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The race for governor has more than two candidates, although the third man in the race is getting far less attention. Michael Pope spent some time with him on the campaign trail.

Michael Pope has this profile on Cliff Hyra, the Libertarian candidate for governor.

Outside the Clarendon Metro station in Arlington on a sweltering afternoon, a candidate for governor is struggling against the summertime heat to get the attention of voters.

Hi Im Cliff Hyra. Im the Libertarian candidate for governor of Virginia.

Oh yeah?

Yes sir. Im running for a more inclusive and innovative Virginia. I want to reform the tax and regulatory system. I want to reform the criminal justice system, and make things more fair for everybody here in Virginia."

"Thats cool, man.

Cliff Hyra will be on the ballot statewide as a candidate for governor. But you may not have heard of him. The patent attorney from Northern Virginia is running as a Libertarian, a party he describes as conservative on fiscal issues and liberal on social issues. If elected governor he says he would use the power of the office to ramp down the War on Drugs.

Thats something I could do immediately as soon as I came into office I could order law enforcement to deprioritize marijuana use. I dont want to see anybody whos arrested only for marijuna use. Its certainly a very poor use of scare resources.

He would also take aim at the criminal justice system.

The sentences that are handed down are very often disproportionate. If you look at surveys showing the levels of use between African American and other communities and then the levels of arrests are very disproportionate.

The last Libertarian candidate to run for governor was Robert Sarvis, who ran against Terry McAuliffe and Ken Cuccinelli. He did better than any other third party candidate in the last 40 years. But that still wasnt enough to crack 10%.

Sarvis was out campaigning with Hyra. The problem is that we dont actually have a level playing field. We have to spend a lot of effort just to get on the ballot. Once were on the ballot, theres an effort to keep us out of the debates.

Sarvissays he should have been included in the debates. I was polling at 10%. I got 145,000 votes and I still wasnt allowed in the debates, and I think thats a tragedy.

"If this race is as close as I think it could be, then the Libertarian candidate could play the spoiler and in that case he would hurt Ed Gillespie."

So far, Hyra has yet to receive an invitation to any of the debates this year. The Virginia Bar Association will be conducting the first debate this weekend, and they wont be including Hyra because he doesnt have the necessary polling numbers and he hasnt raised enough money.

But Christopher Newport Universitys Quentin Kidd says that doesnt mean he wont have an influence over the outcome of the election.

"Remember the last time Ed Gillespie came within 17,000 votes of beating Mark Warner. If this is a 17,000 vote race then you could be in a situation where the Libertarian candidate does in fact play the spoiler.

If this race is as close as I think it could be, then the Libertarian candidate could play the spoiler and in that case he would hurt Ed Gillespie.

On some issues, Hyra and Gillespie arent all that far apart. Take the issue of expanding Medicaid.

Expansion is forever. Its almost a poison pill because once you get that expansion its really hard to roll it back."

And then there's abortion.

In general, on abortion issues I would defer to the legislature. So the exception to that would be if theres something that I feel is unconstitutional.

But then theres the controversial issues of the pipelines.

Well Im opposed to the pipelines, and Im opposed to them mainly for property rights reasons. You have the federal government, and theyre taking private property and its for the benefit of a private company, Dominion Power.

Back on the campaign trail in Clarendon, Hyra is making an elevator pitch at the top of an escalator.

I think its very unfortunate some of the rhetoric that weve seen recently thats been very discouraging to people who want to visit here from overseas. But I think they are a wonderful asset, and I hope that we can reverse the trend in that respect."

Thats cool, man.

OK, very nice meeting you.

I really hope you make it.

More here:
Meet Your Libertarian Candidate for Governor, Cliff Hyra - WVTF

Local Libertarians join petition opposing Orleans Parish traffic cameras Mid-City Messenger Nearly a year after the Orleans Parish Libertarian Party first launched opposition to the city's plan to double traffic cameras, the group is still finding avenues to remove them. One of those avenues, by way of petition, is gaining steam. The Orleans ...

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Local Libertarians join petition opposing Orleans Parish traffic cameras - Mid-City Messenger

On Saturday, gubernatorial candidates Ralph Northam and Ed Gillespie will debate at the Homestead in Hot Springs as guests of the Virginia Bar Association.

Libertarian candidate Cliff Hyra wont be on the stage.

The Bar Association says Hyra failed to meet its criteria, which are spelled out in its debate policy. But Hyra does meet those criteria, except one. He is legally qualified to hold the office, and he will be on the ballot. The only criterion he does not meet is subjective: The candidates candidacy must, in the sole and exclusive judgment of the VBA, be significant; he or she must have a reasonable chance of being elected. To be a significant candidate, a candidate must, at least 30 days before a scheduled debate, have demonstrated substantial voter interest and support.

The Bar Association is a private organization, and has every right to make whatever rules it cares to. Whats more, its significant candidate requirement mirrors the rules of many other organizations that sponsor debates which is why debates for high office such as governor and president almost never include third-party candidates.

But the requirement also creates a Catch-22 for Libertarians and other third parties: To get the exposure provided through debates and in media coverage, they first need to be significant but in order to be significant, they first need the exposure provided through debates and media coverage.

Whats more, the VBAs policies undermine one of its stated principles: The VBA debates are not intended to in any way promote or advance one candidate over another. Shutting out one qualified candidate does precisely that.

Were not trying to pick on the VBA here. As noted above, just about every sponsoring organization has similar rules. But those organizations profess to hold debates for the purpose of educating and informing the public. Shutting out a qualified candidate who will be on the ballot achieves the opposite. Most people know generally where Democrats and Republicans stand. They know less about where third parties stand. If sponsoring organizations are truly interested in educating the public rather than enhancing their own perceived prestige then they will invite every candidate on the ballot, not just the big two.

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Editorial: Libertarian Cliff Hyra has earned a spot in gubernatorial debates - Richmond.com

Augustus Sol Invictus, the lawyer, "revolutionary conservative," and crusader "to guard western civilization against foreign aggression and internal corruption," has for the past few years been the single most controversial member of Florida's Libertarian Party, for reasons Brian Doherty reported on at length (including an interview with the man himself) in October 2015. (Among the colorful details you will find there: disputed allegations of neo-Nazism, accurate reports of ritual goat sacrifice, and an O. Henry-style appearance from dirty trickster Roger Stone.)

Well, as of July 13, after years of recriminations, resignations, and mutual accusations of bad faith, the L.P. won't have Invictus to kick around anymore. The onetime trouncee in an unusual L.P. primary fight over Florida's U.S. Senate election in 2016 posted a video on his Facebook page, declaring that he was "Moving from the collegiate levels to the big leagues, and playing to win," seeking along the way to "unite the right wing of American politics at long last in order to save our country and our civilization." You can watch the full video here, and also see recent footage of Invictus speaking at an L.P. gathering in Queens, and also an alt-right rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

In May, Invictus and I both gave lunchtime talks at the Florida L.P. 2017 state convention (snippet from him here; my full thing here), after which I had two main takeaways: 1) The Party was clearly rattled by his ongoing presence (and sponsorship), and 2) his apocalyptic, nationalist-populist vision of libertarianism stuck out like a throbbingly sore thumb compared to what I usually encounter at Libertarian gatherings. I do not often hear discussion, however guarded, about "the genocide of the white race," from either capital- or small-l libertarians these days.

Invictus portrays this as the result of "leftists who have infiltrated and corrupted the Libertarian Party," leading to an insufficient defense of his chin-leading on the front lines of the Free Speech/AntiFa wars. Most L.P. activists I surveyed counter along the lines of Andy Craig: "We can only hope his gang of enablers and skinhead fans now follow him back whence they came." (Libertarian National Committee Chair Nicholas Sarwark simply tweeted, "May he go in peace.")

Is it symbolic that a man who seeks to unite white nationalists with western-chauvinist Proud Boys (of which he's a member), a fierce anti-Fed activist who says stuff like "the international finance system must be destroyed, the New World Order must be destroyed, the Left must be destroyed," would find Donald Trump's GOP more copacetic than the contemporary L.P.? Maybe, though I wouldn't read too much into a single case that has all the trappings of an outlier. The man, after all, did lose a party primary election by 48 percentage points. People (including top-ranking candidates) flow in and out of the Libertarian Party like water; it's the fate of third parties in a stubbornly two-party system, even at a time when all the L.P. measurables are at an all-time high.

"We find ourselves afflicted by the deadliest cancer in human history," Augustus Invictus declares in his mission statement at The Revolutionary Conservative, "manifest in the twin symptoms of leftism and international finance: in a word, globalism." It's a diagnosis that has even less resonance within the Libertarian Party in month six of Donald Trump's presidency.

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Controversial Western Civilization Crusader Augustus Sol Invictus Bolts Libertarian Party for the GOP - Reason (blog)

Another major milestone has been reached in the Syracuse mayoral election. Democratic hopefuls have submitted their petitions to stay in the race. There are five Democratic candidates: Joe Nicoletti, Juanita Williams, Alfonso Davis, Raymond Blackwell, and Marty Masterpole. But getting enough signatures doesnt mean theyll all be on the ballot. Onondaga County Board of Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny says there are two main reasons candidates can be knocked from the race: If they failed to collect enough signatures from registered Democrats within the city, or if their witnesses to those petitions were not qualified.

"Every candidate has had a general objection filed against them, which means that the possibility of specific objections against a any candidate could come in against any candidate over the next week or so. In all likelihood, maybe one or two won't survive, but we just won't be able to tell until the end of thechallenge weeks."

While parties and candidates must encourage voting, Czarny says the Board of Elections will engage with local media to remind citizens of registration and voting deadlines. Czarny is hopeful that the circumstances of this primary could motivate more participation from the people of Syracuse.

"Primary elections tend to be the most low-turnout elections. My hope is with the number of candidates and the open mayoral seat, we'll see a higher turnout in this primary than we would have, say, four years ago."

The Board of Elections has found that in years with an open mayoral seat like this one, more people vote in primaries. However, Czarny believes that political tension nationally could also contribute to greater local voting interest.

"What could be different this year is you see this wave of activism sweeping the country now. Even special elections are getting higher turnout. The increasedawareness of local elections and elections in general could translate to higher turnout numbers in the fall."

One candidate who will not be on the Democratic line is Chris Fowler, who didn't submit the 1,000 required signatures from party members to secure a spot on the ballot. He recently gained the Libertarian Partys nomination, but now must gather more than 1,300 signatures to create a Libertarian Party line on the ballot. Also running for mayor are Republican Laura Lavine, Green Party's Howie Hawkins, and Independent Ben Walsh. Primary elections are September 12th; the general election is November 7th.

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Syracuse Mayoral Democrats Turn in Petition Signatures; One Candidate Switches to Libertarian Party - WAER