Posted 12:34 am Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Send to Kindle
Third-party candidate works hard to get his message across
Political candidates are typically hounded by the media. Reporters scrutinize their lives, campaigns and policies daily. That is unless you're a relative political unknown, third-party candidate with little money in a race where you're given no chance to win.
In that case, the candidate hounds the media.
John Jay Myers, a businessman from Dallas who is running as a Libertarian for U.S. Senate -- and stopped in Tyler Tuesday, is such a candidate.
When ignored by major media outlets recently in another city, Myers, his campaign volunteers and supporters staked out in front of the station until an interview was granted.
"We call that going renegade," he said. The media "decided the race was over after the primary. At least give us a chance to say what we have to say because (the other candidates) don't represent me and I think there are a lot of Texans who feel the same."
Myers, along Libertarian platform lines, believes the answer to less government is personal responsibility; that government shouldn't interfere or intercede in societal questions but that it should spend taxpayer dollars conservatively.
He also said the "other guy," Republican nominee Ted Cruz, who is the favorite to win the seat being vacated by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Myers said Republican voters had a choice between Cruz and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who he said were aligned with interest groups. Cruz's Tea Party allies already in the Senate, Sen. Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and the bunch voted for auto and bank bailouts, extending unemployment payments and the Patriot Act, he said.
He points to Cruz's wife, Heidi, who is an executive with Goldman Sachs, which received billions of dollars from the government bailout, as a tie to major bank interests.
"The Tea Party got duped," he said. "Cruz is literally in bed with the banks."
Myers said he wants to focus on policy and giving Texans an alternative vote. He said he has great success spreading his socially liberal, fiscally conservative, personal freedom versus government interference message with individuals but that he doesn't have time to make the rounds or money for mass media buys.
He questions the dismissal of his and Democratic nominee Paul Sadler's campaign by the media and whether it takes a "legitimate" chance to win to warrant media coverage or media coverage to have a chance statewide. Either way, he said, his message is different from the "right or the left."
"They are selling extremes on both sides and I am a common sense, middle of the road guy," he said. "I think that is where most Texans fall. I just need to reach them."
Gay marriage
"I can feel however I want about it but it's not my business," he said. "The right has a big problem. They say they want to return to the Constitution and smaller government but they push and they push that it's the government's business, that (marriage) needs a stamp of government approval. I say get out of it."
Military spending
"Our military spends as much as the next 16 countries on the list and 15 of them are our allies. Who are we preparing to fight?" he said. "You're telling me we need a $2 billion warship to stop a guy trying to put explosives in his underwear? It's driven by defense contractors, the Lockheed-Martins and Boeings, who need to sell a product. We spend $1.1 trillion, a third of the budget, on a foreign policy called 'defense' and I call 'offense.'"
Marijuana
"It's ridiculous," he said. "We've spent a 40-year drug war putting people in jail for $40,000 a year (per person), and what has it accomplished?"
Obamacare
"I would say 'no,'" he said. "The government shouldn't pay for one stitch. It should have no role in health care for individuals."
Abortion
"It's a state issue. It's just used by politicians as a wedge issue to divide us," he said. "One thing, I would never vote for a bill that puts a dime toward an abortion because the government should never ask anyone to pay for something they abhor."
Patriot Act
"That's the most unpatriotic legislation ever passed," he said.
Election Day is Nov. 6.
