The parting on the left
A bit of speculation from David Frum regarding Pon Farr [not his real name]:
[He] will run as a third-party candidate. He’ll have the money, he’ll have the ego, and he will have the cause. Will he have the votes? Maybe. If Hillary Clinton tacks to the center on national-security issues after Iowa & New Hampshire, as one assumes she will, or even if she appears to tack to the center, a space will open to her left, with at least 2% or 3% of the vote available there. That’s not much — but it may be enough to make a surprising difference.
I’ve thought so for some time. What’s really risible about [Farr's] candidacy, however, is that if he runs, he will primarily mine the demographic to the left of Hillary Clinton for votes. Which is a pretty funny place for a hard-core libertarian politician to be getting traction.
I dunno. The post-Postrel Reason seems a lot closer to Mother Jones than to Frum’s perch at National Review.
Of course, the big worry for small-time scribes like me is that if he gets enough traction, we’ll actually have to start saying his name out loud.
Michael Bates »
16 October 2007 · 11:25 pm
ROTFL! “Pon Farr” is perfect on so many levels.
localmalcontent »
17 October 2007 · 3:15 am
One can only hope. Or perhaps the Goracle.
That ‘pon farr’, isn’t that what Mr. Spock had to go through when he got uh, distracted?
McGehee »
17 October 2007 · 8:57 am
Pon may have competition if he goes the third-party route.
Bill Quick »
17 October 2007 · 2:31 pm
Well, I’ve thought that the gang that likes Reason these days wouldn’t vote for the GOP anyway. If they vote for anybody, it would be somebody either watermelon or pacifist.