Election Note for Maryland Governor's Race

After asking those people that I know, who happen to call themselves pro-life (and are over 30), if they would consider running with me, or consider being my "treasurer" to satisfy Maryland's onerous requirements for running as a write-in candidate, I was told that while they (my friends) are pro-life, they just can't stand O'Malley (the Democratic candidate) so much that they would vote for Ehrlich (the Republican incumbent), a man who actively supports America's holocaust (abortion).

I have decided not to be used by "moderate" Republicans, the way the abolitionists were used by them, and the way so many in the pro-life community are used by them now. I will not support any candidate who does not fulfill one simple requirement, they must be opposed to abortion. Some might say that makes me a single issue voter, I suppose that is sort of true, in that I will not vote for someone that is "pro-choice", but if there were two pro-life candidates, there are a ton of issues that help me further narrow down which one to support.

So, after running out of options for my own gubernatorial candidacy, I have decided to throw my support behind a fellow pro-life activist. I am asking those that would have voted for me, to ensure that your votes are counted among those that vote for LIFE, to instead cast your write-in votes for JOHN SIMMINS. You will see after perusing his page, that he is not a libertarian, but he is closer than the other candidates to one, and at the same time fulfills my one major requirement, supporting an end to the murder of defenseless, voiceless children.

As the election draws near, next week, I will post my recommendations or endorsements for the various races in Maryland.

Thanks for your support.

To view all candidates currently registered in Maryland, the board of elections site.

Below is the text of my email to John Simmins, announcing my support of his candidacy.

Hello there, I am going to actively campaign for you guys. When I saw the mailer from Ehrlich about stem cells I began planning to run myself as a write-in candidate. I got all the forms together, and was prepared to file them, but realized I needed at least three people to satisfy Maryland's requirements. Then my wife found your site. I am going to inform those who I told I would run of your campaign and work to get you guys at least some amount of protest vote. I am a third degree night and extremely pro-life. I am also a libertarian (with a small L), so we may not see eye to eye on 100% of things, but life issues are a litmus test for me, and I am not ashamed, afraid, or apologetic about saying that. Anyway, I know what you had to go through to register as a write-in candidate, and appreciate the effort. I look forward to voting for you.

Election update again

Well, this is more difficult than I had hoped. Apparently, all my conservative wacko friends are willing to vote for virtual socialist Ehrlich over O'Malley, even though Ehrlich supports America's abortion holocaust. I just can't bring myself to do that. Its like picking between Mao and Ho Chi Min. So, I may have to draft my wife to be my running mate, and then I will try to get a neighbor to be my treasurer. The laws for this in Maryland are a little bit nuts, and this has truly been an educational experience. I will try to keep this site updated, if I do not get my papers filed, any votes for me will just be ignored, so its imperative that I get those papers filed.

Election Update

Just a note to let my supporters know that being a write-in candidate is not as simple as writing someone's name on a ballot. I actually have to file to be a write-in candidate. I guess this makes sense if my name is John Smith. So, I have about 16 pages of forms to fill out, including financial disclosures, I even have to open a bank account for my campaign entity, even though I am neither asking for, nor accepting donations. Holy cow! I have to choose a Lt. Governor running mate. Lots more work than one might think at first. But, I am committed to giving Maryland a real choice, so I am going to do all I can to file by the deadline. I will update this space tonight after I have it all figured out, and let my supporters know how its progressing.

I Hereby Announce My Candicacy for Governor of Maryland

Friends and fellow citizens,

I hereby announce my willingness to accept your write-in votes for Governor of Maryland. If elected, I will accept the position. So that you might understand my motivation in this, I will explain.

As you all know (citizens of Maryland), we have two candidates for Governor in Maryland. Bob Ehrlich (R) the incumbent, and Martin O'Malley (D) the mayor of Baltimore. You may also know that both candidates are essentially the same when it comes to important issues. Their campaign has basically sunk to a point where all one hears is that O'Malley failed to bring the murder rate in Baltimore down to the level he promised, and that Ehrlich, who is as leftist a Republican as I have seen, is somehow tied to George Bush, and because of that should be voted out, due to the Iraq war.

If you actually care about serious issues, affecting Maryland, as I do, neither candidate can be taken seriously or as someone worthy of a vote. I have looked and have been unable to find either a Constitution Party candidate or a Libertarian candidate for this office, in this election. Yesterday, I received a campaign brochure in the mail from Governor Ehrlich's campaign, touting his devotion to state funded stem cell research here in Maryland. This is the Republican campaign mind you. And he is clearly pandering both to the so-called "moderates" at the same time he is pandering to Maryland's huge bio-tech-genetic-research industry. It became painfully clear in that instant that we have no pro-life or liberty loving candidates running for this office.

While I do not expect to win, especially with this extremely limited campaign, which will consist of me emailing this blog post to a bunch of people in hopes that they will forward it on, I do think if I can get a couple thousand write in votes, with this extremely limited campaign, maybe we can convince a pro-life, libertarian, conservative type candidate to run in the next election, so that we at least have someone to vote for.

For the sake of being honest in my campaign, I will run down my brief series of issues and my positions:

-I am in favor of school vouchers for all Kindergarten through twelfth grade students in Maryland
-I support tax credits for home-schooling families
-I would veto and fight any attempt to fund stem-cell research with taxpayer money
-I would veto and fight any attempt to provide taxpayer money for abortions
-I would support and sign a ban on abortions similar to South Dakota's recent ban
-I would support a law that made it illegal for a state auto inspector to fix the vehicle he is inspecting
-I am completely opposed to any attempt to take someone's property and give it to another private entity (as in the recent eminent domain cases)
-I support and would push for a flat income tax for the state
-I support building lots more roads to ease traffic congestion
-I am of course opposed to violent and property related crimes and would do all I could to protect people and their property

I can best be described as a pro-life Libertarian. That is how you would be able to expect me to behave as governor. While I am pretty universally consistent in my support of Libertarian positions, the positions listed above are those that I would most focus on. Should other issues come up, you could expect me to continue to be Libertarian.

Now, for practical purposes, if you are indeed interested in sending a message to those in government here in the "blue state" of Maryland, my name is Paul Buede. To help you remember how to spell my last name, think of suede but with a B instead of S. Thats not how we pronounce it, but pronunciation doesn't matter for this exercise.

If you, like me, believe that both Republocrat candidates are essentially equally bad, and that we have no decent choice for governor, I hope you will consider sending a message on election day. Write me in!

PAUL BUEDE for Governor of Maryland

Your chance to break the two party hold on power

I got this in my email. For all of those who bemoan the lack of options in an election, here is your chance to start a tidal wave of change in government. There are numerous chances in the email I am reposting below to click over to his campaign and put your money where your mouth is. Rarely is there a chance this great to actually win an election. Lets hope people make the most of it.

Help Wanted: Your Assistance Needed to Send Mr. Smither to Washington

This is the most important Libertarian Party e-mail message I've ever written. Because of a very strange series of events combined with a well respected Libertarian candidate with strong community ties, we are close to sending our first LP candidate to Congress. I don't like sending out long campaign e-mail messages, but time is of the essence and you will need as much information possible in order to make a very important decision at the end of this message. As there are a lot of pictures contained in this message, please click here if graphics don't show in your e-mails .

The Bob Smither campaign in Tom DeLay's old congressional district is becoming more and more exciting with each passing day. As you probably recall, this is a 65 percent Republican district which was gerrymandered by DeLay specifically to ensure a GOP victory. The only problem for the GOP (again, because of DeLay) is that they have no Republican candidate on the ballot in this hotly contested race.

Liberal Nick Lampson is running as the Democrat in this race. His polling numbers seem to have peaked in the low 40 percent range, which is consistent with the historical Democratic base in this district. Without switching parties, it's unlikely that he can bring his numbers up high enough to win a majority of votes in the district.

Most of you have already heard of Bob Smither through the mainstream media or Internet sources. A quick overview provides that he is a fifth generation Texan who works both as an adjunct professor and private consultant in electrical engineering. More importantly, Smither serves on several important local boards and has received quite a few honors and awards for his community work.

While there are multiple Republican write-in candidates in the race, one of them seems to have been anointed by the party machine to bear the GOP standard. As we all know, write-in campaigns have an extraordinarily high failure rate. This candidate has a very cumbersome name, making any write-in campaign even less likely to succeed. She seems to be spending all of her money simply teaching people how to spell her awkward name.

Since Lampson's numbers are expected to remain fairly stable, the key question for this race seems to be how the roughly 60 to 65 percent conservative portion of vote total is to be divided. An average of the last three published polls published on the race indicates:

• Nick Lampson (D)----------------39%
• Bob Smither (L)-------------------20%
• Key Write-in Candidate (R)---12%
• Undecided/Other------------------29%

The undecided group is very conservative and has voted Republican in recent elections. If he picks up the remaining undecided votes, Smither will not only beat Lampson, but will be within one point of a majority vote total.

While the key Republican write-in is currently polling at 12%, many of those votes won't actually surface on Election Day because:

• Quite a few of the votes won't be counted due to spelling errors and the complexity of the electronic thumb dial voting equipment.


• Straight party ticket voters won't be able to vote for a GOP candidate in this race.


• Republicans are disillusioned nationwide and aren't expected to have a high turnout on Election Day.


• A lot of conservatives are not happy with the write-in candidate because of her abysmal voting record on the Houston City Council pertaining to property rights and that she keeps suggesting new federal programs with huge price tags.

In what will sound very ironic to a Libertarian audience, we've got to convince enough Republican voters that a write-in vote is nothing but a wasted vote. A vote for Libertarian Bob Smither is the only hope for their district to be represented by someone with traditional Texas conservative values. Keep in mind that a good portion of this district was represented by Congressman Ron Paul before redistricting, so local voters are already well aware of the common ties between Libertarians and true fiscal conservatives.

Many pundits and senior Republican leaders have already said that a write-in campaign can't work. In order to ensure a Libertarian victory, we've got two weeks to convince the conservative voters of Texas CD-22 that the only way not to waste their vote is by supporting Bob Smither. Because the amount of undecided voters is high even this late in the race, we can win with your help!

Currently, 4'X8' "Republicans for Smither" signs are popping up all over the district. Here's some of what we've accomplished so far:

• Attended many candidate forums and community events
• Have received significant local and national mainstream media coverage
• Have already placed over 120,000 telephone calls to local voters
• Are running an aggressive sign campaign
• Have organized block walking activities several days a week
• Produced our first two radio commercials

Here's what we intend to do over the next two weeks:

• Hold a campaign rally with former Republican Bob Barr
• Pursue more national media and announce more endorsements
• Continue knocking on doors and placing lawn signs
• Launch a 100 hour GOTV effort using BallotBase
• Aggressively work polling places on Election Day
• Launch a specially targeted telephone and mail campaign
• Spend every dollar possible on radio advertising

These ads will be finalized with "I'm Bob Smither and I approve this message."
Listen to the 60 second radio spot

Listen to the 30 second radio spot

These radio advertisements are incredibly important. The campaign has already committed an amount in the five-digit range to air these spots on local conservative talk radio stations.

The Republicans just sent Dick Cheney to the district to raise $200,000 to teach conservatives how to spell the name of their anointed write-in candidate. Our job is significantly easier; all we have to do is convince them not to waste their vote.

If you have ever wanted to see a Libertarian Party member in Congress, this is quite simply our best opportunity of the last 35 years. But it can't happen without your support. If there ever was a time to dig deep, really deep, and contribute every last dollar you can to support a Libertarian campaign, this is it!

To the best of my knowledge, Libertarians have never pulled off a six-digit e-mail fundraising letter. However, we've only got two weeks left and each radio ad we run brings us one step closer to an electoral victory, not just a moral one.

In order for this to happen, we've got to beat LP online fundraising records. If Smither wins this seat in Congress, just think of how very proud you will feel knowing how vital a role you played in his victory. There has never been a more important time for you to click here to be part of sending Mr. Smither to Washington.

It gets even better! In addition to the General Election, there will also be a Special Election to fill Tom DeLay's seat until the new Congress convenes. Both elections will take place at the same time. The Republican vote will be split four ways and there will be no Democrat in the Special Election. Just think about the possibilities: no Democrats, one Libertarian, and a Republican vote split four ways.

This provides voters two chances to vote for Libertarian Bob Smither and it gives you two opportunities to donate to his campaign. Your contribution to the General Election campaign as well as donations to the Special Election can be made here.

Republican corruption has provided this unique opportunity for the Libertarian Party in November. Our success in this race will help set the stage for additional Libertarian victories in 2008. Thanks so much for your important role on the Bob Smither Libertarian Victory Team!

In Liberty,

Kevin Tunstall
Campaign Manager

P.S. It is critical that we raise over a hundred thousand dollars on the Internet over the next few days and there is no time to generate a snail mail letter to accomplish this goal. After you have contributed what you can to the Smither campaign, please forward this e-mail to your friends, family and especially your e-mail lists. Again, thanks!