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Lincoln Chafee Withdraws from Libertarian Presidential Race — 23 Comments

  1. It’s good to hear that he will continue in the Libertarian party. I never supported Chafee for the Presidential nomination, but I am always happy when any former Republican or Democratic office holder joins the LP.

  2. Look for him to pop up in the green party next. I’m guessing the next thing we should expect to hear is an announcement from bill weld?

  3. How many PURGE orders by the DNC/RNC about any D/R who supports any minor party / independent who may cause the D/R to lose — esp for Prez ???

  6. Wow, some actual good news for a change. He must have realized that he was so far behind on delegates that he stood little to no chance to win. He probably hoped that there’d be a lot of empty delegate seats, and that his campaign could flood the convention with delegates at the last minute, as the Johnson and Barr campaigns managed to do, and that this, combined with the LP’s Shiny Badge Caucus (not an official caucus, but rather people in the LP who place fancy credentials over adherence to libertarian ideology, personal credibility, and background as a libertarian activist), was not going to be enough to push him to victory.

    I wish that he was also leaving the Libertarian Party, but at least he is no longer running for the presidential nomination. Hopefully he does not actually stick around the party much longer.

    So maybe for the first time since 2004, the Libertarian Party will get a presidential ticket that actually consists of people whom I’d say can credibly be called libertarians.

    I am just wondering if the Coronavirus scare, combined with other market conditions, is going to mean that votes will be down in general for minor party and independent candidates.

  7. I wasn’t sure if the story about Chafee dropped out was related to last weekend’s NC L.P. straw poll.

    The North Carolina Libertarian Party (LPNC) Straw Poll Used Opavote
    By James Ogle for US President or Vice President and LNC Vice Chair
    http://www.usparliament.org/google2020.php
    4/5/2020

    Opavote is a one-party system.

    The one-party system is unacceptable because America is a melting pot.

    The NCLP used the Opavote for their recent L.P. straw poll and this is a very bad trend that’s catching on around the L.P. but fortunately the United Coalition USA has been prohibiting the use of ranked choice voting in single-winner election districts for more than twenty years.

    We have used the correct math and tried to advise all Libertarian Party activists ever since the First Internet Mock Non-partisan Third Party Presidential Preference Ballot which ended on April 1st 1995 when Harry Browne the Libertarian won.

    A major search engine tried to copy our project and they got the math wrong too.

    Our team has been leading the way for bringing the 539-party system to the 538-member Electoral College and we are staunchly opposed to the NCLP one-party system.

    The all-male Mises Caucus has been deleting our team and blocking our best chance for equal time and equal treatment for the past two years whenever we have opportunities for free speech and the recent internet online convention in North Carolina is just one more example of the snuffing out of unity, fairness and justice.

    Everyone look at my campaign page near bottom for list of the ten Libertarian Party female Prez candidates and everyone please start studying why our team insists on limited voting and collaboration with the ten Libertarian Party female Prez candidates.

    Respectfully,
    James Ogle for US President or Vice President and LNC Vice Chair

  8. Andy- I believe alternative party vote totals will be crushed in this election. Polarization was already bad enough but now with COVID-19 and the ultra magnification of the “wasted vote syndrome” and I think the sheeple will fall in line.

  9. Justin O’Donnell I add here that when I brought pure proportional representation to the internet with my first post in 1992, I have been personally slandered and harassed by the protectors of the one-party and two-party voting systems, since my first post in 1992.

    In 1997 the founder of Google launched off our team and cut deals with my personal harrassers to delete all my data in Usenet at the time of privatization.

    Google launched off our team by capitalizing on the name and the slander but they used “Click the go” and our team requires numerals beginning with the number 1.

    To click on a search engine or advertisement is a plurality vote.

    Google uses plurality votes for searching and ads.

    They got the math wrong.

  10. I have to agree, assuming the election even happens, third parties and especially the l.p. will get crushed like bugs. Greens will most likely come in ahead of the lp. Chafee probably read the writing on the wall. If there’s a 2024 election the l.p. will no doubt get another shiny object republican but it is probably not going to happen thus year. Outside chance amash still might but probably not. Hornberger can compete with Bergland 1984 for nadir in votes and ballot access. The latter since petitioning is near impossible and lawsuits about that will lose.

  11. As for the comment above about weld he has already endorsed Biden and would be kept off state ballots by sore loser laws so no, there will be no announcement from him.

  12. Tyrant Biden or Tyrant Trump at noon on 20 Jan 2021 ???

    NO thank you.

    Let either Tyrant/MONSTER get elected by another minority as in 2016.
    —
    Abolish the minority rule USA Senate and EC.

    PR
    AppV
    TOTSOP

  13. Being elected by a minority hasn’t kept trump from acting like he has a mandate.

  14. ***REAL*** DEMOCRACY STATES CAN ALWAYS SECEDE —

    SEE 1775-1784 — THE 13 STATES AND VT SECEDING FROM THE BRIT EMPIRE VIA THE 4 JULY 1776 DOI

    — AT THE REAL PRICE OF MANY AMERICAN DEAD / INJURED AND THE BRAVERY OF MANY YOUNG AMERICANS AGE 12-17 –

    WITH SOME LIVING TO SEE THE HORRIFIC 1861-1865 USA CIVIL WAR I – SOME 77 PLUS YEARS AFTER 1784.

  15. It is looking like the Libertarian Party is probably going to have actual libertarian Libertarians on its presidential ticket this year, which will be a first since 2004. This to me is good news. The bad news is that the current political market conditions are looking like vote totals for minor party and independent candidates is likely to go down in this election. The Coronavirus scare could have lots of people running to the major parties because they represent the promise of safety, never mind the fact that their policies created the current crisis. Also, most of the Republicans are going to be more solidly behind Trump than last time. Joe Biden is a terrible candidate, but most Democrats will vote for him anyway, just because they think he represents safety, and because they want to beat Trump.

    So if LP vote totals take a big hit in this election, which is what looks like is going to happen, and if the LP nominates Jacob Hornberger or Adam Kokesh, or another libertarian Libertarian, I bet the LP Shiny Badge Caucus will say something like, “See, we should have nominated someone with credentials, like Lincoln Chafee or Bill Weld.”

  16. Andy- No reason to worry about what others think. You can’t do much about it so why let it consume you?

  18. “Andy- No reason to worry about what others think. You can’t do much about it so why let it consume you?”

    Why does it matter what they say? Because if the Libertarian Party is to have any future for being successful, which, frankly, at the moment, is not looking good, the party must maintain a strong devotion to principles, as without libertarian principles, the party might as well not even exist. Running candidates who don’t really believe in libertarian principles, like Bob Barr, Gary Johnson, Bill Weld, Lincoln Chafee (fortunately, the LP has dodged this bullet, at least for now), or anyone else like them, for office, particularly for high profile offices, defeats the purpose of the Libertarian Party even existing. The Libertarian Party should not exist to just to get votes for the sake of getting votes. It should exist to promote, and hopefully implement, policies to create a libertarian society, or, at the very least, move society closer to being a libertarian society.

    LP Shiny Badge Caucus members like to engage in “chest pounding” and boasting about how many votes the Johnson/Weld ticket got in 2016, and how this was (supposedly) the greatest achievement in the history of the party, as they received around 3.2% of the vote, which came out to 4 million and something votes. What the conveniently fail to mention is that the Johnson/Weld ticket ran under the most favorable set of circumstances under which the LP had ever fielded a presidential ticket, as there was 1) a record level of disgust with the major party candidates, neither of whom were incumbents, 2) there was no other minor party or independent ticket that made the ballot in all 50 states plus DC (the closest was Jill Stein of the Green Party, and she only made the ballot in 44 states plus DC, after this, the next two closest tickets only had ballot access in 24 or 23 states), plus no other ticket that had as much money or name recognition, 3) name recognition for the word Libertarian had increased tremendously by 2016, thanks in large part to people operating outside the LP, like Ron Paul, John Stossel, and Andrew Napolitano, and also to many years of hard work from people operating inside the Libertarian Party, 4) the growth of the internet making it easier to reach voters than before the internet came along, or got big, 5) most of the votes the Johnson/Weld ticket received were PROTEST VOTES from people who did not like Hillary or Trump, they were not really so much votes for Johnson/Weld, or for the Libertarian Party, or for libertarianism, 6) there was no real party growth from the Johnson/Weld ticket, and many people think that the party made a mistake by nominating them, as they were widely perceived as being unprincipled, and unprepared, goofballs.

    So if the 2020 LP Presidential ticket actually consists of actual libertarian Libertarians, and they get less votes than the 2016 ticket, the LP Shiny Badge Caucus will overlook all of the points I made above, and will just focus on the vote totals, and use that to say that the LP should nominate more “Shiny Badge” candidates who are not really libertarians, in the future.

  22. ANNOUNCEMENT
    By James Ogle for US President or Vice President and LNC Vice Chair
    http://usparliament.org/google2020.php
    4/6/2020

    Female Majority Presidential Electors

    With 107 delegates in California now elected by CA State L.P., the total 29% are female, so we use them for the 55 Electors by taking turns and maybe more than 50% California State LP Presidential Electors elected on 4/19/2020 will have female names and their terms start on 4/20 through “stage two”.

    Our team is now almost certain to elect a female majority of California Electors within two weeks.

    We are now ready to collaborate with more states in addition to California where we can bring a female majority of elected Presidential Electors on 4/20/2020.

    Voting going on now by paper ballot:
    http://www.usparliament.org/e-aps-13.pdf

  23. Rocky seems like a nice fellow, but he is not really the best fit for the Libertarian Party. He should run as an independent.

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