Crazy Tony's Warehouse: The Fringe Candidates

[nacho]

The Greens?  Or, like, America?

[RottingCorpse]

Uh, the world. Possibly all existence.

[fajwat]

we're doomed.

The Greens?  Or, like, America?

Uh, the world. Possibly all existence.

Concur.  And only partially because the doomed Greens are America's, and humanity's, best hope.

[nacho]

If Kat Swift is our last, best hope then I really should hang myself in the shower.

[RottingCorpse]

I already have the rope burns from a failed attempt.

[fajwat]

honestly, the Green party's all about local elections now.  They felt burned by Nadar and want to build from the ground up and focus on what's possible now.

still, kat appears to be an embarrassment.  Dems get away with embarrassments (plenty of examples above) but we Greens are looked at with a different lens.

[RottingCorpse]

I liked Nader. I still like Nader. He cares about issues and problems that effect every American's daily life.

He understands that the system needs to evolve and purge the aspects the breed corruption. The problem is that the corrupt like things the way they are.

[fajwat]

two ways Greens felt burned:
1) Nader kinda wigged out there at the end.
2) Nader never joined the Green party.

[nacho]

Small thread on SA all about the latest fringer:



Some of you might remember Blake Ashby as one of the Republican challengers to Bush in the '04 primaries. Unfortunately, he didn't win the primary, but he's running again in 2008 as an independent. I'll let him put it in his own words:

http://www.ashby2004.com/index.php?p=11

Crack smoking republicans!

    My name is Blake Ashby, and I am running for President. Although I have been a Republican most of my life, I am running as an Independent; I can no longer stomach the Republican Party's hypocrisy.

    I consider this campaign to be the start of a twelve year mission to split the Republican Party in two. The first step in the process is to shine a light on the Republican Party's economic hypocrisy; I hope to highlight the degree to which the Republican Party has turned its back on its traditional values of fiscal conservatism and prudence, and the damage this is doing to our country. I will consider this campaign a success if I can make balancing the budget an important issue in the 2008 campaign. At the very least, I hope to introduce a little more reality into the debate, to provide cover to allow all candidates to talk about the harsh economic choices facing our country.

    Who knows, maybe I can even get one or two of the Republican candidates to actually stand up for traditional Republican values and repudiate the damage being done to our country by the fiscal disaster we call the Bush administration. Maybe I can even shame a couple of them into pledging to balance the budget and acknowledging that the only way to balance the budget is to increase taxes back to where they were during the Clinton administration.

    And if any of the candidates tell you that they can balance the budget without raising taxes, they are lying to you. My slogan in this campaign is going to be "Ashby for President - At Least He Tells the Truth". In this campaign I am going to say the sometimes harsh things that need to be said about the different choices facing our country; I am going to return to the point over and over again that there are financial costs to any decision government makes, including moral decisions.

    Believe it or not, the Republican Party used to fill this role. There was a time when the Republican Party based its policies on something known as "Reality". Republican's recognized that there was nothing to be gained by sugar-coating the facts, by softening what might be the cold, hard truth, or pretending something was true when it wasn't. Now, unfortunately, the Republican Party has withdrawn to its own little fantasy world, where you can cut taxes without cutting government expenses, the deficit never has to be re-paid, and babies saved from legalized abortion don't cost the government a dime. Oh, and the Iraq war will pay for itself. Now, when I read some of the statements coming out of the Bush Administration and the Republican Leadership, I can't help but thinking that the Party has been taken over by a bunch of Crack-Smoking Republicans.

    When you get right down to it, I'm tired of Crack-Smoking Republicans ruining my great Country. Hence my mission. I know that there are millions of frustrated traditional Republicans and fiscally-conservative independents out there who recognize that the Bush Administration and Republican Party has done serious fiscal harm to our country and a very bad job on national security as well. I am asking the Old School, socially moderate, fiscally conservative Republicans to help me whack the Elephant across the nose with a two by four. Running as an independent is hard work; getting on the ballot in each of the fifty states will require collecting tens of thousands of signatures. But if I can tap into the frustration that voters are feeling, we actually have a chance to have an impact on the debate - we have a chance to cause the Republican and even Democratic Party to actually talk about the serious financial questions facing our country.

    You've visited this campaign website, so at the very least you are curious. If you would like to be active in the effort, we are looking for volunteers. We need people to collect signatures, set up speaking engagements, contact their local press, and in general help to spread the word. Help any way you can. Ask your Senate and House of Representative Candidates how they plan to balance the budget? Ask them if our economy would be growing right now if the budget were balanced, and why a Democratic President could achieve economic growth while paying the bills, but a Republican President cannot? And if a local Republican starts to tell you about the great job the President has done in cutting taxes, ask that person if they know the difference between cutting taxes and deferring taxes. Ask them if they are one of those crack-smoking Republicans that is undermining the United States of America.

He also has one of the best Iraq and Afghanistan policies I've seen so far:

    quote:

    Iraq: We Should Ask the Iranians, Syrians and Saudis to Contribute Troops to Iraq. The minor troop increase the Bush Administration refers to as a "Surge" will fail. From the beginning military leaders called for 300,000 troops to stabilize Iraq, but no more than 180,000 have ever been on the ground at one time. Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia are the most willing and logical sources for troops operating under the U.N. mandate. Some may suggest this is naïve; Iranians will occupy the state and use its resources, namely oil revenue, to fund terror. However, if the United States isn't willing to commit the troops necessary to avert civil war and exits before stabilizing the country, Iraq will inevitably fall to their laps anyway. The only naïve option is to not involve these countries now when the United Nations can still impose formal oversight. Under this scenario the U.S. will leave more honorably and peacefully than if Iraq is left solely in its care and troops flee amid a civil war.

    Afghanistan: We Should Allow the Taliban to Participate in the Afghan Government if They Turn Over bin Laden. Like it or not, the Taliban are representative of the beliefs and values of many of the Afghanis. Truly supporting democracy means recognizing not only the governments that we like - it means recognizing governments that are chosen by the people of the country, whether the U.S. approves or disapproves of its policies. If the Taliban will prove their commitment to the standards of international justice by turning over bin Laden they should be allowed to participate in the democratic elections, and respectively, take power if they win. Yes, this may cause a diminution of human and women's rights, but this is the responsibility of the Afghan government-not the United States.

Abortion?

    quote:

    Abortion should be legal and covered by government health programs. Making abortion illegal would have a significant impact on the U.S. budget, and the country cannot afford it - every unwanted baby has a significant financial cost to the government. This is harsh, but unfortunately it is far less expensive to allow women who do not want to give birth to - choose your terms, abort the fetus or kill the baby.

Energy?

    quote:

    We should allow all existing nuclear power facilities to double in capacity, without requiring environmental impact statements or consent of surrounding communities. Every viable option for alternative energy must be explored, and although it may seem controversial, nuclear energy is still the most proven of the non-carbon energy sources. Doubling capacity in existing facilities, without necessarily building anew, is the least disruptive way to safely increase our general energy production for three main reasons: neighboring populations have long been accustomed the plants, it leverages existing security operations, and provides the surest method of reducing carbon-fuel dependence.

    We should allow sugar to be imported into the U.S. at free market rates. Sugar is a far better starting point for biomass energy production than corn. Trade barriers to imported sugar were put in place many years ago, in a different political environment. But at this point energy independence trumps other issues. And yes, we should eventually phase out the subsidies for corn ethanol.

    We should pursue the many small ways available to reduce energy consumption. Conservation is a critical part of reducing our dependency on foreign oil. While conservation is again receiving attention, we need to expand this focus. Through public and private efforts, we need to continue to identify and implement incremental changes to our economy and consumer products to improve efficiency and reduce energy consumption. It is easy to get caught up in the broad sweeping movements, but the fact of the matter is most change comes through the aggregate effect of many thousands of incremental improvements.

[fajwat]

I actually like the pieces I read.

[nacho]

Jack Grimes is the US Presidential candidate of the United Fascist Union, which "will not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, creed, national origin or disability, provided that the applicant is a conservative of national origin." He apparently advocates a mystical form of government based on ESP: "nder the corporate dictatorship the global government will function like a corporation; powere being vested in the dictator of Nova Roma who sits atop the pyramid of government, acting as both a receiver and transmitter of the peoples general will. The collective will of the masses would travel up the pyramid of state and be channeled through the office of the dictator and would be transformed into constructive benevolent programs, then travel back down the pyramid of state." Despite being a Fascist, Grimes differs from our President on several issues, and says that he is "opposed to him & his actions everywhere, at all times, in all places simply because he is what he is." His previous major political opponent, the Big Elk Creek, has not appeared on the national scene since his groundbreaking speech against it, so Mr. Grimes is hardly one to be taken lightly. To assist in his campaign, email joanne_parker20@hotmail.com to apply to become a member of the United Fascist Union, or patronize the advertisers on his website.

And -- http://bowles2008.com/bfp/




Hey, some of their ideas are okay:

“There is no place like HOME”

    * Bring the troops back HOME.
    * Send the illegal immigrants back HOME.
    * Impeach the current President out of his HOME
    * Free health care to every HOME.
    * Eliminate the property taxes on every HOME.
    * Zero interest mortgage loans so everyone can own a HOME.
    * Stronger law enforcement so you can walk outside your HOME.
    * Stop the banks and/or government from repossessing any FAMILY FARM or HOME.
    * Reparation of non-Whites so White people have a country they can call their HOME.
    * Dump Israel before the rest of world nukes our HOME.

Except, uh....

We demand land and territory (colonies) to feed our people and to settle surplus population.

Huh?

[Cassander]

Steal Jew Gold and move it into our HOME
Revoke Barry Bonds' HOME run record
Kick HOME-osexuals out of the country

[Cassander]

filter on je w?  weak!

[nacho]

Fajwat did that and I can't turn it off because the page breaks.

[RottingCorpse]

Where do you dig up these people?