http://www.netizen.com/netizen/96/28/campaign_dispatch3a.html
   
HotWired
The Netizen

"A Browne Study"
Campaign Dispatch

by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com)
Washington, DC, 10 July 
   
   
   The newly anointed Libertarian candidate for president dropped by
   HotWired's Washington bureau Tuesday. With netizens appropriately
   regulation-shy after the Communications Decency Act brouhaha, the
   White House's Clipper III proposal, and calls from the Justice
   Department for a new cabinet-level agency to rein in the Net, it was
   clear the guy knows how to woo online voters.
   
   "Can you imagine if I got to the debates, and I made Bill Clinton and
   Bob Dole justify censoring the Internet - made them justify their
   blatant disregard for the First Amendment of the Constitution?" Harry
   Browne asked.
   
   No doubt about it, the Libertarian party has its flaws - little
   things, like that they'd gut environmental laws and auction off
   America's national parks and wildlife refuges if given half a chance.
   But it's also pretty obvious that this is the only party that actually
   understands the Net.
   
   Browne hopes to use that knowledge to reverse the party's electoral
   slide in recent elections. In 1980 the Libertarian nominee won 921,299
   votes. In 1992 - with Ross Perot's independent candidacy probably
   stealing away some support - the nominee garnered just 291,000 votes.
   Now, former Colorado governor Richard Lamm, a lifelong Democrat, is
   seeking the presidential nomination of the Reform Party founded by
   Perot.
   
   Browne isn't fazed. "All it means is one more person on the other
   side, one more person who thinks that government works," Browne said.
   "So now Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, Richard Lamm, or Ross Perot will have
   to divide up all the votes of the people who do think government works
   - and I'll have all the votes of the people who don't think government
   works."
   
   "Let's bring Ralph Nader in. Let's bring Pat Buchanan in. Let's bring
   all these people in on that side. So much the better ... Maybe i'll
   win with 8 percent of the vote."
   
   For Browne, the presidential debates are the key to capturing the
   Reform Party's anti-establishment message and reshaping it around his
   core campaign theme: a drastically reduced government. Shouldering his
   way to the podium will be the hard part. "We will be well-enough
   financed that we will meet the qualifications," Browne said. "We will
   be on the ballot in all 50 states. What it will come down to is: Am I
   in the polls at 10 percent or so? If I am, they would have a hard time
   keeping me out."
   
   Until then, Browne will continue relying on talk radio, and the Net.
   "I've talked to maybe 20 million people [on the radio] since the first
   of the year," he said, and he acknowledged that the Net has been a
   boon to him and his party.
   
   "I did not understand the significance of this [the online world] two
   years ago even though I've been a computer buff for 20 years," Browne
   said.
   
   The 63-year-old investment advisor now churns through 80 email
   messages a day, tracks online presidential polls, and sends out
   regular "On the Trail" dispatches to his campaign's electronic mailing
   lists. Jo Jorgensen, Browne's running mate, is head of a software
   firm.
   
   In light of the Libertarian ticket's Net savvy, is it asking too much
   of the niggling nabobs in the Clinton administration, the censor-happy
   inmates in Congress, and the other folks seeking office this fall at
   least to pretend to have a clue about the Net?
   
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