REFLECTIONS ON THE ELECTION
By CHARLES JAY, Personal Choice Party 2004 presidential candidate

Yes, it's official - I concede the 2004 election to President George W. Bush. 

Obviously, being on just one state ballot, I realized I was going to have to concede to one of the two so-called "major party" candidates. Forget about being a presidential candidate for a minute; as an American citizen I knew it was going to be difficult to hand over a nation for another four years to someone who has their own particular rationale for, and method of, increasing the amount of control the federal government has over us. 

With John Kerry it would have meant a lot more taxation, the strangling of small business, an acceleration toward the bankruptcy of the Social Security system, more coercive race-based animosity, submission of our national sovereignty to the United Nations, and in general, less in the way of choice for the people of our country.

With George W. Bush what we wind up with is four more years of young men and women getting killed in unnecessary wars, more favoritism and corporate welfare for big businesses, more erosion of civil liberties, more "wartime bravery" from a President and Vice-President who have never put their well-being on the line, more hatred and divisiveness, more government by religion, more terrorism as a residual effect of our "offensive" policy, and yes, less in the way of choice for the people of our country.

When you look at it, there were some important similarities between these two men (distant cousins, I'm told) that emerged during the campaign. Both can and have been easily bought by special interests; both would continue to send soldiers in our armed services to their death; both would have destroyed the middle class with taxes; both feel as if children are best served when educated by the government; neither man thinks twice about trampling on the Constitution when it comes to individual rights (the Patriot Act and the laws against same-sex marriage are just two examples). And of course, it goes without saying that neither man feels he can function without more and more money being spent, and more and more intrusion on our lives by this institution called "government". 

So, in many ways, it doesn't really matter who won this election; fundamentally, the dynamic we face doesn't change. Four years from now, we're going to be looking at many of the same issues that appear before us at this moment. For someone like me, who would consider another third-party run in 2008, waiting and seeing which direction the country is going in will not be part of the criteria that goes into my decision. There won't be anything of note in the way of change - even incremental change - that would preclude me from doing so. 


A few more thoughts here......

For all the Democrats who cared about how "all the votes need to be counted" as if it were a matter of principle, let's see how loud the cries are when it comes to write-in votes. If Kerry supporters were truly the defenders of the "disenfranchised", as was the rhetoric leading up to the election when pending voter fraud was intimated, and the complaints that ran rampant when Republicans were allowed into Ohio polling places to challenge certain voters, what about those who, in the way of an alternative, exercise their freedom of choice by writing in a name on their ballot? How many Democratic legislators have stood up for those kinds of liberties? Not many, I suspect. I also suspect that when Democrats talked so passionately about "counting every vote", what they really meant was "counting every vote that helps US."

That's part of the self-absorption that is inherent in American politics - the kind that makes Democrats feel so righteous about "voting irregularities"; the kind that Ralph Nader puts on display when he calls for HIMSELF to be included in the presidential debates, to the exclusion of other third party candidates; the kind where ethnic "minority" groups, demanding equal treatment and respect, fail to afford that kind of equality and respect to those political candidates who happen to be in the minority; the kind that gives the "Moral Mafia" the impression that they are entitled to impose their views onto everyone else. And yeah, maybe the kind that would inspire a representative of one president's campaign to contact me, asking me to drop out and endorse his candidate because I was "taking votes away from him". Frankly, I didn't realize those votes BELONGED to him in the first place. Hey, tell YOUR guy to drop out and endorse ME, you know what I mean? These people absolutely slay me. As if when there is a real message to convey and the need for a real fighter to convey it, I should be willing to abandon my principles and placate someone else because he's on more ballots. Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

I don't have the space here to tell you all the interesting stories from the campaign. That will be for another time, no doubt. But what I can tell you is that we engaged in some Blues Brothers-style campaigning on Election Day. Ken Larsen (Moderator of the Personal Choice Party and candidate for governor) and I drove to about nine or ten different polling places in Utah, situated ourselves the required 150 feet from the voting booth (give or take 75 feet - wink, wink), then Ken placed my campaign sign on the back of his car and broke out the megaphone. He shouted out, over and over again, "Vote Personal Choice. Look for the smiley face. Charles Jay for President. Ken Larsen for Governor." Then he took the harmonica out of his pocket and started playing the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" through the megaphone. People walking into the building to vote would look around, not knowing where all of it was coming from. Hilarious.

Did it do us any good? Well, I don't know. I received 880 votes in Utah, at the very least, which placed me sixth out of 19 candidates who were eligible in one way or another. More on this by reading "CJ's Spin on the Election", available on the CharlesJay.com website. Ken Larsen got .9% of the vote for governor. Joe Labonte got 1% in his campaign for the U.S. Senate. As the precincts started to report, there was a long look on some of our faces, because one of us had to draw a minimum of 2% in a statewide vote in order to keep the party on the ballot for the next election cycle. Hope was fading.

Then, out of the blue, returns for two other state offices came in. Mary Peterson was up over 3% in the race for State Treasurer, while Valerie Larsen, Ken's daughter, was approaching 5% in the voting for State Auditor. The numbers held up through the evening, so the Personal Choice Party will live and breathe again on the Utah ballot. 

As far as other news that was interesting and encouraging, the PC Party did respectably in those races in which it had a candidate running on the same ballot as a Libertarian, in fact beating the LP in three of seven races (that includes my finish behind Michael Badnarik in the presidential contest). 

One of the Libertarian contenders who did best was Andy McCullough, the candidate for Attorney General, who got 27,470 votes, good for 3.3% of the total. I like to think help from the PC Party contributed to that. Ken Larsen backed him all the way. Andy participated in our Personal Choice booth at the Utah State Fair, where we carried his campaign materials. My running mate, Marilyn Chambers, offered her official endorsement. My endorsement went without saying. That's the way it should work - when one party doesn't have a candidate for a particular office, another party should consider offering its support. 

One of the things that attracted me to the Personal Choice Party in the first place was that it was literally built from the ground up by Ken Larsen, whom I consider a true patriot. Ken may come off eccentric to some, but he has, through the years, always been willing to fight the necessary battles others have not been willing to fight. He has a handle on individual rights like few people I know. He is truly a courageous guy.

Ken is quite insightful about another thing - to move forward, this game has to be less about what you can find in someone to disagree with, but about finding something to agree with and working together on issues that reflect mutual passion. On that basis, and considering my generally libertarian philosophy, virtually everyone is a potential political ally.

That's the foundation on which this party is going to be built. I continue to hear from people who were members or supporters of another party who like what they see in my message and that of the PC Party. They understand that in order to get support on the issues they feel strongest about, they may have to accommodate those who are on the opposite side from them on some other issues. The bigger challenge will be in getting more and more people to understand that. 

It'll come, sooner or later.