In the wake of the LP's Super Tuesday, earnest LP partisans promptly started spinning the results, just like major-party politicos do.In the comments at Third Party Watch, Tom Knapp spins the Super Tuesday outcome by saying it leaves us with a two-man race between his man Steve Kubby and (not surprisingly) the top-tier candidate least likely to draw votes from self-described radical Kubby -- Wayne Root. Kubby explains away Root's 1st-place finish in Missouri (doubling Kubby's total) as a predictable result of ballot position (that Knapp apparently didn't predict). He explains away Christine Smith's 50% margin over Kubby in California as due to Smith's gender and sharing a name with a Playboy playmate -- again, neither a last-minute tactic of Smith's. He spars with George Phillies in the comments over how hard Phillies campaigned in California, and how Kubby didn't even really try. Knapp sharply criticized Kubby rivals Smith, Phillies, and Root in a blog posting yesterday (which two Outright Libertarian leaders promptly protested while ironically asserting their dedication to fair play and "free dialogue"). He claims to believe that Smith is not a threat, but draw your own conclusions when he increases his attacks on her. Wayne Root booster Bruce Cohen says Root scored a "gold, silver, and bronze" in yesterday's contests, without "without campaigning a single day in either Arizona, Missouri or California." (Knapp pointed out that Root spoke at the 2007 LPCA convention.) Phillies downplayed his own efforts, and Knapp downplayed Kubby's efforts, so maybe Libertarians should ask if anyone even wants the nomination? One who apparently does is Smith, whose blog gave a spin-free report on her California victory, with no excuses offered about why she wasn't on the ballot in Missouri or Arizona -- and no mention of them either. Phillies' web site today simply links to the outcomes in the three states (noting his win in Arizona), while Kubby's site hasn't been updated. The Outright Libertarians leadership is trying to spin the LP primaries as a victory of gay-friendly candidates over allegedly gay-disrespecting candidates They point out the astonishing fact that the first tier of serious candidates who took the Outright survey were winners over the perennial/vanity/not-so-serious candidates who didn't take their survey. They crow that the first-tier candidates all turn out to be in favor of gay rights (amazing!), and say that what's characteristic of the 2nd-tier candidates is that they "refused" to take the Outright survey and thus "don't respect the LGBT community". (Back when some of the 2nd-tier candidates didn't have web sites, I guess they were "refusing" to have them and thus "don't respect" the web.) The Outright posting also claims that Super Tuesday is a defeat for Libertarians who support Ron Paul. However, in the only two races for which we have data, pro-Ron-Paul candidates (Kubby, Smith, Root) out-polled the anti-Ron-Paul Outright-endorsed candidate (Phillies) by 3-1 in Missouri, and 10-1 in California (and 8-1 in San Francisco). Furthermore, (gay Ron Paul supporter) Eric Garris says at Third Party Watch that write-in votes outpolled Smith in the biggest California counties by a 3-1 or 4-1 margin. I wonder what name was on those write-ins? I bet the initials were R.P., and no I don't mean Rob Power.
-- Posted By Brian Holtz to Libertarian Intelligence at 2/06/2008 03:37:00 PM
