Libertarian Candidate Speaks at CU

Legalizing marijuana, lifting the ban on smoking in restaurants, and abolishing Social Security and Medicare would be among the first orders of business for Libertarian party gubernatorial candidate John Clifton, who came to speak at Columbia on Tuesday.

The candidate, a former chairman of the Libertarian Party of New York and a social worker, trails far behind in polls to the Republican candidate, John Faso, and the Democratic frontrunner Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, but he says he is running to attract attention to the party's platform and attain the 50,000 votes necessary to ensure the Libertarians get permanent status on the ballot for future elections.

"There's a huge institution in place to enforce the two-party system," he said. "Both are leading towards a total state. One's taking the left side of the road, one's taking the right."

Calling the officials who lead the two major political parties "power-sucking vampires" and "control freaks," Clifton praised the traditional Libertarian party line-small, bureaucrat-light government, low taxes, and free market capitalism.

Suggesting reform of the state's current drug policy, he said, "There shouldn't be people getting in the way of people ingesting anything they want to ingest."

The controversial platform of the third-party candidate raised the eyebrows of many of the students who attended the Columbia Political Union event, and it made for a lively post-speech dialogue.

Students asked how he, as a Libertarian governor, would work with the Republican senate and Democratic assembly if elected. He responded that he would threaten to veto legislation and would bring more issues to the courts to define state powers.

Students also asked how pro-market Libertarians approach policies promoting social equality. Clifton responded: "Sometimes it can appear that freedom can be self-eliminatory. ... I'm not saying there are no problems, but markets are better at solving them."