[324] in libertarians
Candidate Breaking the Mold
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vernon Imrich)
Mon Oct 24 16:55:18 1994
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 94 16:50:45 -0400
From: vimrich@flying-cloud.mit.edu (Vernon Imrich)
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
Good press in a big paper, read on...
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 1994 20:06:37 -0700
From: mycroft@CERF.NET (Mark West McFadden)
Subject: Guy Wilson update
To: libernet@Dartmouth.EDU
LOS ANGELES TIMES, Metro Section, Tuesday, October 18, 1994
FOE'S INDICTMENT SPURS LIBERTARIAN
by Ted Johnson
Times Staff Writer
Merchant seaman Guy Wilson was hundreds of miles away at a Seattle
port when Rep. Walter R. Tucker III (D-Compton) was indicted.
"Yes!" Wilson shouted, his fist in the air, as his crew mates looked
on curiously.
Wilson, a 34-year-old Libertarian, is the only challenger to Tucker in
the 37th Congressional District, which includes Compton, Carson and parts of
San Pedro and Long Beach. The district is so heavily Democratic (77%) that no
Republican felt it worth entering the race.
Tucker, 37, became a bit more vulnerable last month when a federal
grand jury indicted him on 10 counts of extortion and income tax evasion.
Federal prosecutors accused him of accepting $30,000 in bribes during his
tenure as Compton's mayor. He has pleaded not guilty.
Wilson had not planned to spend any more than $1,000 on the campaign
until the news of Tucker's indictment broke. Now he has opened a campaign
office in Long Beach, selected a volunteer campaign manager and treasurer,
raised $10,000 and plans to tape a cable television commercial.
Libertarians-who have never elected a congressman and are eager to
draw public attention to their philosophy of abolishing most governmental
regulation-have zeroed in on the race, holding fund-raisers and helping Wilson
campaign.
Nevertheless, Wilson, an African American who grew up in South Central
Los Angeles, refuses to pass judgment on the charges against Tucker.
"I'll leave that up to the jury," he said. But he dismisses the
congressman's argument that the government's probe was racially motivated.
"Rubbish," Wilson said, leaning back in a chair at his headquarters
on Long Beach Boulevard. "I am sick and tired of hearing how blacks got a raw
deal in this country. Instead of crying about that, we've got to break free"
of government.
One of the ways to do that, he says, is to follow the Libertarian
motto: Stop relying on government to solve your problems.
Wilson fancies himself an independent fellow, fond of mottoes like
"Live free or die!" and "Damn the rules; it's the feeling that counts." He
decided to challenge Tucker last February when he realized that the
congressman was likely to face no opposition. He'd gotten some political
experience as a union representative and had quit the Democratic Party in
disgust two years earlier to become a Libertarian. "I was fed up [with the
system], but I couldn't sit around and complain any longer," he said.
He didn't have enough money to pay ballot registration fees, so he
went to the streets to gather signatures to get on the ballot.
Political analysts say Tucker, even under the cloud of indictment,
will have an easy shot at reelection. Long before the June primary, rumors
had surfaced that the FBI was investigating Tucker, but he easily trounced his
Democratic opponent, San Pedro businessman Lew Prulitsky. The Tucker name is
popular in Compton, where Tucker served as mayor and his father was a school
board member, councilman, and then mayor until his death in 1990.
"It is way too stacked" against Wilson, said Fernando J. Guerra, a
political science professor at Loyola Marymount University in Westchester.
"Incumbency has an effect, even after death or indictment."
The money Wilson has raised would be a drop in the bucket to a major
party but unusual for many Libertarian candidates, who are accustomed to
waging campaigns out of their homes.
"Everybody is interested in his campaign," said Alan Carlan, a
Libertarian running for the 54th Assembly District seat held by Betty Karnette
(D-Long Beach). "This is a very, very unique opportunity."
Wilson grew up with his grandparents in what he calls a lower-middle-
class home, while his five siblings were being raised in New York with his
mother. His father, also a merchant seaman, lived in Los Angeles.
The candidate ways that as a teen-ager he spent a lot of time at the
local library, as much for socializing ("to hang out with the ladies") as for
learning. Yet his intellectual bent was clear. The first book he remembers
from his teens was "Blacks in Economics" by Thomas Sowell, a black
conservative economic advisor to Ronald Reagan.
At 19, Wilson became a merchant seaman, and several years later he
moved to San Pedro. Co-workers who have gone on month long voyages with him
say he is outspoken and driven.
"If he believes in something, he practices it and preaches it," said
Kerry Williams, a junior engineer with the National Maritime Union in
Wilmington.
In August, Wilson helped organize a strike on the Golden Gate,
protesting the Keystone Shipping Co.'s failure to release records of benzene
levels on the ship. The firm eventually turned over the records to the
workers.
Wilson gave co-workers few indications that he was interested in
politics. He was frustrated that almost half his paycheck went to taxes and
he came to believe his own Democratic Party was only making matters worse.
So in 1992, he switched to the Libertarian Party.
If elected, Wilson says, his first move would be to try to repeal the
16th Amendment, which established the income tax. He also favors government
vouchers that would let parents send their children to either public or
private schools, opposes gun control and the "three strikes" laws, and wants
to greatly reduce the authority of the Food and Drug Administration to keep
products off the market.
