With all the cross-party stuff going on with Bill Weld, Sue Jeffers, Loretta Nall and Kevin Zeese, I was already starting to lose track of who was in which political party. Now there are two more names to add to the list. The first one comes from The Boston Globe, which reports that New Hampshire Libertarian Party chair John Babiarz will be running for the legislature as a Democrat:
John Babiarz, 49, chairman of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, filed Thursday as a Democratic candidate for the Legislature. Babiarz, of Grafton, is a member of the liberty-loving Free State Project and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2002. He once served as an adviser to former Republican Gov. Craig Benson, as an appointee to the governor’s council on government efficiency.
Babiarz, a self-employed computer programmer, said he chose to run as a Democrat because of election laws that make it easier to for major-party candidates to run for office. Republican and Democratic candidates are required to pay $2 or collect five signatures from certified voters to get on the ballot; independents and minor-party candidates must pay $2 and collect 150 signatures.
“It’s discriminatory,” said Babiarz, who said he knows of other Libertarians running under other party banners. He is running to represent the towns of Enfield, Canaan, Grafton, Orange and Dorchester. The district currently is represented by Republican Paul Mirski, of Enfield, and Democrats Catherine Mulholland of Grafton and Peter Solomon of Canaan.
This one confuses me a bit. 150 signatures is like taking candy from a baby. I’ll try to call Babiarz tomorrow (too late right now) to get the rest of the story on this one.
The other story comes from Wisconsin’s The Capital Times, where David Redick dumped the GOP to run as a Libertarian for U.S. Senate:
Says Redick: “The Republican Party nationwide is ‘off course’ compared to its traditional values, and Republican leaders at the state and county level seem to like it that way or, at least, (they) will settle to be submissive and abused ‘loyalists’ to D.C. The far-right religious groups, corrupt congressmen and warmonger ‘neocons’ have taken over in D.C., and it seems no one is willing or able to push them back. (The GOP) is now the war, big-spending and homeland spy party. My campaign efforts to gain support for reform have been fruitless, but revealed the depth of trouble the Republicans are in. While they engage in self-serving denial to hide problems, the cliff of the November 7 election is fast approaching. Pollsters predict many losses.
“Hence I have left the Republicans to their well-earned fate and joined the Libertarian ‘party of principle.’ It embraces my philosophy of limited government, fiscal conservatism and peace, along with social liberalism consistent with the Bill of Rights.”
More power to Dave Redick for standing on principle rather than bending to the dictates of Republican partisanship. If he secures the Libertarian nomination, as seems likely, he’ll still be able to contribute ideas and energy to the fall debates.
As for the Republicans, they have shown by their actions that their party is no longer the “big tent” of the Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush days. More and more, the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower is starting to look like a narrow-minded cult of personality that loves its current president more than it does the conservative principles it purports to cherish or the country it purports to lead.
I absolutely love Redick’s quote on the fate of the GOP and wish him the best in his campaign.
sucker, ʟʟᴄ