Chris Cole: A Voice for Young People

Chris Cole: "I'm a chance to try something different."

By Ryan Catanese

Chris Cole works long hours.

Do you know who he is?

“Unlike my opponents, I have a day job, which makes it difficult for me to campaign like Elizabeth Dole and Kay Hagan do, because, well, they’re professional politicians,” Cole said.  “They don’t have to punch a clock.”

Welcome to the world of a Libertarian politician, a place where the status quo is under constant attack and 40 hour work weeks are considered vacation time.

So, Chris Cole works a lot, but what does he actually think?

In his press release, Cole said, “In 2007, 775 thousand Americans were arrested for marijuana possession, three-fourths of which were under thirty. The War on Drugs is really a war on young adults for harmless recreation.”

Pause.  Rewind.

Won’t these stances lose Cole some votes in a place like North Carolina, a state that has voted Conservative in every Presidential election since 1976?

“It will definitely lose me some votes,” Cole said.  “Conservatives are wise enough to make good decisions for themselves, but they think that other consenting adults aren’t able to do the same thing.

“As a Libertarian, I believe just the opposite.  I believe that consenting adults are the best qualified people to make those decisions for themselves.

“Whatever consenting adults do that does not violate the rights of another person are not legitimate concerns of government.”

This is one of the central focuses of the Libertarian party, and it stems from what they call, “The Non-Initiation of Force Pledge,” which states, “I do not support the initiation of force or fraud for any purpose.”

“The pledge isn’t necessarily about decisions that I would approve of,” Cole said, “but rather as far as forcing people to make decisions about their personal life.”

If Libertarians, or Independents for that matter, have such great ideas, why is that our country is dominated by two parties?  After all, the last time a third party won a single state in the Presidential election was 1968, an election that was before many college students’ parents were voting.

“Well, the reason that the two parties remain dominant is because they’ve fixed the system to keep out the competition.”

Every four years, Independent candidates are required to go through a ballot drive, in which Senatorial candidates have to petition for over 100,000 signatures to even be placed on the ballots when election time comes around.  And this pales in comparison to Independent Presidential candidates.

“The active people in the party are worn out from the ballot drive,” Cole said.  “We can’t develop any momentum, and that’s something that the Democrats and the Republicans don’t have to go through, so that gives them an advantage.”

The ballot drive, which is a huge money vacuum, combined with the fact that Democratic and Republican candidates are full-time politicians creates an uphill battle for any group trying to break into the political scene.

Not all is lost, however, for the Libertarian party.  They have seen consistently increasing voter turnout for their side.

“Every election, more and more people come our way,” said Sean Haugh, the Political Director of the North Carolina chapter of the Libertarian Party, “especially this year, where voters are so hungry for an alternative.  When people are ready to break their habits of voting for Democrats and Republicans and start looking for another choice, the come and find us.”

Cole is doing especially well in the younger demographics.

“In all of the demographic groups that have been polled, I’ve been doing the best with young voters, which is defined as 18-29,” said Cole.  “I’m at about 16% in that demographic.

“I think college-aged and just post-college-aged voters are recognizing that they suffer the most from the oppressions of government.  That’s why the Libertarian philosophy appeals most to them.”

Cole, however, has never been elected to political office, and his detractors are quick to point that out.

“My question is, ‘Alright well we have been electing the people that were supposedly qualified and what have they done?’” said Cole.  “They’ve doubled the debt, they’ve doubled the size of the federal government, they’ve told you what you can and cannot smoke or can and cannot drink, they’ve told you who you can sleep with or marry.  That hasn’t been working very well for us.

“There’s a definition of insanity that says doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.  I’m an opportunity to try something different and to see if we can get different results.”

“I appreciate [Cole's] honesty,” Haugh said.  “His word is his bond.  He’s a man of principle, and I have a lot of trust in him.  When he tells me something, I know that’s exactly what he’s thinking, and I think that is a quality of a good politician.

“He is true in the Marcus Aurelius sense of the word.”

Cole says he is a voice of change.  He says he is a voice for young people.

Young people, are you listening?