscal conservatives but just can't stand the
moral parsimoniousness of the religious wing of the GOP, then you've got the
members of the GOP that aren't in the pockets of the mercantilists or beholden
to the fundamentalists that would split to the LP in a minute if it looked like
they had half a fair shake. We almost got that in 1992. Three republicans and a
democrat in the NH statehouse defected to the LP. Then the D/R members that
control the state election commission upped the number of votes you need to get
your party on the ballot, and they then went after the defectors and ran them
out of office or put the squeeze on them to return to the fold.
> For instance, if you can document
> how non-D/R candidates are systematically barred (and you probably can),
> *especially* if you can give it the stench of illegality (this might be
> a bit more difficult), it might make for a good 60 Minutes story.
The problems that McCain had getting on the GOP primary ballot in New York
barely made a ripple in the news, and that was the height of corrupt local
machine politics. You think the networks are going to risk white house press
accessibility for the sake of a party that can't get more than 2 million votes?
> If
> the D/Rs won't acknowledge your existence, create controversy - which
> the media *will* lap up - until they do. (Take as an example Perot's
> '92 shot, which started in basically your situation - with more money,
> perhaps, but probably not with as much political experience - and got on
> the public radar.) Either way, you get the message that you exist into
> the public consciousness.
Perot got media attention because he was a demagogue who said funny things,
looked funny, had a good story, and was willing to spend tens of millions of
dollars to make sure people paid attention to him.
If for instance, Bill Gates suddenly had a political religious experience and
converted from his smarmy mercantilist democrat leanings to libertarianism, and
he decided to run for the LP candidacy, retired from Microsoft, and started
making stump speeches about how the whole anti trust thing is just one more
socialist propaganda war, that nobody should have to pay income taxes, etc. and
he backed it up with a hundred million of his own bucks, you can bet there will
be a lot more interest in the LP. There would be a lot of left-libertarians
pissed at him, but that would make for a good media showdown between
socialist-libertarians and capitalist-libertarians...
Mike Lorrey
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:09:26 MDT