A while back I complained about the intentional media blackout of 3rd party candidates (other than Nader, who no longer represents a party). Aside from PBS and C-Span, these parties just couldn’t get mentioned. Recently, the LP has started running nationwide ads on Fox News, MSNBC, and other stations. As a result, Michael Badnarik is actually getting some non-commercial attention. He has now done interviews on Fox, ABC, and now MSNBC. I don’t have video of the previous interviews, but someone did record the short MSNBC interview. I’ve posted it here, if you want to check it out (and I recommend you do).

I know better than to get too excited, but man I am really excited about this election. I’m not expecting Michael to be our next President, but I am expecting to see a change in how the LP is viewed after this election. Then we have 4 more years to keep the party in the spotlight. If Bush wins, my guess us we get to go up against John McCain and Hilary Clinton. If Kerry wins, it’ll be McCain and Kerry. Frankly, it’ll be a tough fight either way. At least if Kerry wins, America will get a good dose of stupid Democrat policies to remind them that Dems are not the solution the the Republican problem.

So there was a big event on campus yesterday called Democracy Fest. The event was created to encourage students to vote and to give them access to information on the issues. Even though nobody learned of the event until Sunday of last week, a few of us managed to put together a Libertarian booth. It was awesome!

First off, I got to campus at 8:10am and camped out at the best spot - the one usually occupied by the College Republicans (snicker, snicker). At 8:30, Ruth Bennett showed up with a canopy and some tables for us to use. Ruth, Adam (co-founder of the Libertarians at the UW), and I got the booth decorated with banners and set out a bunch of literature and buttons and stuff by 9:00ish. We also had free coffee set up. The great thing is, we were the first politcal party to get up and running.

By around 11:00 the campus was busy and we had all kinds of traffic. Some people asked questions, some voiced there enthusiastic support, some argued, and others (very few) just wanted free coffee. I don’t know if we swayed any voters this time - what we did accomplish, however, is to send the message that the LP is not only alive and well, but growing. In time, our continued and persistant presence at campus events and around the community will spark interest and inspire confidence that we are NOT just some 3rd party - we are THE 3rd party (all the others are going to have be called 4th parties or something).

In keeping with that last statement, we are going to set up a booth at The Day Before event on campus next Monday. We may also sponsor an open discussion on the erosion of our civil liberties under the current 2-party political system (or something like that). The key is to keep getting ourselves out there. Speaking of which, I must go work on the group’s website.

Things seem to be mellowing out for me at the moment. I got through the end of last week relatively unharmed. I’m sure I didn’t ace my chem midterm, but I’m pretty sure I did okay. Either way, it’s over now and I’ll have two more exams to help me recover any losses on this one.

After all the mess of the week, Penny and I had a great time at the opera Friday night. We saw the Seattle Opera’s interpretation of Verdi’s Rigoletto. Instead of sticking with the orginal 16th century period, they set the story in fascist 1930’s Italy. I usually dislike these “updated” versions, but this production was really well done and the period matched the story very nicely. If anyone’s interested, there was a good article discussing the whole thing that was worth reading.

Yesterday, we helped out a little with the Libertarian outreach effort at Greenlake. I’d forgotten about the whole thing until I got up and checked my email. Penny and I then brewed a few gallons of coffee and took that down to the booth the others had set up. Though we didn’t really have the time to stay, I did get into a few nice discussions with some of the Seattlites that were enjoying Greenlake. It was so nice to get such a positive reaction. I know many people are still timid about third parties, but I can definitely feel a change in the air. We just need to stay persistant and polish up the presentation a bit and Americans will really begin to trust the Libertarian Party as much as they agree with its message.

So I haven’t posted in a couple of days (I must be a real blogger now). I’ve been pretty stressed out trying to finish a bunch of projects that I’d put off for far too long. First, I had an assignment in my Computer Organization and Assembly Language class - not too bad but I literally didn’t even read the assignment until a few hours before class. It went okay, but I had some stupidity to overcome with the spim interface. I also had a chemistry lab write-up to complete and a huge project for K2 Corporation that I’ve committed to. Basically, the K2 thing is an upgrade to a database project I’d developed over the past few years. It’s not an upgrade, really - more of a re-purposing (is that a word?). The original system focused on tracking their IP file info and generating these massive status reports. The new version will focus more on the accounting stuff related to their IP interests. Anyway, it’s fun but I’ve had so much else going on that I’ve not made the progress I’d hoped for. I need to get on it though, as I’ve committed to completing the major work by the end of November.

The rest of this week is out, however. I have a major project in the computer class I mentioned that is coming due. We’re implementing a scaled down JVM in spim (MIPS simulator). Pretty cool project, but also time intensive. I have also got to catch up on a ton of reading for my Philosophy of Science seminar AND prepare for a midterm in chemistry on Friday.

Thankfully, the weekend looks like fun. Penny and I are going to the opera Friday night and then to a pumpkin carving party on Saturday. Somewhere in there we hope to do some more campaigning with the Seattle Badnarik group. I’ll be happy when the election season is over and we’ve broken all records for the LP! Then I’ll be able to get more than 5 consecutive hours of sleep.

Very cool things have happened around here the past couple of days. I may have mentioned that I wanted to start a student libertarian organization at UW - well it is now happening. At the beginning of the week, I knew not one fellow libertarian student willing to help start a club. On Monday afternoon, I met guy in the philosophy department who’d also been working on starting a club. That evening, I also got an email from a 3rd person who’d been working on this.

Things just fell together pretty quickly from there. We got our constitution written and approved and we should be an official organization with 10+ members by tomorrow. The greatest part is that most of the new members seem to be freshmen and sophomores. First, that means that not all young Americans are socialists. Second, it means the organization should have at least four good years to it. I can’t wait to see what will happen when we start a massive flyer campaign and staff an info table on the HUB lawn. I am so pleased.