Lincoln Blog

August 19, 2008:

You have to wonder whether or not Cumberland County GOP Chairman Victor Stabile would be more comfortable serving as a party leader in perhaps Russia, Iran, North Korea - or anyplace where true competition among parties is not allowed.

Likely at the behest of state Republican Party leaders, Stabile is challenging the placement on the November ballot of Libertarian Party Presidential nominee Bob Barr. Barr is a former Republican Congressman from Georgia who (like many voters nationwide) got fed up with the GOP's abandonment of its core principles. He scooted off to the Libertarian Party and has now emerged as an effective and articulate spokesman for that cause.

The Libertarian Party, as with other alternate parties and independents, begins the election at a competitive disadvantage. Unlike Republicans and Democrats alternative parties and independents have no "line" on the November General Election ballot in Pennsylvania and must secure an onerous number of signatures to even have their names placed before voters.

This was accomplished by the Pennsylvania Libertarian Party using the name of a stand-in during the petitioning process while the Party's national apparatus went about selecting a Presidential nominee. As allowed by law, the Libertarian Party has now substituted Barr's name on the ballot for the stand-in.

Victor Stabile objects.

According to published reports he admits the substitution is allowed, but somehow figures this substitution "crosses the line." The line it crosses is that Barr poses a real threat to the election of the likely Republican Presidential nominee, John McCain. If enough disaffected conservative Republicans (and they are legion) vote for Barr, it could deprive McCain of the votes he needs to carry critical states like Pennsylvania.

The mere fact that competition from Barr complicates Republican efforts in Pennsylvania is not sufficient reason for the Libertarians to be denied their rights to have the Presidential nominee of their choice on the ballot. The Libertarian Party has followed all the rules, and succeeded in gaining ballot access despite the mountain of challenges it faced in doing so. Having played according to the unfair rules, and prevailed, the Party deserves to have its nominee listed on the ballot.

More importantly, we the people of Penn's woods deserve to have Barr on the ballot. And we deserve to have Ralph Nader's name on the ballot. We deserve to have the nominee of the Green Party, the Constitution Party, and any other party that secures the required number of signatures on the ballot. After all, this is America and free and open democratic elections are a bedrock principle of our system of government. Not only does the U.S. Constitution fail to even mention political parties, but several of our Founding Fathers went so far as to warn against them. In their wisdom they saw the chilling effect parties can have on electoral competition.

The GOP effort to toss Bob Barr from the Pennsylvania ballot is symptomatic of its own ineptitude. Having abandoned all principle, the Republican Party can no longer compete and win elections based on its ideas; it must stifle competition and distill the election down to a "lesser of two evils" choice in order to win.

That is pathetic.

This is one reason why the Republican Party in Pennsylvania has collapsed. And in Vic Stabile's Cumberland County that collapse is profound. His county is hemorrhaging voter registration to the Democrats and appears destined to go the way of neighboring Dauphin County which became a majority Democrat county early this year for the first time since the Civil War. Stabile's leadership was roundly rejected by voters of his own party last year when he attempted to dump incumbent County Commissioner Gary Eichelberger - only to see Eichelberger stay in the race, finish first, and prove the party to be an inept shell of its former self.

Now Stabile is attempting to take his sad act statewide. It is just this sort of back room, dirty politics that has turned voters off on the Republican Party. Unfortunately, Stabile and his coterie of party leadership friends simply don't understand that the political climate has changed, the electorate has changed, the world has changed and these old-time games simply don't work anymore.

In filing his suit to deprive Barr and the Libertarians a ballot slot they have earned, Stabile told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "I don't like to see anything taint the process." Stabile has not only tainted the process, he has turned it into a toxic cesspool.

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