<http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Jun-27-Sun-2004/opinion/24127406.html> Sunday, June 27, 2004 Las Vegas Review-Journal VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: Shuffling to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell In Atlanta over the May 29 weekend, former movie producer, Bette Midler manager/paramour and Nevada gubernatorial candidate Aaron Russo -- who entered the Libertarian Party's national convention as the front-runner for the presidential nomination -- was doing himself no favors on the convention floor. The Libertarian Party has more than its share of dorks and dweebs, who given the chance will corner you and seek a debate on the most arcane details of anything from private space exploration to the Federal Reserve. I can understand Russo's reluctance to waste too much time on this stuff (though in fact, the Federal Reserve seems to have become one of his own favorite topics, of late). But eyewitnesses report Russo's response was to call such gadflies "idiots," sometimes throwing in a few extra modifiers which I can't print in a family newspaper. On the floor, Russo "had a style that some delegates from the South and Midwest fretted would not sell back home -- brash New York ethnic," comments Brian Doherty of Reason magazine (<http://www.reason.com/links/links060304.shtml>). Doherty observed Russo "throwing around the word `baby,' cracking jokes, grabbing floating balloons and nuzzling them, then mock-complaining that one of his vocal opponents would probably call that sexual harassment ... segueing from a mention of orgasms to introducing his wife." If this is the degree of delicacy with which Aaron treated the 808 voting delegates at the very convention whose nomination he sought, who can guess what level of gravitas and aplomb he might bring to a set of tense diplomatic negotiations with, say, Jacques Chirac? I've met Aaron Russo. I believe he's sincerely concerned about the direction this country is headed. But when Aaron ran for governor of Nevada a few years back, he did so from a rented house with rented furniture. On the weekends he commuted back to visit his immediate family in Southern California -- in a fancy car with Vermont license plates. Even in a state where native-born residents are a rarity, Aaron Russo gave carpetbaggers a bad name. The majority of the LP's delegates in Atlanta concluded Aaron Russo might inject some money and some drama, but that he was a loose cannon. "The delegates voted for the man who was the most like them, who presented in the most professional way the modal opinions and views and style of a Libertarian Party activist -- quiet, intense, no deviation from the catechism, more concerned with eternal ideological and philosophical verities than the political events of the day," summarizes Doherty. Michael Badnarik is no table-pounder. But the political maneuverings that landed Badnarik the LP nomination -- a tense, edge-of-your-seat process conducted in the light of day -- produced the best candidate. Michael Badnarik won the nomination, on the issues, because he won the candidates' debate. How close was it? On the first ballot, the delegates split Russo 258, Michael Badnarik 256, and 246 for syndicated radio host Gary Nolan. Then it started to get interesting. Properly covered and explained, it could have made great live television -- but of course no network but C-SPAN will cover such real political drama, any more. Too much chance the voting public might get exposed to some radical new common-sense ideas. Come November, I with perhaps 1 or 2 percent of the populace will cast my lonely vote for Michael Badnarik, an articulate, reasonable, personable freedom fighter of modest means, who lacks any discernible pathological need or expectation for brass bands, snapping flashbulbs or public adulation. I will vote for a candidate who -- if he had his way -- would end the insane war on drugs; end the income tax; restore my God-given and constitutionally guaranteed firearms rights; protect the rights of all Americans to medical privacy; end the noxious daily trampling of our Bill of Rights in the nation's airports; pull us out of the deadly, illegal and unconstitutional war in Iraq; and put the U.S. military back to work tracking down the real culprits of Sept. 11. "At which point, if we can find them, you think it would be OK to just kill them?" I asked the candidate last week. "Sure," Badnarik said. Sounds about right to me. I will cast that vote on Nov. 2, and get my ass whupped (politically speaking), and go to bed proud and justified. In contrast, 95 percent of you (if you bother going to the polls at all -- and who can blame you for your increasing sense of mortification? You must start to feel like the Eloi, shuffling in to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell in H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine") will vote for a lying politician who you know to be a lying politician -- one of two interchangeable Skull & Bonesmen without any discernible political principles, who (no matter which wins) will proceed to raise your taxes, take away more of your freedoms, and continue frittering away whatever remains of America's reputation for decency by continuing the violent military occupation of scores of foreign countries that have never attacked nor declared war upon us. All this in hopes of temporarily propping up the bottom lines of sundry well-heeled banks, oil companies and federally subsidized engineering and construction firms. All because you don't want to "throw away your vote" -- and register your disapproval with that state of affairs -- by voting for a guy who would make you feel decent and clean. Because he's going to lose. So, I don't get it: Let's say you flip a coin and manage to pick the winner. What do you win? Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal and author of the books "Send in the Waco Killers" and "The Ballad of Carl Drega." His Web site is www.privacyalert.us. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'