Saturday, December 16, 2006

Why I like George Phillies

I've been trying to stay fairly neutral in the race for the 2008 Libertarian presidential nomination, simply because it's a long, long time until the 2008 convention, but I kinda suck at neutrality, and I've found myself pretty consistently favoring George Phillies. Here's why:
  • He's respectable and electable. (I really wish those didn't rhyme, but they do.) His credentials would impress anyone - he's an MIT-educated physics professor at a high second-tier school (Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts) and is a constant and respected member of WPI's elected faculty committees.
  • He's focusing on issues that average Americans - not just Libertarian Party members - care about: the war in Iraq, property rights, energy issues, etc. He has sensible Libertarian solutions to these answers without delving into weird Libertopia-style stuff.
  • Most importantly - he's running for the Libertarian Party, not for George Phillies. He will help Libertarians get elected to many tiers of government while running a competent campaign for President. He's already shown he's serious about this - his campaign produced free radio commercials for Libertarian campaigns for the November 2006 elections.
I think Steve Kubby (the other major candidate for the LP nomination) is a good person and a good Libertarian, and would certainly be the best president since at least Calvin Coolidge if elected. But Kubby is known only for his sometimes flippant marijuana legalization activities - which, although I totally support them, will lead to his being marginalized as "the stoner candidate" no matter how much he cares and talks about other issues, as shown in this video (Kubby appears at 3:18). That's a hard image to shake, and Libertarian candidates have enough of a glass ceiling to break through already.

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5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree, especially with the last point.
However, I dont think being marginalized as a "stoner" candidate would hurt Kubby or any other LP candidate. LP already is seen as nutcases, and IMO using pot is one of the less extreme ones ( certainly a high % of Americans have and cntinue to use it themselves..Though I never have). We really can't do any worse than the normal 0.3-0.4%.

4:35 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Phillies campaign is currently building our state-by-state organization. We are looking for volunteers to help with a few projects.

If anyone wants to volunteer, please e-mail me at jakeporter_88 at yahoo.com and sign up as a volunteer at www.phillies2008.org


Jake Porter
National Mobilization Facilitator
Phillies For President

7:40 AM  
Blogger Nigel Watt said...

Anonymous: The only reason the LP is seen as a party of nutcases is because of our tendency to run and support nutcases. That's why we need straight-edge Libertarians like Phillies to represent the party.

8:47 AM  
Blogger Kris Overstreet said...

There are two major problems with Phillies. First, as a perennial reformer, he's cheesed off a lot of people in the party. Second, as a college professor with no elective experience, he's almost the perfect example of "ivory tower intellectual" insofar as the general electorate is concerned. He has the best platform of any candidate thus far, but I'm still dubious of his chances...

12:22 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you read up enough you'll see that George Phillies does not care answer certain important questions.

http://chapmanforpresident08.blogspot.com/2007/01/important-question-for-gene.html

I'd have to agree with Gene on this one.

2:33 PM  

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