Eric Von Haessler will not run for United States Senate against Johnny Isakson in 2010, largely due to regulations that would force him off the air during his campaign. He made it clear to those of us who had been working with him that he isn’t ruling out a run as a Libertarian in the future and he added that he will work on behalf of the party during the upcoming election.
Haessler spoke at both tea parties in Atlanta (video here and here) and gave a speech at the Georgia Libertarian Party convention explaining his journey from the Republican Party.
There are other people that have expressed interest in running for the seat within the party. No word on pending announcements.
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A person working for a private business must quit his job in order to run but an elected government official can keep his job while running for another. Seems fair.
This is quite upsetting as I was looking forward to casting my vote for him.
oh good grief kellie–this is a very unique situation b/c he’s an on air personality and runs into equal time regulations–it’s why you can’t be on a game show and run for office–it’s why nbc wrung it’s hands over law and order reruns and one of the cable networks pulled arnold movies back in the day…
My point is he has a job on the radio that he must quit but a politician can have a high profile job and be on the radio with that job while running for another office. Where is the equal time there?
I just don’t like that. Politicians have the opportunity to jump in front of a camera or mic quite often because of their job. As long as on air personality isn’t talking about their run, I don’t think they should have to quit.
I don’t expect you to agree with me Jay.
It’s just my opinion.
From what I understand they can’t and it only depends on if it is a federal race.
And the reason they have to do that is to preserve free political speech on a publicly owned airway.
Just because you have populist rage doesn’t mean it is justified.
I’m also going to add the people who have to resign from such positions are hardly “ordinary joes” and I would have to say won’t be hurt in the same way someone working the line at a factory would.
How is forcing a candidate to quit his day job ‘preserving free political speech’?
It’s not like no other position would be discussed, particularly on that show. Every time I’ve ever listened it has been pretty clear that Larry is as solidly neo-con as any of the GOPers here.
BTW: I freely admit that I’ve only listened to TRG a handful of times in my life. I’m WAY outside their range now, and even when I was inside their range, I prefer music rather than talking on the radio.
It has to do with (I forget the exact definition, someone who remembers the FT debac–campaign I mean can give a better definition) giving equal opportunity to candidates. The thought is, and one could easily see this happening, one candidate, who works for a company that operates on a publicly owned good would prevent other political stances to have a chance to speak.
As I said, someone who remembers the FT thing can give a more elegant and accurate definition of why that is.
FT or FD? Fairness Doctrine?
Eric and Larry are both great guys. I listen to the Regular Guys driving into work every morning. Hey, they wake you up better than five cups of coffee
Kelli
You are correct. The rules are designed to protect those that are already elected or those currently in power.
They claim “fairness” is the reason. But protectionism is the game.
The Hatch act keeps all federal employees from running for partisan office. The same for any full time partisan office for the state employees. It’s funny that Ox’s secretary would have to quit her job to run for governor but Ox doesn’t…. yea that’s fair (this goes for all currently elected officials, not just Insurance commissioner).
There are many others excluded from running like employees of companies that have contracts with the state or federal government as an example. I would be interested in the actual percentage of Americans that are forced to quit their jobs to run for office. I bet it would surprise folks at how high it is. Somehow this is to protect our 1st amendment rights???? Courts have been no help here and have agreed in the backwards logic.
Many policies are put in place like this to protect the ones currently in power and they call it “fair.” However, like when Obama and McCain missed their filing deadline in Texas to be on the ballot and was placed on there anyway… We yelled that’s not “fair”, the Judge essential said so, life’s not fair. If the Libertarian party missed a deadline, the outcome would have been very different for our candidate. So as for their “fairness” and “populist” claim… Horse Do-Do! It is Protectionism 101, and Georgia and America suffers for it.
Dr. Jay is right. Von Hessler isn’t the first radio host who announced he was running for political office only to pull out of the race later.
The fact of the matter is. We are lawfully exused for jury duty. You therefore should be exused (without pay of course) to run for political office. If a mogul like Trump was to decide to try his hand at a high profile job with the treasury department or something I say WHY NOT? We keep allowing idiots to be elected and the cream of the crop refuses to try to make a difference because let us be honest here folks, it’s just to much of a paycut to try something huge like this without a safety net.
Being an elected official is likely a fulltime job. If you can’t handle that you shouldn’t run. Period.
And I wouldn’t call Donald Trump (someone who once went from being a multi-billionaire to bankrupt and then regained money not by any real talent but by pretending to be something he wasn’t) the cream of the crop.
Yeah, that Trump reference made me shudder. Donald Trump is the Jack Welch for people who live in trailer parks and don’t know who Jack Welch is.
Trump would make a great “Hair Czar”. Do we have one of those yet?
What about Tom Graves as his deputy czar?
To be honest Steve and Rugby, the Trump reference was an Eye Popping Attention Getter. It was apparently effective being as that is the only part of what I said you were compelled to reference in your rebut. Furthermore the exact phrasing was “a mogul like Trump”. I did not mention Donald Trump directly, I could have used: Gates,Jobs,McMahon,Boortz, or a number of other notable moguls of money. To be honest I say we talk Herman Cain and E.Erickson into running together on a ticket and maybe we could actually make some sense of what the current administration is doing. (This is not in any way an attempt to kiss E’s butt for those of you who are itching to fire something in his direction.)
Does Ray McBerry and his local TV show, the Agenda, (http://www.sbnagenda.com/about.shtml) have to stop too?
does he still do the show? my quick guess is that yes, at some point he would have to stop doing the show. now there may be exceptions–is it an “actual show” of is it basically an “infomercial” that the producers are paying to have put on the air, also i am not sure when the running for office thing actually kicks in–if its when they file and start raisng money, when they announce or if they actually have until qualifying to be considered and official candidate–i am sure someone here probably knows–i was just laying out possible scenarios…
State law is different from federal law, I think.
Because he is paying for it and it is a non-federal race, I am guessing no.
If he did, it does beg the question: if a tree falls in forest….
If a naked man screams in the woods, would anyone hear him?
why do you specifically mention a non federal race? do the equal time rules not apply to all races to some degree?
While that is true I am pretty sure (but not certain) that only federal races have the requirement that one must resign from such a job if you were to run. The State Ethics Commission, AFAIK, doesn’t require that.
Maybe some states do but I have no knowledge of that at all.
Look the key thing here is I am only repeating what I remember from the FT campaign. I have no expertise or in depth knowledge on this whatsoever.
i see–i do remember from the ft campaign however that the george takei run for la city council came up as a previous example of an actor running for office and they mentioned that whatever station was showing star trek reruns in l.a. at the time quit for the duration of the campaign (whether they had to or were just using and abundance of caution, i do not know)
also i know a tv game show will not have you as a contestant if you are currently a qualified candidate for an elected office
did n’t somebody around macon bump up into this sort of thing recently?
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