Monday, May 19, 2008

Tucker Carlson, Libertarian President Candidate? Really?

Just got a call from a polling firm.

Checking on Lib Prez candidates. Made sure I was a delegate to the national convention.

Guy asks, "Which of the following candidates do you support for Lib Pres nomination?"
(Reads list, including Barr, Gravel, Ruart, and Root. Also includes Tucker Carlson. I figure that Carlson is just a spoiler; he has never said he's a Libertarian, and isn't running for Prez.)

I answer "Undecided," which is true.

Guy asks, "After that first choice, what is your SECOND choice?"

Stunned for a moment, I pause and say, "Still....undecided."

Guy says, "Final question: Which of those candidates would you say has true Libertarian values?"

I'm a big tent guy, so I say: "All of them....EXCEPT Tucker Carlson."

Guy rings off. I am smug, thinking I caught them on their spoiler question.

Except that, Tucker Carlson has apparently decided to think about it. And Carlson may be funding the polling of Lib Nat Conv delegates.

Interesting. All the end of this week, I'll be live-blogging the LP Nat Conv, so stay tuned. It sounds pretty exciting.

UPDATE: Clearly, from comments, I was unclear. Far be it for me to check someone's papers on whether s/he is "really" a libertarian. If Tucker wants in, he's in. More power to him. I was making a mistake more fundamental than that. I thought I was answering based on a spoiler question, the sort of thing that people use to discredit a group. "Look, all these delegates, people who should know better, said that Tucker Carlson was running! What idiots!" I was wrong to do that, because Tucker is in fact considering running. BR points out Tuckers has been saying he's a Libertarian for some time. I just didn't know. In any case, the point is that I was answering a survey in what I thought, wrongly (as usual!), was a clever way. On the merits, sure, Tucker Carlson is a libertarian, and welcome!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tucker's been calling himself a Libertarian for at least a year. I'd say he's more closely aligned to the LP platform than Gravel. I was actually pretty disappointed when his show went of the air a couple of months ago, but maybe it was for a good cause.

Anonymous said...

I can recommend a good bow tie.

Anonymous said...

So after reading the Wikipedia entry on Carlson--aside from immigration, how is he not a Libertarian?

Anonymous said...

Carlson is an opportunist. He has commented that being critical of the government during wartime is sacrilege. He now smells the zeitgeist rolling in and is trying to hop the train.

Carlson will pretend to be 1964 Reagan in hopes that he can pretend to be 1980 Reagan in the future. Just watch.

The world doesn't need a 'Rockefeller Libertarian', you heard it here first.

Anonymous said...

Hey, let Tucker run. It will be the first time we have a Black, a Woman and if Tucker runs a Gay running for President. Tucker could name Anderson Cooper as his running mate.