From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Marrou's puzzling vote totals: Why & consequences
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 06:37:57 GMT

In article <1992Nov21.014039.14987@photon.com> jbn@photon.com (Joe Naiman) writes:
}Stephen M Conley (sconley@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu) wrote:
}: In article <1djie9INNoem@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> aa396@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bill
}: Okay, which freedoms and which oppressed groups do you think
}: we should sell out first?
}
}Actually, we sell out the oppressed groups which hide behind freedom.
}Andre Marrou was asked about abortion in the 1987 Vice-Presidential
}campaign.  Although he opposes government restriction, he stated that
}he hoped that abortion would become "a thing of the past" and advocated
}deregulation of adoption and experimentation of fetal transplants.  It
}is a stand many right-to-lifers (including myself) can stomach.
}
}However, Marrou's comments on abortion changed over the next five years.
}He called right-to-lifer "storm troopers" and noted in early fundraising
}literature that he would make "abortion rights" (with Marrou, I guess it
}would have been a right rather than a special privilege) one of his
}campaign themes.  Marrou lost any chance he had of getting a lot of
}protest votes from right-to-life conservatives dissatisifed with Bush.

I never heard the "storm trooper" comments, but he's made a number of mistakes
like that.  However, I heard a radio interview where he said that while he
opposes abortion prohibition, he wanted to discourage abortion, and listed
several ways for this to be done.

Besides which, Bush got 80% of the evangelical vote.  He locked it up and
sealed his doomed fate when he let "Family Values" become the GOP convention
theme.  I don't see this as a major constituency for us for a number of
reasons.

In a new study of evangelicals it turns out that while they're united on
social issues, they're all over the map on economics.  They're no more likely
to support free markets than any "liberal."

Furthermore, their ideas are anti-free market.  They oppose free markets in
drugs, abortions, pornography, sex, school curricula, immigrant labor,
imports, art...

}Dennis Thompson, the last Libertarian to run for Governor of California,
}made a similar mistake.  He sought money and endorsements from the gun
}owners and motorcyclists dissatisfied with Wilson and Feinstein; yet when
}speaking at forums he emphasized not gun control or helmet laws, but drugs.
}Dennis is no drug user, I know him personally, and he should not have
}abandonned the drug legalization effort; however, by emphasizing an issue
}appealing to a smaller group he lost the opportunity to rack up gun and
}motorcycle votes.

This sounds like it truly was a mistake.

}California LP chairman Pat Wright was accused of a similar bad strategy
}in his Assembly campaign this year - as the only candidate in the County
}whose name was on the successful court challenge against the sales tax
}increase (Dick Rider also filed that suit but lost in the primary),
}Wright stood a lot to gain against a pro-tax incumbent.  Instead, Wright
}took up the issue of ferret ownership.  His own campaign manager noted
}(although she may not have used the comment I make below, and she did
}acknowledge that brining the ferret to forums got him attention)
}that there were more taxpayers than ferret owners.

As does this.

}The Libertarians should not abandon unpopular causes, nor should they
}dodge questions aimed at their support of unpopular causes.  But the
}Libertarian Party is targeting too small a market when it emphasizes
}issues such as drug legalization and ferret ownership.

I'll agree with you on ferret ownership, but not on drug legalization.  The
last scientific polls I heard of found that about a third of the electorate
supported this issue.

Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Voltaire
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian