The campaign of Michigan Libertarian Scotty Boman commissioned a poll by Gravis Marketing that shows he exceeded the 5% threshold traditionally required by sponsors to be included in the state’s U.S. Senate debates.
The poll puts Boman at 7% in a 3-way match-up with Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow at 48% and Republican and former Congressman Pete Hoekstra at 39%.
A similar strategy was employed by the Libertarian Action Super PAC which commissioned a poll by Pulse Opinion Research to show that Libertarian for president, Governor Gary Johnson, surpassed the 15% requirement set by the Commission on Presidential Debates for his inclusion. Johnson polled at 24% of the vote in a head-to-head match-up with President Barack Obama who polled at 45%, with 27% voting for “some other candidate.” The CPD excluded Johnson despite his meeting their requirement.
As it turned out, the Stabenow and Hoekstra campaigns were not able to agree on terms, so no U.S. Senate debates were held in Michigan for the general election this year – except one “debate” in which Hoekstra appeared alone without his invited opponent, Stabenow. The web site mlive.com ran a feature story noting Hoekstra’s hypocrisy for mocking the Democrat while refusing to include the Libertarian.
Scotty Boman proposes a foreign policy of peace and freedom and advocates for immediate withdrawal from Iraq because “occupation is unsustainable, bleeds our economy, causes untold human suffering, and makes the American people less secure.” He adds, “I was opposed to the preemptive, undeclared and unconstitutional war in Iraq from the start.”
Boman also proposes repealing the income tax and replacing it with nothing, making social security voluntary, and ending the Federal Reserve’s printing of money, which devalues the dollar — what Boman calls the “inflation tax.”
In 1994, Libertarian for U.S. Senate John Coon won a court ruling to force debate organizers to include the Libertarian in debates. The court decision was later overturned.
Libertarian Scotty Boman also ran for U.S. senate in 2008.
