Presidential candidates on the VT ballot 2020, part 3

Continued from part 2...

H. Brooke Paige & Thomas Witman; Grumpy Old Patriots.  There is no campaign or party website beyond Paige's site discussion in the VT Secretary of State's race.

Brock Pierce & Karla Ballard; Unaffiliated.  Policy page has a number of items that sound good, but even after you click "Learn more" there is a problematic lack of detail about their proposed solutions.  Many of us can agree that the national debt is too large, but "We will balance America’s budget for the benefit of future generations" isn't a satisfactory solution without more explanation of *how* you plan to do that.

Zachary Scalf & Matthew Lyda; Independent.  Candidates and campaign have zero internet presence.

Jerome Segal & John De Graaf; Bread and Roses.  Website has a number of thoughtful statements on their philosophy (main page) and policy agenda page.  Unfortunately, both pages have the same big picture of Jerome Segal at the top, so it's hard to tell you've changed pages, the policy agenda page has "under construction" sections a month from the election, and the whole site is poorly formatted for reading. 

Gary Swing & David Olszta; Boiling Frog.  Party website looks like a joke campaign.

Donald Trump & Michael Pence; Republican. Issues page is a separate URL from the main campaign site; promiseskept.com instead of donaldjtrump.com.  Why?

Kanye West & Michelle Tidball; Independent.  Website is a one-pager that appears to be optimized for mobile.   

Presidential candidates on the VT ballot 2020, part 2

Continued from part 1... 

Blake Huber & Frank Atwood; Approval Voting.  Just a half-assed party wordpress site for a one-issue party.

Jo Jorgensen & Jeremy "Spike" Cohen; Libertarian. The issues page lays out a number of problems that I agree are problems: soaring national debt & healthcare costs, wars, high imprisonment rate, etc., and there some parts of proposed solutions in the platform that are usable, but then there are statements like, "I will get rid of the FDA’s efficacy requirement, if not the entire FDA," as if every individual has the means to determine for themselves whether a drug is safe and effective.  This would take us straight back to the quackery days of U.S. healthcare. 

Alyson Kennedy & Malcolm Jarrett; Socialist Workers.  The candidates do not appear to have a campaign website and the party itself does not appear to have a website other than their weekly publication The Militant.  Had to hunt a bit to find their platform.  I support workers banding together, but don't think Cuba's 1959 revolution is a good example of the kind of transformation we need in the U.S.

Kyle Kenley Kopitke & Taja Yvonne Iwanow; Independent.  Campaign wordpress site accuses the Democrats & Republicans of trying to give control of the "American internet" to a "Globalist Agency" that "will lead to the brutal censorship of many Great Alternative American News Media websites."

Christopher Lafontaine & Michael Speed; Independent.  Campaign website has no plan or statements on issues.

Gloria La Riva & Sunil Freeman; Liberty Union.  Website has a brief 10-point program.  On point #2, I don't believe Socialism will save the earth.  On #5, while I'm for reduced military spending, I don't think we can do away with all of it.  On #10, we do need a better way to bring white collar criminals to justice, but I don't think Socialism solves this.

Keith McCormic & Sam Blasiak; Bull Moose.  The website makes the platform easy to find (yay!).  Sadly, when I click on A Bold Vision, I get "Nothing Found" (sigh).  The platform is an interesting read, and has some things to agree with, but also contains statements like "Today, we have foreign nations and traitor Neoliberals brainwashing troubled youth and giving money to extremist groups like the Klu Klux Klan, Communists, Anarchists, Nazis, and other hate groups who are trying to overthrow our government."

Continued in part 3.

Presidential candidates on the VT ballot 2020, part 1

There are twenty-one entrants on the ballot.  This might be a three-parter.

Joe Biden & Kamala Harris; Democratic.  Website pushes heavily for donations.  Be prepared to scroll to look for positions on issues.  Be prepared, once you do find Joe's vision, for a page of competing slogan templates: "Build Back Better" jostling with "The Biden Plan for ___" and "Joe Biden's Agenda for ____".  This page needs some serious organization.

Don Blankenship & Bill Mohr; Constitution.  Website has three principles: Equality, Ethics, and Exactness, which sound okay (well, the first two sound okay and Exactness elicits a "hunh?  guess I gotta read further to figure out what they mean by that) until you read the accompanying paragraphs.  

• The description of the Equality principle includes the line "Calling people who speak publicly about the diversity issues racists will not fix the problem."
• Ethics begins "We must return to a nation of laws."
• Exactness begins "Americans must be made aware that they cannot rely on the media for truthful information."

Brian Carroll & Amar Patel; American Solidarity.  Website has a clear list of general positions on issues.  Sounds like a pro-life Green Party. 

Phil Collins & Billy Joe Parker; Prohibition.  <insert joke about feeling it coming in the air tonight>  I couldn't find a website for the campaign, just a page on the party's website announcing the candidates.  The party platform contains no citation for the statistics they cite.  The NIH says there are 14 million alcoholics in the U.S., compared to the 40 million claimed by the Prohibition party.  

Roque "Rocky" de la Fuente & Darcy Richardson; Alliance.  The top google result for the candidate is http://www.rocky101.com/, but it doesn't exist.  The Alliance party site mentions them as the party's presidential candidates and outlines the party's general positions... which, skimming through, I'm generally in favor of.

Richard Duncan & Mitch Bupp; Independent.  Sweet jesus this website, which I found from his Facebook page.  When I clicked on the link on his Facebook page, I got the following:

Hoo boy.

Howie Hawkins & Angela Walker; Green.  Their website is "under construction" about a month out from election day???

Continued in part 2.

Representative to Congress race VT 2020

Ballot arrived Friday.  Looking through all the candidates.  VPIRG has a list of links to candidates' platforms.  

Peter Becker; Independent.  His website contains several rants: one against "partisan politics", though much of his ire is reserved for Democrats; one that claims COVID-19 only kills the unhealthy; one against the Democrats for instituting the national income tax 100 years ago; and one that claims racism is this election year's "trendy topic".  

Miriam Berry; Republican. Candidate's campaign website appears to be their personal blog.  There is an "Issues" page that only discusses education.  The main page touches on other issues, but only briefly.

Christopher Helali; Communist. Website outlines 3 themes: Peace, Equality, and Socialism. 

Marcia Horne; Independent. Website has a lot of links to various opinions, but there doesn't appear to be any kind of organization to it, so one is left with the impression of a 20-point plan where some of the headings are things like "Interested in the numbers?" and "Actually -- Switzerland is a Democracy".   

Shawn Orr; Independent.  Zero web presence for the campaign.

Jerry Trudell; Independent.  Website is just a bunch of videos with no extended text descriptions.  From the short text, looks like he doesn't like the F-35s.

Peter Welch; Democratic.  Website's "Issues" menu has 14 items to choose from.  I understand that a candidate may want answers to constituent questions about their positions on many different topics, but can a single person really promise to focus on 14 issues in a single two-year term?  Then again, maybe what we're really electing is Peter Welch's ability to hire and manage his staff.

See also: the Secretary of State's race.