MOFYC exclusive: Libertarian Congressional candidate Sundwall visits GF

Earlier this month, Congressional candidate Eric Sundwall (above) spent over an hour and a half speaking and taking questions from an audience at Rock Hill Bakehouse Cafe. The daily Post-Star did not run a story on the event, even though it sent a reporter who left after about 15 minutes. The local TV cameraman also only stayed for a small fraction of the Q&A. MOFYC is the only media outlet where you will find a full account of this event.

On February 11, Eric Sundwall visited Glens Falls to speak about his candidacy in the special election for the open 20th Congressional District seat, set for March 31. Before the public event, I spoke briefly with Sundwall. The New York Libertarian party state chairman told me that he was a big fan of the blogosphere and other elements of the new media and explained how he thought it held great potential as a way for people with alternative points of view to "bypass" the traditional media that generally ignores them. Accordingly, he maintains his own blog as does his campaign.

He spoke briefly to the public and spent most of the time answering questions from them.

The Kinderhook native said that he "wants to build independent coalitions" with other smaller parties who are disadvantaged by the current political and electoral systems. He emphasized his belief in a four-point platform recently put forth by prominent independent and smaller party figures.

The platform focused on: a rational foreign policy, reducing the national debt, privacy and reform to the Federal Reserve system. He promised to be a "loud advocate" for this sort of change.

Though a Green, event host Matt Funiciello threw his support to Sundwall saying that the Libertarian supported "breaking the two party system and ballot access wall."

Sundwall is familiar with this wall. In 2006, he obtained 50 percent more signatures than required to be put on the ballot for that year's Congressional race. But the two parties got enough of the signatures disqualified to eject him off the ballot. He pointed out that one of the petitioner errors that cost him a lot of signatures was something as trivial as when people would indicate their town of residence as Saratoga, rather than Saratoga Springs. He said he was going to hire a professional political operative to ensure that such shenanigans didn't keep him off the ballot this time.

The Libertarian said that the special election was a "unique opportunity" to get his issues into the public debate because the race was short and did not have other races to spread thin media attention. Whether the mainstream media will cover him is another matter.

He spoke at length about the ballot access issue and its "obstructionary rules." He noted that if someone wants to run for Parliament in Britain, all they have to do is pay a modest, but not negligible, filing fee.

In New York, candidates have to follow a byzantine set of rules designed to keep the two major parties in power. To get on the ballot for Congress, a smaller party or independent candidate has to collect several thousand signatures and not have them be rejected for trivial reasons. By contrast, Republican candidate Jim Tedisco and Democrat Scott Murphy merely had to get the endorsements of literally a couple people (who happened to be county party chairmen).

Judging from media accounts, most of Murphy's and Tedisco's stops seem to be events where only people who'd already made up their mind showed up. In fact, a Post-Star editorial gave a thumbs down to the Democrat and Republican for not answering voters' questions directly, without being "filtered by political flacks and in pre-written, sanitized statements."

Thus, it's odd that the daily continues to ignore Sundwall, who did exactly what The Post-Star demanded.

The event was attended by a diverse audience; questioners self-identified as Libertarians, Greens and Democrats. Not all the questions from the public were friendly. Sundwall's answer on the question of global warming was seen as evasive by some in the audience. When asked about environmental protection, he insisted that the solution was to be found within the civil courts, rather than through government regulation. One Democrat in the audience seemed upset that Sundwall did not guarantee he would change everything in the snap of a finger if elected.

Interestingly, the Libertarian candidate did not rule out a government role in health care. He said that he was pragmatic and that "If single payer would save us x money, I could be on board."

But he insisted he would remain focused on the four-point platform.

Sundwall spoke most passionately in opposition to the skyrocketing national debt. He also mentioned his strong opposition as a small businessman to corporate welfare. He has also subsequently said that he would have voted against the stimulus package recently passed into law, making him the only one of the three candidates to take that position. Murphy says he would've voted for the stimulus. Tedisco has refused to say one way or the other.

He said was opposed to the "extension of empire." He noted the debilitating effects of all of resources going toward propping up that empire because they were being diverted away from other societal objectives. He also spoke strongly in opposition to the skyrocketing national debt.

But while not everyone in audience agreed with all of Sundwall's answers, most seemed pleased that he took the time to answer questions from the public directly and unfiltered. Let's hope his opponents do the same.

Today, his campaign announced that he's been endorsed by one-time Democratic presidential candidate and former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel.