George,

A few days prior to the "American Candidate" forum I learned that Richard Mack was one of the candidates. A friend of mine in Utah contacted me and asked me to help Sheriff Mack during his visit to Charlottesville. I had not met him and his wife Dawn prior to their visit to C'Ville; however, I knew of his reputation as a strong defender of the Libertarian principles of individual liberty and personal responsibility.

I decided to assist Sheriff Mack in an effort to help maintain a Libertarian voice on the program. (Since the Libertarian Party has already nominated its presidential ticket of Michael Badnarik and Richard Campagna, I was willing to invest only a few hours of effort.) I contacted my Jefferson Area Libertarians colleagues about the matter; however, only J.A.L. vice chairman James Curtis was available to work with me. Following the forum, Mr. Curtis and I helped Mr. and Mrs. Mack with their "campaign" on Sunday afternoon and evening. On Monday I was able to distribute flyers at the Cabell Hall polling station on the late morning/early afternoon.

Frankly, had it not been for the fact that Richard and Dawn Mack are very nice people, and that I want to see the Libertarian perspective represented during political discussions, I would not have invested any time with the "American Candidate" program. I don't find "reality shows" appealing. Moreover, for various reasons the basic process employed in the program (candidate elimination) strikes me as silly.

At the risk of being impertinent, allow me to suggest that if Showtime wants to provide "reality programming," it should produce a program that focuses upon the barriers that Libertarian and other "third party" and independent candidates face at the hands of Democrats and Republicans. In particular, many of the ballot access laws and campaign finance laws enacted by Democrats and Republicans make it much more difficult to challenge the parties in power.

James W. Lark (electronic mail, July 3, 2004)