MJ,

Since this is not the first time you've asked, I'll comply ... but first I'm going to issue a disclaimer:

I am no longer the manager of Steve Kubby's presidential campaign and the things I say cannot be reasonably construed as statements FROM that campaign or the candidate. I did not discuss my recent writings on Ron Paul with Kubby before publishing them, nor have I discussed them with him since.

I still support Kubby and am still working for him, but everything I do is not related to his campaign any more than everything a grocery sacker does when he's out at the bar on Saturday night is related to the store he works at from 8-5 on Monday thru Friday. I have good reason to believe, based on his recent public statements, that Steve has a much more positive view of Ron Paul than I do at this time.

So, disclaimer done.

The big negative on Ron Paul that I see missing from your list is that he's seeking the nomination of an anti-libertarian party, the GOP. To the extent that he is successful, that's going to cause the public to associate libertarianism with the Republican Party ... an association which is undeserved and which damages libertarianism, since the GOP has always been a party of big government and since it is never going to be anything else.

Some LP members are deserting the LP and its candidates, at least for this election cycle, for Ron Paul, for various articulated reasons. That damages the LP in the short term due to the re-direction of funding, sweat, etc. It damages both the LP and the movement in the long term to the extent that it has a residual effect of causing people to join, or remain in, the GOP thinking that they're going to turn it into a libertarian party, or use it to move public policy in a libertarian direction. That's never going to happen. Every minute and every dollar wasted on trying to MAKE it happen is a minute and a dollar debited from the "promoting libertarianism" side of the ledger and credited to the "damaging libertarianism" side of the ledger."

Now, Kubby ... I'll hit his negatives first

1. His big negative is that he's been dismally unsuccessful in the fundraising that's necessary to power a credible campaign. So far -- according to FEC reports filed for the period through the end of March -- the other candidate's for the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination are badly underfunded as well. Phillies has done a little bit better than Kubby, but only by pumping his own money into his campaign. Imperato's figures are so bizarre, and so strangely characterized, that it's impossible to tell what's really going on there (he allegedly loans money to his campaign, then allegedly pays himself back, etc.) ... and he's not exactly what most libertarians consider very libertarian anyway. When the second quarter reports come out, I guess we'll see how Root is doing.

2. Kubby doesn't have as much name recognition as Paul, although he probably has much greater name recognition than any of the other LP nomination candidates.

Positives:

1. The constituency of voters opposed to the war on drugs is growing. That's a constituency that should have been under the libertarian umbrella already, but we've never done very well at mobilizing it. Kubby is a credible candidate with that constituency and is probably our best shot ever at making a libertarian voter bloc out of it.

2. Kubby is reaching out to other unrepresented and/or poorly represented constituencies on the LEFT, not just the right -- for example, the constituency for immigration freedom and the constituency for equal rights for non-heterosexuals. The LP and the libertarian movement have been flying lopsidedly on our right wing for at least a couple of decades right now ... as a matter of fact, since the LAST time Ron Paul ran for President. It's time to put some lift under our LEFT wing.

3. I'll just quote Kubby himself from last week's debate on a reason to support an LP candidate, namely himself: "2008 is the year when the Libertarian Party can step out of the major parties' shadows and position itself as a bold alternative. It's our chance to shake off labels like 'GOP Lite' and 'Low-Tax Liberal' and stand our ideas on their own feet in real contention for the support of the American people. What I have to offer the Libertarian Party is myself as a candidate with real, bankable political experience in winning freedom for my fellow Americans, and a campaign that doesn't keep the us in that major party shadow for yet another four years."

As a side note, for those who think I'm attacking Paul because I support Kubby ... read those three points again. In realpolitik terms, if I wanted to support Kubby by talking about Paul, I'd be holding the door open for those LP members who are most likely to support Paul and telling them it's a great idea. They're the members who are LESS likely to support Kubby's approach and therefore less likely to support him for the LP's nomination. As they leave, the remaining LP rank and file becomes proportionally more and more "left-leaning." The better Paul does over in the GOP, the more likely Kubby is to be the LP nominee.