Libertarians Think They Have A "Shot” At DeLay Seat (”Think” Being The Operative Word)

Libertarians evidently think they can give Ron Paul some company in Congress. With the departure of Tom DeLay from the race in CD-22 and the possibility of Republican unification—an oxymoron in itself—behind a particular write-in candidate looking less and less likely by the hour, heavyweight Republicans are throwing their support behind the heretofore unknown Bob Smither.

Bob Barr, the conservative Republican Congressional Wingnut from Georgia, has even endorsed Smither:

“In light of the less-than-conservative agenda that the
Republicans in Congress have pursued, I’m delighted to support a
Libertarian candidate, Bob Smither, who I think will most definitely
stick to his small-government philosophy,” Mr. Barr said yesterday in a
telephone interview from his Atlanta law office. “I don’t see him going
to Washington and voting for bigger government the way so many
Republicans have done.”

While Smither does evidently have some name recognition in the district
as a result of the murder of his daughter some years back and some non-profit work his family has done in that regard, I don’t think it comes close to the “considerable” name recognition Jacob Grier says Smither has over at Eternal Recurrence.

As for this creating a “perfect storm” that will give the party its first victory in a congressional race (not counting Ron Paul, who is a Libertarian running under the Republican banner and is even a failed presidential candidate for that party), I think we can look to other Texas races where Democrats have run against Libertarians with no Republicans on the ballot. In most of those races I’m familiar with, the Libertarians didn’t make much headway.

Of course, Smither says he’ll vote for a Republican for House Speaker. I don’t see the national Republican party uniting behind Smither, though. For one thing, the party doesn’t need more baggage stemming from things like Ron Paul’s “gold standard” craze or more people who will vote against things like aide for hurricane victims.

As with everything else in CD-22, however, there are interesting footnotes. Consider what Mike Nelson at Hammer of Truth points out:

Before redistricting, parts of District 22 were held by Congressman Ron
Paul. Paul once ran for president as the Libertarian Party candidate.
While currently elected as a Republican in the 14th District, Paul’s
libertarian ideology and Libertarian Party association are well known.
As there is significant overlap between the former and current district
boundaries, many voters in the 22nd District have already voted for a
candidate who runs on a libertarian platform.

My thoughts on that? Big, fat, hairy, deal. For one thing, don’t think that David Wallace and whomever else runs as a Republican write-in won’t attack Smither on various Libertarian viewpoints. Consider some of these, from Smither’s blog.

Leagalizing illegal drugs:

We don’t need to “fix” the insane and inhumane federal war on drugs,
we need to admit defeat and kill it. The drug war causes our
neighborhoods and our borders to be overrun with thugs that profit from
the artificially high costs of illicit drugs, encourages us to meddle
in the affairs of other countries, corrupts our police and courts,
imprisons honest Americans that simply want relief from pain, and costs
the country some $50,000,000,000 (50 Billion dollars) a year.

The
federal war on drugs crowds our jails with citizens who have harmed no
one but themselves, causing us to release violent offenders to prey
again on us and on our children.

We need to let the citizens
of each state decide what to do about this problem without the
interference of out-of-control federal prosecuters. Leaving it to the
states has some advantages. First, this is a Constitutional approach to
the problem, and second, we will all benefit from the 50 experiments
that citizens in our 50 states will develop. I know that the American
people can find a solution to this problem, and I will bet that when we
do, it will look nothing like the current federal war on drugs.

While Smither doesn’t come out and say he advocates legalizing drugs, that’s clearly what he means with the “let every state decide” concealing rhetoric. Don’t think Lampson and the Republicans won’t attack that.

Consider that he wants a national sales tax:

I believe it is time to replace all federal taxation with a single, broad based, retail sales tax on all new goods and services.

Such
a tax, known as the Fair Tax, would reduce the costs of our goods,
making them more competitive in the world market. The Fair Tax would
bring jobs back to our country, abolish the IRS, and proposes to repeal
the 16th amendment so that income taxes cannot be collected.

With
the Fair Tax, for the first time in our history the less fortunate
among us, living at or below the poverty level, would not be taxed.

Perhaps the best effect of the Fair Tax will be to make April 15th just another spring day! Just imagine.

That will go nowhere in the tony suburb of Sugar Land. And, neither will most of Smither’s other Ron Paul-like ideaologies. Forget that part of the district has voted for Paul before.

Furthermore, Republicans (Barr excluded) aren’t going to seriously support someone who openly admits he will not uphold many of their platform issues:

Still, Smither believes a fiscally
conservative libertarian might gain some traction by highlighting “common
ground” in a heavily Republican district that already possesses some
conception of libertarian politics thanks to its close proximity to Rep. Ron
Paul’s turf. Smither has pledged to vote for Republican leadership if
elected, offering Texas voters “a chance to not install a vote for Pelosi”
even as he warns that that same vote is “certainly not a vote for the whole
Republican agenda, because there’s a lot of it I don’t agree with.”

The bottom line here is that Smither’s going nowhere, the write-ins are going to have a tough, fractured row to hoe, and Nick Lampson is the only clear choice in this race for voters. Though Republicans may not agree with Lampson one hundred percent of the time, they have to realize that on issues that really matter, (i.e. not “wedge issues”) like bringing home the federal bacon for a district that includes NASA and is hurricane-vulnerable, Nick Lampson is the only one who can deliver results. Forget a write-in who has fractured his own party and will have a tough time getting anything done, or a Libertarian who will be caucusing out in the House Janitor’s Closet with himself: Nick Lampson has tenure, will have seniority, and will serve the people of his CD-22, plain and simple.

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