Wednesday, November 7, 2012

They chose the devil they knew....

Unsurprisingly Barack Obama remains POTUS for another term. The US Congress is still divided, and as one of my more learned Facebook friends suggested during the TV count coverage last night:

"It appears we are headed for four more years of divided government and gridlock. The least bad of all possible outcomes."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement for what happened, but as positive as could be hoped for. 

Alas, a 5% showing for Gary Johnson the Libertarian candidate, did not happen, not even close. Johnson had his best showing in his home state of New Mexico with just 3.5% of the popular vote, next was Montana with 2.9% then Wyoming with 2.2%. Everywhere else was slightly more or less than 1%. His national total (at this posting) was about 1,140,000 votes, just 1.0% of total votes cast. This graphic from Google is one of the best sources. The graphic above from the Libertarian National Committee neatly compares the three candidates on a variety of issues. Of course most campaigns really are not about issues, are they? 

Another Facebook friend pointed out an article written by a libertarian that stirs up the hornets nest of the third party in a two party system. It's an interesting argument here.

Then there is Jeffrey Tucker's blog that neatly summarizes a libertarian perspective on the entire ordeal that is the American election campaign here.

I've already seen indications that the next campaign has started....Rand Paul anyone?

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