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10/23/2004 |
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Capo in tie with Barber! Our Guilford County Board of Elections has posted the current results of our election as of November 2th. (Here's the saved copy posted by Ed Cone.) Even with his N&R endorsement today, I am in a dead tie with Mike Barber with 160 of 162 precincts counted! How about that! What a campaign! You might also be interested to know that Bush is beating Kerry two to one in a landslide. In fact ALL Republicans are currently in the lead by almost the identical margin. If you don't like how things are going. Give the Guilford County Board of Elections a call and tell them to change the "results." I think the BOE must have stolen this idea from my spoof on the Guliford Board of Commissioners letterhead. Does this not make you feel just a little bit spooked on how vaporous the results of our electronic election are? "Lets see, if I push this key here..." For everyone excited to read about these test results you have Libertarian candidate for Lt. Governor Christopher Cole to thank. Here is his explanation of how he outed the GC BOE test run of the election results last night. There are no secrets on the internet: "I get a newsflash from Google News whenever my name appears on their list of sources. I also do that with my opponents names, so that I can send responses quickly. However, their list isn't exhaustive, so I periodically Google my name to see if there is anything I missed. This was one of those links." Update: Not sure if it means anything but John Parks was the lone Democrat to post a victory on election night in the BOE test, beating out the N&R's favorite pick Roger Cotten. 11:28:34 PM
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The Philosophy of Self Ownership Now that you have a snap-shot of the JBS organization that I work for, here is possibly the hottest tool on the Philosophy of Liberty since Atlas Shrugged. I saw The Philosophy of Self Ownership for the first time this Thursday when I stopped by briefly to say, "Hi," to fellow freedom advocates manning the Libertarian Party booth at the State Fair in Raleigh. It is a ten minute flash animation. Turn your audio on if you want the background music. I was blown away. So simple. Freedom. 10:18:20 PM
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N&R Endorsements Though as a third party candidate I was passed over for a formal candidate interview by the editorial staff at the N&R, Allen Johnson did make room on his schedule to give me 25-30 minutes of his time last week when I requested it. I thought we had a good conversation. Mr. Johnson's questions were delivered with sincerity and not as if he was just going through the motions. He was on board with the concept that more and more key decisions were being taken out of the hands of our elected boards and councils and being transferred to unelected (and generally unaccountable) regional boards and committees. My point was that if we are going "regional" we need to restructure our government so that citizens still can maintain elected representative government. Mr. Johnson said that actually this is a thoughtful point that Ed Kitchen has also raised. All and all I thought it was a good interview with the only negative moment coming as we walked back down to the security entrance. Mr. Johnson just wanted my opinion on, "Why, when I hear "The John Birch Society," does the hair on the back of my neck stand up." Fair enough I suppose since that is who I now work for. "Well," I said, "The John Birch Society was set up as an organization to defend the US Constitution and country's form of Government. They supported the Constitutional validity of States rights and that put them on track to end up on the politically incorrect side of where the civil rights movement was headed. And, it probably did not help that the leader of the John Birch Society, who had before its founding in 1958, implied that President Eisenhower was either a willing dupe, passive collaborator or active agent of the communist movement shared an almost identical opinion of Martin Luther King. Other than that though, it is just another pro-free market freedom organization fighting to resist our country's slide into socialism." Well, I don't think Allen Johnson was buying. Here is the only line my campaign garnered in today's commissioner race endorsements which appeared in the N&R: "Also, there's Libertarian Jim Capo, 44, the state coordinator for The John Birch Society." I do find it somewhat amazing that people who consider themselves well educated and open minded people, yet who have heard or seen nothing but second or third hand information on the John Birch Society, imagine they know more about it than me. Below are the only three things I think that anyone can take issue with. The rest are fabrications of smear campaigns intended to stifle discussions of the truth or simply the disagreements between those who think the government should be either more powerful or less powerful: 1) The growth of government and loss of personal freedoms in our country are NOT simply the result of unintended consequences and the natural evolution of society. There are people seeking greater power for themselves and over the lives of others that conspire to maintain and expand their power. (Duh, huh.) 2) American troops should be brought home from overseas and used only to protect the borders of our country...borders which should be closed to all but LEGAL immigration conducted on a pace that does not upset the general condition of our society as a whole. 3) The unparalleled freedom experienced in America was not a freak of nature but sprung into being because it was rooted in a society that had a firm moral under pinning. A government respectful of the unalienable rights of mankind can only be formed by people who are capable of self-government first. Keeping in mind that a totalitarian adherence to 100% of the party line is not required to be a member or employee of the organization, The John Birch Society does take the official position that things like the homosexual activism are more about destroying the building blocks of self-governance than empowering persecuted individuals. 9:29:39 PM
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UNCG School Board Candidate Forum I got to this one late Thursday night after the A&T forum. Mike Winstead was just leaving as I was coming in with about a 1/3 of the forum to go. Mike Barber missed both these forums as he was busy helping run county government for the evening. There were about 80-100 people in attendance which is the biggest forum I have seen this cycle, but still less than the cheese and crackers and sweets ordered for about 300. This might have been the first time I was eating something compliments of The New York Times. I was told they were one of the sponsors of the evening being hosted by The American Democracy Project. Polling in the afterglow it seemed that Jim Kirkpatrick impressed everyone again (a soft crowd for his side notwithstanding). Dot Kearns gave another Iron Lady performance to the parents and I have to believe if all voters got a look at these two, Mr. Kirkpatrick wins hands down. Surprisingly, Kris Cooke won over some fans in the ABC ladden crowd saying (with sincerity) she was willing re-look at the forced reassignment and bussing aspects of the High Point plan. Amos Quick, his ministerial training shining, won hands down as the most impressive orator. Everyone was talking about the great job he did. Loretta Jennings with 38 years of teaching behind her is no slouch either. District 9 parents and the school board win no matter who wins this race. Loretta had hit the A&T forum at the opening before racing over to UNCG. At A&T I asked her how she saw the ABC group and she simply said, "Terry Grier knows how to use race to divide people and get what he wants." Her comment was not delivered in a tone of attack but rather as a thoughtful insight on the matter. I was impressed overall with our entire brief conversation and would probably give Loretta Jennings the nod over Amos Quick even though it would be exciting to watch Mr. Quick work on the board. 8:20:33 PM
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