I finally made it beyond memes and spent time reading her website. Pretty solid candidate as a Phd of organizational psychology. Platform is pretty much what I'd expect from a libertarian. Here is some analysis of her platform from my POV. I've broken it down into what I love, what I hate, and what I'm not sure about.

What I love
-My ideal foreign policy

Quote :

"No US involvement in foreign wars. Bring home our 200,000+ American military personnel stationed in foreign countries. No US military aid to foreign governments. No US blockades or embargoes of non-military trade."

-Ideal criminal justice reform

Quote :

"“I am appalled that the United States ranks number one in the world for having the highest percentage of people imprisoned. I am also appalled that the federal government permits police to seize a person’s assets without first convicting them of a crime, and then keep most of the assets seized. This is literally highway robbery. As President, I will use my Constitutional authority to end federal civil asset forfeiture prior to conviction, and pardon persons convicted of non-violent victimless crimes. I will also work with Congress to end the failed War on Drugs and other victimless crime laws.”"

What I hate
-Austerity

Quote :

"I will veto any spending bill that would lead to a deficit, and veto any debt ceiling increase. I will give every Cabinet secretary a specific spending reduction target to meet and hold them accountable. There is simply no excuse for sticking our children and grandchildren with the bill for these bipartisan bloated budgets.”"

-Education and poverty

Quote :

"blah blah small government"

What I'm not sure about
-Healthcare

Quote :

"We can reduce the cost of health care 75% by allowing real price competition, and by substantially reducing government and insurance company paperwork.We can reduce the cost of health care 75% by allowing real price competition, and by substantially reducing government and insurance company paperwork."

I mean I don't believe this but if it were true, itd be a lot better than the status quo. It can't be this easy, can it?

-Energy

Quote :

"“I will work to remove government barriers to replacing coal-burning and oil-burning power plants in the United States with safe, non-polluting, high-tech nuclear power plants – and allowing off-grid use of solar power. Worldwide, I believe we need to consider all scientific & economic knowledge to care for our environment, not cherry-pick data to support a pre-determined outcome. Most pollution is generated in developing countries, so reducing pollution worldwide requires cost-efficient zero emission energy sources like nuclear.”"

Sounds good but from what I've heard theres no way around the decades long time barrier to getting new nuclear plants online but I've also had nuclear advocates tell me china has gotten plants online in 5 years. What would that entail? I'm not sure.


Clearly, I'd rank her well above the right wing candidates but well below the candidates on the left. I'd especially love to hear excuses from some of the feminists who insisted its past time for a female president and that we must vote for women over men.

6/24/2020 9:43:21 PM

Some sound good. The nuclear power line everyone uses ever 4 years and nothing happens. The austerity thing I think is ludicrous

[Edited on June 24, 2020 at 10:14 PM. Reason : But voting for her is helping trump, so hard pass]

6/24/2020 10:08:13 PM

this is an enormous waste of your time. she's a libertarian. we already know what that means.

6/24/2020 11:05:24 PM

Yeah well this whole election is a waste of my time but its also a hobby so I still like to follow all of the candidates, listen to all the different perspectives, and see what happens. I also like democracy and genuinely believe everyone should be educated on all of the candidates and encouraged to vote for the candidate who best represents their ideals. That is a concept that this country has lost. Our mindset is more about making sure no one else gets what they want if you can't get what you want.

I think there are a lot more Trump/Jo voters than Biden/Jo voters though. Fiscal conservatives. All the libertarian people I know hate Trump but are leaning Trump because Jo can't win (even though Trump is no more libertarian than Biden). None of them have reflected on how we got here. Thats how the race to the bottom works.


[Edited on June 24, 2020 at 11:19 PM. Reason : crab mentality voting]

6/24/2020 11:16:01 PM

Re austerity, I think I would reframe the discussion a different way to push back on Democrats and Republicans:

-The size of the deficit will not be increased, period.
-Any new spending must be accompanied by a similar decrease in spending elsewhere, or an accompanying tax increase that covers 100% of the cost. This will continue until the budget is balanced and the deficit has been reduced a significant amount.
-Any proposed tax cut must be accompanied by a decrease in spending elsewhere. This will continue until the budget is balanced and the deficit has been reduced a significant amount.

[Edited on June 25, 2020 at 3:05 PM. Reason : /]

6/25/2020 3:05:13 PM

The main "other candidates":

Libertarians - Jo Jorgensen/Spike Cohen - at the moment on the ballot in 37 states, looks likely they'll get to all 51 again as the largest most organized third party in the country, I think the Libertarians will be happy if she breaches 1%, Johnson's 3.3% in 2016 was more than triple their past best-ever performance, Jorgensen is largely seen inside the party as a good reflection of party values that does not rock the boat too much, is not a former Republican officeholder (unlike the past 3 presidential election cycles), Jorgensen was the Libertarians' VP nominee way back in 1996

Greens - not official yet but Howie Hawkins/Angela Walker - at the moment on the ballot in 24 states, also nominated by Socialist Party USA although that does not mean much for ballot access, Hawkins is a New York election ballot fixture for the Greens there, he's one of the co-founders of the party, Hawkins tried to get the nomination of the California Peace & Freedom Party and the Vermont Liberty Union Party, but was defeated by a name further down this list, Walker was the Socialists' VP nominee in 2016

Constitution Party - Don Blankenship/William Mohr - at the moment on the ballot in 13 states, Blankenship is a West Virginia coal executive, he ran for the Republican Senate seat from West Virginia in 2018, was highly controversial due to his part in the death of 20 or so coal miners in his company, and ended up taking 3rd place in the primary, the New Mexico and Virginia Constitution Party affiliates said they would not support him and in New Mexico where they have ballot access they are going to put on a different name; a number of state party affiliates have disaffiliated from the national Constitution Party in the aftermath of the Convention, not entirely due to Blankenship's selection but more dissatisfaction of the progress of the party nationally, so come 2024 there may be a new "largest 3rd party to the Republicans' right"

Gloria La Riva/Leonard Peltier - Party for Socialism & Liberation - modern-day communists, Peltier is an American Indian activist that has been in jail a long time convicted of the shooting of federal agents, in spite of being the PSL, about 85% of their vote in 2016 came from gaining the ballot access line of the California Peace & Freedom Party which was good for 66,000 votes; to put that in perspective, Bernie Sanders as a write-in got more votes in California, but for 3rd parties that alone was good enough to get them to finish 7th place nationally, remove that California Peace & Freedom line and they're on level with the Socialist Workers Party

right now on the ballot in 3 states: California (Peace & Freedom), Florida (Socialism & Liberation - although I saw at Ballot Access News that the PSL and Independent Party of Florida were taking something about ballot access there to federal court, this is very common for all 3rd parties), and Vermont (Liberty Union)

Rocky De La Fuente/Darcy Richardson - De La Fuente is a very rich Mexican-American businessman from San Diego with business interests in southern California, Mexico (born in San Diego but was educated in Mexico), and Uruguay, he ran in 2016, became the "nation's leading expert" on ballot access lawsuits as his personal vehicle party (think Reform Party and Ross Perot 1996) the American Delta Party was formed and he got that on the ballot in 13 states and about 33,000 votes nationally for his trouble, I call that the "De La Fuente Line" - modeled after baseball's Mendoza line, the De La Fuente Line is the bare minimum number of votes a presidential candidate can get that puts in a serious amount of effort into it

He's back in 2020 and is more credible this time around as far as getting other ballot access lines. Plus he can self-fund which helps. So far he is on in 4 states all from 4 different parties:

Delaware - American Delta
Florida - Reform
Michigan - Natural Law (the national Natural Law Party from the 1990s now defunct a la Reform, but kept going in Michigan by an attorney as a ballot access vehicle)
South Carolina - Alliance (a centrist reform party initially formed nationally in 2018 with 25 state affiliates but 3 serious state-level parties that put candidates on the ballot in South Carolina, Minnesota - the former Independence Party of Jesse Ventura, and Connecticut's Independent Party, looking at doing the centrist reform-minded popular front of sorts as at the moment it's a merger of 10 or so different minor parties thus the name, I'm considering putting my backing into the Alliance Party and help get it going in Indiana

[Edited on June 25, 2020 at 3:33 PM. Reason : .]

6/25/2020 3:28:38 PM