Koch-linked group launches pro-weed campaign for North Carolina Libertarian candidate

[Blue_Tires]

Sean Haugh, the Libertarian candidate for Senate in North Carolina, is getting a big lift in the waning days of the election from an unlikely group praising his support for marijuana legalization and his opposition to U.S. military action abroad.

The “More Weed, Less War” online ad campaign features beaming young men and women who tout Haugh as “sharing our progressive values,” chant “Get Haugh, get high!” and dismiss Democratic incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan as “out of touch.”

The outfit behind the campaign does not have a history of advocating for marijuana legalization.

American Future Fund, a tax-exempt organization based in West Des Moines, has been frequently used as a pass-through for political money on the right. In the 2012 campaign, it was a major player in a network of politically active nonprofits supported by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch and other conservative donors.

Nick Ryan, AFF’s founder, declined to say who was supporting the campaign. “As a practice, we don't comment on who does or does not contribute to our organization,” he wrote in an email.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/10/23/koch-linked-group-launches-pro-weed-campaign-for-north-carolina-libertarian-candidate/

If anyone needed further proof about the libertarian party being co-opted by the GOP...

[liberal_at_heart]

1. The Democrats are behind on this issue and will lose voters especially Millennials over it.

I have two democrats in my district I will not vote for because they actively voted against medical marijuana.

[Wella]

2. Do you really want to put so many other issues at risk for weed?

I understand your desire for medical marijuana, but we're in such a tight race and with so much to lose. Is this the year to withdraw support for a single issue?

[eShirl]

3. Ask that question of the Democrats in the local race. n/t

[Wella]

4. Wrong answer.

I can't believe you'd let the GOP get seats because the Democrats aren't supporting weed right now.

[eShirl]

5. Why are they on the wrong side of this issue?

They are supposed to be the Good Guys, FFS!

[Wella]

6. Why are you eager to give leadership positions to the GOP?

Medical marijuana is slowly making its way through the states, much like gay marriage. You can't derail Democratic leadership because it's not going fast enough. That's just cutting off your nose to spite your face.

[Fumesucker]

8. You'll be crying a different tune if the GOP takes the cannabis issue away from the Democrats

One thing we know for sure about the GOP, they can do a 180 on a dime, give nine cents change and never miss a beat or back off the throttle one iota.

The first party that truly comes to grasp with this issue in a straightforward manner is going to get a lot of voters who don't normally show up at the polls.

[Wella]

9. If you think the Religious Right is going to allow the GOP to support pot, you've got another thing

coming. Remember, it's the midterms. Everybody gets the base out. The undecideds aren't paying much attention and don't vote like they do in the general. It's our base against theirs: and their base does not support pot for medicine or anything else.

[Fumesucker]

10. Some of the biggest druggies I ever knew are now Evangelicals

Don't for a moment think that all of the religious right is nearly as straight laced as they would have you believe...

Q: How do you keep the Baptist from smoking all the dope and drinking all the beer on a fishing trip?

A: Take two Baptists.

[Wella]

11. Yes, but their politicians' platform is NOT pro-pot in any way

And it's the platform, not the private behavior, that dictates the rhetoric and the behavior of the base. Think of how many Republican males had closeted affairs with other men. That still didn't change the platform. The only reason centrist Republicans (yes, there are som) are caving, is because the GLBT juggernaut is just mowing them down. They have no choice. When pot hits the tipping point, they'll cry "uncle" again, but the conservatives who support the party at midterms will never capitulate.

[FrodosPet]

12. Ever met pot smoking fundy Christians and teabaggers?

I have. They even use Bible verses to justify getting baked. I suspect the pressure for legalization is increasingly going to come from the libertarian right more than the left.

This is not good.

[Wella]

16. But this has nothing to do with the GOP platform or the election.

What people do personally and what their votes are in Congress are two different things. Democrats are not the only ones who have abortions, but the GOP will vote solidly anti-choice when push comes to shove. The same thing will happen with pot.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. Funny you mention marriage equality, another area of numerous profiles in cowardice

Instead of leadership.

Leaders LEAD, they dont wait until the voters drag them kicking amd screaming into the current century.

[Wella]

17. That was a matter of timing, not cowardice

If you don't think the Democrats (including Obama) were watching those court cases and waiting for the right time to push ahead (especially after the 2012 elections) you are mistaken. Eric Holder came out and basically told state AGs not to bother defending acts banning gay marriage at the state level. This could never have been done during the first term. So, tell me that a President Romney and some AG from his binder would have done the same thing as Obama and Holder. I guarantee that they never would have.

[Warren DeMontague]

23. "President Romney" = Straw Man Argument.

"This could never have been done during the first term." - says who? There has been a sea change in public opinion around LGBT marriage equality, while the conventional wisdom Bob Shrum types still chase after 2004's elusive homophobic "Values Voter" and tell Hillary the most pressing question the US electorate has for her is which book of the Bible is her favorite.

Similarly, there has been a sea change in public opinion around marijuana legalization.

And again, when it comes to doing the right thing, and not just the politically expedient thing, leaders LEAD.

No matter. Sooner or later the beltway party nabobs will get the memo.

[Wella]

25. The "sea change" has occurred DURING the Obama tenure

Not before it. Other things were always going on behind the scenes. But it's a mistake to hand an election to your opponents over a single issue.

[Warren DeMontague]

26. A majority of Americans now support legalization.

You keep missing that part, I think.

[Warren DeMontague]

13. No, the question is, is it so important to the DNC that we keep arresting pot smokers

That they're willing to ignore the winds of public opinion and lose elections over it?

Like LGBT marriage equality, the East Coast beltway party poop-bahs are several years behind the curve on this. With a few notable exceptions, they haven't got the memo.

The Democrats out west have figured out the way things are headed. Prohibition's days are numbered.

[liberal_at_heart]

15. Big Pharma wants to charge my husband over $600/month for glaucoma medication and $85/month for

Uvitis medication, so yeah, I do want to make it about medical marijuana.

[Wella]

18. At the expense of everything else?

Really?

[liberal_at_heart]

19. I won't sit here and defend and justify my actions to you. I stand up for my family. It is that

simple. When a politician won't stand up for my family, I don't stand up for that politician. You can disapprove if you want.

[Wella]

20. You can stand up for your family without putting the country in the hands of the GOP

Herding cats?

[liberal_at_heart]

21. sorry, I am not doing this. Like I said you can disapprove if you like but I will not vote for

someone who voted against medical marijuana.

[Wella]

22. It's not about disapproval. It's about not thinking strategically

And I'm pretty much done here. I can't believe anyone would risk a GOP takeover for weed.

[Warren DeMontague]

24. Yeah, thinking strategically, always a good idea.

As opposed to, say.... being relentlessly stuck in the past.

[AverageJoe90]

28. I dunno about you, but I wouldn't be too sure about these polls, as an absolute gauge of overall...

Public opinion. Call me crazy if you must, but I kinda doubt 84 percent of people overall wanted marijuana to be illegal, even in 1969; 60 percent is probably more believable, as there were certainly at least a fair number of people in the middle. I'd even shoot for 55 percent(yes, even with conservative hatred of hippies and Reefer Madness taken into account).

But then again, having done my research, it seems like a lot of the major polling firms have pretty much always been at least somewhat slanted on these social issues mainly to try avoiding pissing off hardcore conservatives, especially from the Reagan era going backwards.....even if perhaps subtly. After all, this was the Cold War era, and conservative influence was often disporportionately inflated compared to their actual numbers anyway(perhaps the most obvious clue is the repoty showing, supposedly, 94 percent of Americans totally opposed to interracial marriage in 1954. Which was totally bogus when you think about it; this may sound numbers like that wouldn't have quite been that high even in the ultra-propagandized Orwellian nightmare that was Nazi Germany circa 1939, and that regime gave us the Holocaust. Not to mention this was simply not an issue that many people even thought about. A reasonable guess for that era would be about 40-50 percent definitively against, about, 10, maybe 15 openly for, with the rest falling in squarely the middle to various degrees.). And then again, there's certainly other factors, too(especially fact that these polling public opinion is a whole different ball game that polling the next Presidential election anyway, which may be the biggest secondary reason).

All I'm saying is, don't believe everything you read off the cuff.....

[Warren DeMontague]

29. I also don't expect DU to be very much more of an accurate gauge than the beltway party poobahs.

Simple fact of the matter is, this place skews fairly old, for the internet. And granted, older voters are reliable voters.

But if you want to look at where things are going, look to the youth. That's why the sea change in marriage equality took so many conventional widsom nabobs (the same people who still think the way to win elections is to court the elusive "values voter&quot by surprise... they don't understand Millennials.

Hell, I have trouble grasping that the people taking their drivers tests this year were born during the Monica Lewinsky days... but that's the reality.

[justice1]

7. If the Democrats don't push medical marijuana in all 50 states, the Koch's will.

[AverageJoe90]

27. This won't really work, TBH, especially not now.

There aren't many single-issue pot voters out there in NC, and no doubt many left-leaning people already know about who's always lead the War on Drugs, namely, the hard right and people like them.....including the establishment GOP.

If anything at all, this will actually backfire on them a little bit; in 2012, btw, a surprisingly not totally insignificant number of less insane Republicans casting their ballot for Gary Johnson during the election.