Does anyone besides me think it’s a bit odd that almost every state and national poll is excluding Badnarik?
For those rare polls that include him, he’s getting about the same amount of support as Nader, around 2% or so. Furthermore, Badnarik will be on the ballot in every state, Nader on only 34. It seems the people who’ll vote for Badnarik would probably otherwise vote for Bush.
With such a close election, even 1% for Badnarik could make a big difference.
How many states is he on the ballot? I had to do a search just to see who you were talking about.
I am voting for Kerry. I really, really want to vote for Badnarik as he’s closer to my political views. Welcome to swing state reconciling.
It doesn’t look like he’s on the ballot in all 50 states (yet). He’s not on the ballot in New Hampshire nor Oklahoma.
From the OP:
The fact that you had to do a search just proves the point of the OP. Ther press is playing up Nader, but not mentioning Badnarik. Why? The Libs have typically gotten less than 1% of the vote for the last 20 years in presidential elections. That might be part of the reason. But clearly, Nader is somehow a golden boy, but the Lib candidate is not.
Have you checked out one of those vote-swap schemes? You vote for Kerry, and in exchange someone in a safe Kerry state votes for Badnarik. Badnarik gets the same overall number of votes, yet your vote is not wasted as Kerry is more likely to win the election.
Well, thats who I’m voting for. 
My understanding is that he will take votes equally (roughly) from both parties…I’d guess thats why you don’t see him in any polls. We didn’t see the Libertarian party in the polls last election either…they generally don’t get enough votes to make them worth asking I guess. (I hope THIS time is different).
I think what the Dem’s are doing to Nader this time is a shame…where is the outrage? Not to get side tracked though, I think Badnarik will do better than Nader this time…in the states where Nader manages to fight his way on the ballot that is. Of course he’ll do better in the states where Nader is being barred.
BTW, again, my understanding is Badnarik takes votes equally (again, roughly) from both parties…unlike Nader who only takes from the Democrats (well, mostly…some folks who vote Nader wouldn’t vote for either major candidate anyway). Not that this excuses what the Democrats are doing to Nader this time mind you. :mad:
-XT
He’s on here in Ohio.
I’ve got my sign up.
Its kindof a media blackout.
Imagine, if most people knew he was running or even what his positions are it would take votes away from the main 2, and we Can’t Have That!
Any Badnarik ads in Ohio, vanilla? There are ads for him here in New Mexico…not bad ads either. Basically they say yes America, you DO have a choice if you don’t agree with either of the big two.
-XT
Polls that I’ve seen had shown that 25% of Nader voters would vote for Bush if they didn’t have Nader, 50% would go cor Kerry and 25% wouldn’t vote.
I haven’t seen any similar polls about Badnarik.
He got my vote, too, btw. I live in a very safe Kerry state.
Not local ones.
I saw one on FoxNews(bare and falanced) with a couple sitting at a table saying they would vote for him.
We can only hope.
Fighting ignorance indeed.
BTW, I forgot to mention that Badnarik “stole” my vote from Kerry. I would’ve voted for the latter if I hadn’t voted for the former, although I voted for Bush in '00. Call me a flip-flopper, I guess.
I can’t afford to vote Libertarian this time out (though I usually do, all in all).
Welcome to Ohio and the political reality of it all.
I’m in Ohio and I am voting Badnarik.
I’m sorry, Kerry was not my first choice, nor second.
I heard his stump speech on NPR whilst driving home tonight. It was fairly interesting – mainly because it was essentially a professor explaining what libertarianism is to a college audience. He might have convinced me I’m a libertarian, or that we all are. But not as convincing on why I should vote for him.
OTOH, my Democratic vote doesn’t matter in this state, so I might vote for him anyways.
Well, that second sentence is probably the difference right there.
I typically vote Libertarian for President and other offices depending on whether they’ve nominated whack-jobs for some particular job or other.
But this time I’m falling straight into the ‘Anybody but Bush’ camp and that means a vote in a swing state with purpose.
Ok, he’s on 48 state ballots.
Still more than Nader.
And the polls that include him do show him getting about as much as Nader, 1-2%. If
Nader is a factor, so is he.
The politicians are always fighting the last war. In this case, so is the news media. Nader is only getting the attention he gets because of what he did to Gore last election. He’s got high ‘name recognition.’ That’s all. People want to hear about it. It’s really sad commentary on our nation’s media.
It’s laziness, basically – the media has already heard of Nader, so it’s easy to just mention him when it occurs to anyone to mention anybody outside the main two.
I’m voting for Badnarik. I live in Virginia, which I figure is a pretty safe Bush state whichever way I vote.
…And that’s what we’re counting on. If the media does not care enough to cover him, perhaps we, his supporters can make that differance and get the party more notice. I’m in Illinois, so it’s “safe” for me to do so, but I’ve voted Libertarian in every election I’ve been old enough to participate in.