First off, I didn't vote for him, so don't blame me. I voted for the other, other guy (Badnarik, even though I had to write him in here in NH).
Bush is in, and in the words of L Neil Smith's daughter Rylla, "America bent over, spread her cheeks, and asked,'Please sir, may I have another?'" (Quite a daughter L Neil is raising there, eh?)
Societies get the government they deserve, as someone else once said, and that means more than just the American people. Americans don't like socialist money men (Soros) trying to buy elections, or snooty French people trying to educate us. They don't like hefty ketchup-clad Mozamiquan heiresses funding anti-American terror groups (Ruckus Society, ALF/ELF), and they don't like flip-flopping double talking commie-coddling northeastern blue-bloods with faked up war records. They certainly don't like activist judges telling them what kind of families they have to be nice to, or anybody telling them it is their fault for 9/11.
I have said frequently and often since 9/11 that we should build a 200 story tower at the WTC, so the NYC skyline would look like a series of knuckles punctuated by one big middle finger to the rest of the world. America did just that electorally last tuesday, handing Bush both the electoral college and the popular vote by a margin of 3%. While certainly not a Reagan landslide, it is certainly far better than his fathers performance in '92 and his own in 2000. In fact, it was better than any Democrat performance since 1964.
Of course, there were reasons for this. Both major parties told the major media to black out Michael Badnarik, the only real anti-war, anti-draft candidate, or risk losing access in DC. The Democrats practiced a scorched earth policy in giving all possible anti-Bush voters only one choice in the election, by keeping third party candidates off the ballot in many states.
Now Bush is trying to make amends, announcing that privatizing social security is the primary domestic agenda item of his second term. He thinks that will keep the Libertarians happy. It will certainly pay off the libertarian base with one more excuse to continue to be the GOP's bitch.
However, the LP screwed up in its national campaign strategy. Fred Collins, the Badnarik strategist from Oregon, tried to fight a local race campaign on a national scale. Didn't work. He tried to focus ad dollars on battleground states in an attempt to flip states in the election and gain notoriety as Nader did in 2000. Didn't work.
What would have worked was to focus ad dollars on uncontested states, states where one or the other major candidates were considered shoe-ins for that states electoral votes: California, Texas, Tennessee, Massachusetts, New York, etc.... all states where either Kush or Berry had an overwhelming lead. I have found in my electioneering that people enthusiastically vote libertarian in races where they believe the lesser evil is a shoe-in.
Here in NH, I saw it with my candidate in the 2nd district, Rich Kahn, who had our best showing to date in that district, with almost 3.5% of the vote, when we normally take 2.3%. Not only that, but with a record turnout, taking a 100% improvement in raw votes than previous LP candidates there.
If we had gotten our other two candidates on the ballot in the first district (Dan Belforti for congress and Ken Blevens for Senate), where we historically do better than the 2nd, and seen similar improvement there, we'd have averaged over 4.1% statewide and attained major party status for the first time since 1996.
It is bittersweet to contemplate, as I just assumed the Vice-Chairmanship this past month in the 2nd district, but I'm hopeful for next election. But we need to start planning now....
