Posted under Bob Barr & Chuck Baldwin & Constitution Party
There will be a Third Party Presidential Candidates Debate tonight at 9:00 pm ET. It will be aired live on C-SPAN 2. The debate will originate from the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. A live web feed will also be streamed by Restore the Republic Radio at http://www.rtrradio.com or www.TheyWillBeHeard.com.
This 90-minute forum is being sponsored by The Free and Equal Elections Coalition (http://www.freeandequal.org). A total of six presidential candidates who are on enough state ballots to be eligible to win the election have been invited to participate.
Constitution Party nominee and the only authentic conservative in the race, Chuck Baldwin, will be participating. Independent Ralph Nader has also confirmed. Libertarian nominee Bob Barr could not attend due to a “scheduling conflict.â€
I don’t doubt that Bob Barr has a scheduling conflict since this debate was arranged rather hastily. It was originally scheduled for last Sunday. But skepticism is warranted because Bob Barr has generally tried to avoid appearing with the other third party candidates, I believe in the mistaken belief that he is a more serious candidate, and that appearing with other third party candidates will somehow diminish him. Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader followed the same rational in 2000. But I believe Barr is making a big mistake. This attitude has already cost him support. His now infamous snub of Ron Paul’s press conference was labeled Snubgate on the Web, and earned Baldwin Ron Paul’s specific endorsement. Prior to Barr’s grandstanding, Paul had simply urged supporters of liberty to vote third party without endorsing any candidate specifically. Barr is acting, as my Mom would say, too big for his britches. He needs to get down off his high horse and get his hands dirty with the rest of the third party candidates.
Anyway, tonight’s debate should be a refreshing change of pace. After watching three debates of Social Democrat A vs. slightly less Social Democrat B, it will be nice to hear from an authentic conservative and Constitutionalist, Chuck Baldwin.
Update: We’ve got the video replay of the debate for all those who may have missed it.
RedPhillips on 24 Oct 2008 at 3:37 am #
Wow. Now that was a debate. Both candidates did well. I thought Baldwin fumbled the health care question a bit. In hard cases like that (What about poor people?), simply plead the Constitution. There is no constitutional authority for the federal government to involve itself in healthcare, period.
And I was very surprised at how hard Nader went after Israel and AIPAC. Of course he played the Palestinian victimology card.
roho on 24 Oct 2008 at 1:27 pm #
I had no idea, and hate that I missed it………If anyone knows of a replay of the debate please post it. (We all know many people that are voting the lesser of two evil route that really need to hear Chuck Baldwin speak.)…………Jobs sure do interfere with important stuff!
paulie on 24 Oct 2008 at 7:51 pm #
Video of the debate
http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2008/10/video-of-last-nights-presidential-debate-between-ralph-nader-and-chuck-baldwin/
Weaver on 25 Oct 2008 at 12:52 am #
Youtube has part I of the debate for free.
You can follow the links to later parts (so it has the entire debate in parts.)
Patroon on 25 Oct 2008 at 6:54 am #
It was a good debate, I was bothered by Baldwin’s lack of answer on healthcare. He doesn’t want govenment involvement which none of us want but he also doesn’t want to look callous either and I can understand that. But it leaves no room for a good answer.
What I would have said in response is that if you believe in free healthcare as a right for all Americans, then denying such care through rationing, which is what socialists countries do to control costs (instead of insurance companies, the Feds would be in the tight spot of picking and choosing) is a violation of that right. If the government says I have a right to healthcare then I have a right to have it whenever and where I choose and I have the right to have any procedure I want. Can you imagine the litigation that would follow if the government felt othwerise?
And if we give this right to all American, we have to give it to rich and poor, just we plan to give a Social Secruity check to Donald Trump when he gets to be 65. So, in a nutshell, universal coverage basically the average taxpayers pays for abortion on demand, they pay a Hollywood startlets botox injections, somone else’s tummy tuck, an old man’s penile implant, that fellow’s Viagara prescription, you name it, it gets taken care of. Only instead of rich doctors, you’ll probabably get someone just fresh from residency in Bangledesh (as in Great Britain) because U.S. doctors aren’t going towork for a government run health system that pay them chairity wages.
Thus a universial health sytem run by the federal government is not just unconstitutional, but also a fiscal, moral and ethical nightmare witing to happen.