Rand Paul is the next Senator of Kentucky.  The election is all but wrapped up.

Most people will immediately respond that it is way too early to make such a statement; how can we possibly know what will happen over the next nine to ten months? I will concede the point that we can never be sure how an election will turn out ten months before the vote, but all evidence points towards a Rand Paul win come November.

1) Polling
Rand has seen meteoric rise in the polls over the past five months. He went from losing 26-37 in August to establishment pick Trey Grayson, to leading Grayson 44-25 in December. Also, while he was picking up this lead there was an increasing number of undecided voters from 17% in August to 32% in December. The momentum is clearly on Rand Paul’s side.

2) Campaign – The Beginning
From the beginning Rand has arguably run a stronger campaign. Despite never being elected to office in Kentucky, Paul had the advantage of being Congressman Ron Paul’s son. This allowed him to make his announcement on national television that he would be running for Senate. While Trey Grayson attacked this as an example of how Paul was an “outsider” to Kentucky, the famous comeback by Paul swung this war of words in his favor, “I’ve been a Kentuckian longer than Grayson’s been a Republican!”

3) Fund Raising
After accusing Paul of being an outsider, Grayson made what some would call his fatal mistake in the campaign: host a $500 per plate fundraiser in Washington, D.C. where 17 of 23 Republican Senators in attendance voted for the bank bailout. Paul railed on the bank bailout from the beginning, and this fund raiser invigorated supporters of Paul who raised over $1 million in the third quarter, dwarfing Grayson’s $642,800.

4) Tea Party Candidate
The one major thing Rand Paul has done that has allowed him to surge in the Kentucky Senate Campaign is distinguish himself as a Tea Party Candidate. This goes back to Grayson’s “Bailout” fundraiser. At Fancy Farm, a major political event in Kentucky, Rand railed on the bailout bill. Between Rand’s public opposition to the bailout and Grayson’s support of bailout-voting Senators, Rand is clearly embodying the Tea Party image. Along with his fiscal conservatism and general belief in small government, Paul truly has become the “Tea Party” candidate in this Senate Race.

5) Kentucky Favors Republicans
Kentucky has two Republican Senators and overwhelmingly went for McCain in the 2008 election. 2010 will not be an easy year for Democrats, and Rand is polling 14% above Daniel Mongiardo and 8% above Jack Conway. Though these are not “blow out” totals, he has consistently gained against these two candidates. Perhaps I am not giving them nearly enough credit, but both candidates will need to spend more money as the Democratic Primary is much closer with only recently (in the last poll) Conway passing Mongiardo. As I said, unless Democrats have a major turnaround before November, the “Tea Party” Republican candidate is all but certain to win the election.

If the Paul campaign continues to campaign as hard as they have the past six months and reinforce Paul’s conservative values, I think this campaign is all but decided.

I, like anyone else, wants to believe that America is made up of logical individuals. I wish I could agree with this assessment, but American culture and government makes me question this belief.

The fact that marijuana prohibition is still in place despite the overwhelming evidence that it is a safer substance than alcohol is truly mind-blowing. Any logical individual who gives any significant time towards understanding the issue will undoubtedly realize that the arguments against marijuana prohibition are large in number and substance.

One friend of mine said that there is just more important issues and people only have limited time in the day. This makes a lot of sense, but I still personally think the time commitment necessary to understand why marijuana should be legalized is minimal.

Even with that statement in mind, our culture daily make a big deal out of celebrities and athletes who are caught using marijuana, yet they do not find a problem with someone becoming intoxicated. Furthermore, you will hear alcohol users speak about marijuana users as if they are doing something wrong or are just “lazy stoners.”

Of course I am making generalities and there are many who are sympathetic to marijuana law reform, but the fact that there is not a large majority who support marijuana legalization shows how illogical Americans are.

Lets “get smart” as a nation and repeal marijuana prohibition.

A 79 year old Republican Virginia Delegate Harvey Morgan is proposing a bill that would effectively decriminalize marijuana in the state of Virginia. From wtkr:

What is unfortunate is what the younger Republican delegate says in the clip, that it is political suicide to support such a bill and that you would “lose your job” if you did so.  His argument is basically that regardless of the merits of decriminalizing marijuana, delegates supporting the bill will not be re-elected.

This is just another example of representatives stepping up and doing what is right.  It’s beyond sad to see the daily arrests made in relation to marijuana when people of legal age are able to use much more harmful substances (namely tobacco and alcohol).  Once someone looks at the facts, it is hard to believe we are still embracing an illogical and harmful policy of marijuana prohibition.

Kudos to Morgan for doing what he knows is right.

Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner has been using what I would call “scare tactics” to improve Ben Bernanke’s renomination as the head of the Federal Reserve. From Politico:

Asked about possible market reaction to a defeat, Geithner said: “I think the markets would view that as a very troubling thing to the economy as a whole. But, as I said, I don’t think they should be uncertain. I think they should be confident because we are very confident he will be reconfirmed.”

He appears confident, as he should be, that Bernanke will get the votes needed for confirmation. But what is troubling about this is that there is a very subtle threat that the markets will react negatively if he is not confirmed.

What the American public should be concerned about is the fact that a central bank has monopoly power over money in the United States. Besides that, they are private and unaccountable to the American public. Yet we still see people arguing that they should not even be audited! Unfortunately for Geithner and the Fed-backers, they can’t threaten that the market will react negatively to what is uncovered in the Fed audit. That would just prove the audit should have occurred; the market needs correction from the intervention of the Federal Reserve.

Unfortunately we are at a point where there is so much intervention into our economy by the Federal Reserve and our government that the public can be swayed (if needed) that keeping the status quo will allow for stability. We would rather see a man become renominated than rejected because the market won’t respond negatively.

If we want long-term health in our economy and true stability, we should question the Federal Reserves, it’s purpose, it’s ability to fulfill that purpose, and whether we would be better off without it. All the attention will be on Bernanke during this time, but it is of utmost importance that the attention be focused on the Fed as a whole instead of just one man.

When I scanned the front page of the local paper here in St. Paul, Minnesota, something stuck out to me (and no it was not the headline about the devastating loss the Vikings suffered last night).  An article written by Rick Montgomery titled Poll: More Americans want U.S. to ‘mind its own business’ immediately grabbed my attention, especially the sub-title “Rising isolationism highest in people younger than 30.”

Of all of Ron Paul’s views, his non-interventionist foreign policy was the hardest for me to grasp. This was partly due to the natural complexity of the issue, but also my own lack of knowledge surrounding the topic. I read Paul’s “A Foreign Policy of Freedom” and was enlightened about some of the more intricate aspects of Paul’s views. He raises some great points and offers an argument that runs so against our current foreign policy that it is hard for an average American to grasp: our foreign policy has made us less safe and more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

What I read in Montgomery’s article was impressive:

To one poll question, roughly half of Americans agreed that the U.S. should “mind its own business internationally” and let others get along on their own. To another question, 44 percent said “we should go our own way” and not worry whether other nations disagree.

Both questions are vague and mean different things to different people, the pollsters concede. But when asked similar questions in 1964, not even one in five Americans thought going it alone or staying out were good ideas.

In reality we have had the same foreign policy for the better part of the last century. Following the intervention of World War I, our nation has arguably (and rightly) been labeled the most interventionist nation in the world. With over 700 permanent military bases in over 100 nations how can an outsider view us as anything but an empire? This policy has been largely unchanged from Kennedy to Reagan and Clinton to Obama.

The juggernaut that is the Military Industrial Complex as well as the stake that many interests have in our foreign policy, it hardly should be surprising that our foreign policy will be the hardest policy to change. Many view it as only an issue of Iraq and Afghanistan; if you are anti-war you simply want these wars ended. In reality it is a much more complex and expansive system that is not keen on change.

Besides Montgomery’s use of “isolationist” instead of “non-interventionist,” his article poses a question whose answer could spark a revolution: Is the American Public ready for true change when it comes to U.S. foreign policy? The fact that roughly half that were polled believe the U.S. should “mind its own business internationally” is at the very least encouraging and at best a sign of things to come.

In my opinion the term “Tea Party” or “Tea Party Candidate” and the whole “Tea Party Movement” is irrelevant. It means nothing! It hasn’t meant anything meaningful for a long time.

Perhaps this is too radical a statement for most people, but ask yourself this: Do Ron Paul and Sean Hannity have the same political views? The clear answer is no. Hannity supports supply-side economics, Paul Austrian. Hannity supports our current foreign policy (including Guantanamo Bay, torture, and our foreign presence in over 100 nations) while Paul supports a foreign policy of non-intervention. Hannity supports Bush regardless of the argument, while Paul will criticize both parties about their big-government policies. Hannity and Paul have completely different political ideologies when they are examined.

Here’s the problem: the tea parties were not entirely made up of libertarian uproar about BOTH parties, but instead have become a combination of libertarians, paleo-conservatives, and of course neo-cons. Ever since I saw Sean Hannity have a live show at a tea party and talk up the tea parties, I knew that there was a serious misinterpretation about what the tea party movement is and what the true identity is.

We can talk all day about how the “tea party” candidate Doug Hoffman was lifted up by conservatives across the nation. But now we have Scott Brown being lifted up as the “tea party” candidate. I have to give credit to The Humble Libertarian as they pointed out that Scott Brown might be against government controlled health care, but he most certainly is not a libertarian by any stretch of the imagination. Comparing Brown to the libertarian candidate Joe Kennedy:

One supports the nanny state and agrees with Barack Obama’s opposition to gay marriage, but support for civil unions. The other believes government should stay out of the issue of marriage altogether.

One supports the Federal government’s role in taxing income, regulating education, and allowing the Federal Reserve Bank to continue printing money out of thin air. The other adamantly opposes all three.

As a libertarian, I have to be alarmed. I like to think of myself as a “Tea Party” supporter. But then I realize that label means nothing. It’s just a way for neo-conservatives like Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, and others to put all non-progressives under the same banner despite the clear differences.

Let’s not kid ourselves. “Tea Party” means nothing.

We can talk all day about the implications of the Scott Brown/Martha Coakley Senate race, but one of the most important outcomes will be the effect it has on the midterm 2010 elections. Republican candidates have already received a boost in polls across the nation due to a backlash against Democrat policies.

In a great piece by Gerald F. Seib titled “U.S. Shifted Party, Not Ideology,” Seib explains that for the most part the ideology of the United States has not shifted in recent years. The mistaken belief by Democrats that Americans want more liberal policies is not entirely accurate, and the backlash they are facing is due at least in part because of this.

Massachusetts is a state that went heavily for Obama. This race should have been a shoe-in for Martha Coakley, but instead we are seeing a race that is too close to call. Across the nation the past few weeks all eyes have been on Massachusetts as liberals begin to panic that their health care initiative will be stalled if not ruined by the loss of their 60 vote bloc. Similarly Conservatives across the nation who have been protesting the Democrats health care reform since this summer have been flooding funds and support to the Brown Senate race.

(more…)

I have a major concern: libertarians will not be represented in the Republican Presidential primaries in 2012.

As Ron Paul has reached an age that makes his battle for the nomination even harder, and Gary Johnson’s lack of exposure makes his nomination unlikely, libertarians are faced with a major dilemma as the 2012 presidential primaries near.

Yes, Obama has done a terrible job by any stretch of the imagination. But libertarians know McCain would have hardly been a better choice. If anything McCain’s election would have made it nearly impossible for a Republican to be elected president for the next two decades because his disastrous policies would have been (wrongly) blamed on free market policies. I for one do not think Obama’s election was as undesirable as McCain’s would have been.

(more…)