It is far too early for there to be dancing in the streets, but at least
this is a start.
Unfortunately, Congress in the past has retroactively restored the pay and
other benefits thereby putting us in an even worse position than we would
have been without the shutdown.
This time we hope that our Congress will hold the line and our cost savings
from no government will remain permanent.
Sam Sloan
Candidate for Mayor with the War Veterans Party
Hi Sam,
You’ll need to disabuse yourself from the “government shutdown” canard. According to the first paragraph of the Libertarian Party’s September 26 Press Release:
“There is no impending government shutdown — only a government slowdown. The threat of a “shutdown” is designed to scare voters while avoiding scrutiny of reckless government overspending.” (See: “Libertarian Party calls for permanent government spending slowdown, defunding Obamacare” at: http://www.lp.org/news/press-releases/lp-calls-for-permanent-government-spending-slowdown)
On a different, though related matter, I notice you’re running for NYC Mayor as the “Veterans Party” candidate. You are certainly running as a “Third Party” candidate, as is Michael Sanchez, the LP’s candidate for Mayor. Have you wondered how many Third Party candidates are running for Mayor? If so, you may like to know that including you and Michael, a total of twenty (20) Third Party candidates are running for Mayor.
See this wikipedia item: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_mayoral_election,_2013
Sam, as you know, in order to get on the Mayoral ballot, the NYC Board of Elections require Third Party candidates, whose Party don’t have ballot access, get a statutory required minimum of 3,750 petition signatures.
I had worked “on the ground” to get petition signatures for the LP’s Mayoral and other city wide candidates. I know how hard it was to get those signatures and the necessity of paying “petitioning contractors” to get signatures, which can cost upwards of $2.00 for each valid signature. Indeed, the LPNY paid around $2,000 to such a contractor.
While the LP submitted more than the statutory minimum petition signature, at great effort and expense, I cannot help but wonder if some, if any, of those twenty Third Party candidates actually submitted the required statutory number of signatures. Sam Sloan, did you submit the required minimum number of petition signature (which would be unwise, since a challenger could find a handful of invalid signatures and automatically throw you out)?
If, as I suspect, you did not submit the statutory minimum signatures, then you have a lot of company among the other Third Party candidates for Mayor. (I’m surprised that no Republican operative did not challenge any of those petition submissions. Indeed, I 'd love to see how many petition signatures the “Rent Is Too Damn High” candidate, Jimmy McMillan, submitted. )
Still, as you will agree, the likelihood of any of these twenty Third Party Mayoral candidates to be invited to the “official” Mayoral debates is zero, minus zero. In which case, I think a separate debate, even running concurrently with the “official debates,” among these candidates should be produced and broadcast, most likely by streaming video on the Internet. Would you like to produce such a debate? If you’re unable, perhaps you will help pay for such an endeavor.
But, whichever, as a Third Party candidate for Mayor, you have your work cut out for you. I wish you luck in your campaign.
Thanks for reading.
Alton