If I run I will run on a broader "small government" platform with an emphasis on spending,taxes, the erosion of our civil liberties as well as economic and personal freedom.Stone also linked to an NR story which said in part:
"I don’t have any illusions about winning, but I’d like to carry the flag for the liberty movement,” Stone says. “The Republican party is dead and it can’t be revived, so it’s time for the Libertarian party to be a force.”
Stone will make a final decision on a gubernatorial run by the end of the year. In the meantime, he’ll ask libertarian activists for their support.His politics have evolved since he once practiced the “black arts,” as Stone describes his past activities, for Nixon and other Republican contenders. He now supports marijuana legalization and open borders; on social issues, he is pro-choice and pro-gay-marriage. He’s also a fiscal hawk and detests “Beltway Republicans” for their frequent “spending orgies.”“If I run, I’m going to be provocative, and I’m going to punch up,” he says. “It’s going to be like Bill Buckley’s mayoral run in 1965. I’m going to have a lot of fun with this campaign. It’s going to get people’s attention.”
Let's hope Stone goes beyond Buckley. Murray wrote about WFB:
He admits that his opposition to Statism, eloquently expressed at the beginning, is merely romantic academicism. For Buckley favors: "the extensive and productive tax laws that are needed to support a vigorous anti-Communist foreign policy," and by implication supports ECA aid and 50-billion dollar "defense" budgets. He declares that the "thus far invincible aggressiveness of the Soviet Union imminently threatens U.S. security," and that therefore "we have got to accept Big Government for the duration–for neither an offensive nor a defensive war can be waged...except through the instrumentality of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores." Therefore, he concludes, we must all support "large armies and air forces, atomic energy, central intelligence, war production boards and the attendant centralization of power in Washington–even with Truman at the reins of it all."
In the light of this errant nonsense, Buckley, considered by practically everybody (and, saddest to relate, by himself) as an "extreme individualist" must be classified as a defacto totalitarian.
I don't think Stone meant he would be parroting the Buckley line, just that his run would be similar to Buckley's in the sense that it will be more about making a statement and shaking things up than about winning?
ReplyDeleteI think Stone's run (especially if he stays with the plan I just mentioned) could be a great thing. Running for office-provided you focus on ideas and and message, not simply achieving power- is a great way to spread the message and (even if it's not as pure a message) a great way of challenging people's views or introducing them to new ideas (after all, how many people- such as myself- may have been introduced to liberty through Friedmanite weak-tea libertarianism only to eventually arrive at Rothbardian Anarchism?)
When it comes to politics DIFFERENT IS GOOD. Here's hoping Stone gives 'em hell.
I hope he's prepared for the skepticism that he'll probably face within the FL LP. I'm pretty sure someone in the LP will bring up his involvement in the NY gubernatorial race back in 2010.
ReplyDeleteIn the real world, Stone will have to consider spending several tens of millions of his personal fortune and fund-raise many more. As the election draws nearer I have no doubt he will weigh the political climate with the end game being to win the election, not just hold the Libertarian flag. The shark infested waters in Tallahassee can be difficult to navigate but Stone as been through it with the best of them and I think he has a decent chance.
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