LIBERTARIAN CANDIDATE OFFERS SOME PROVOCATIVE VIEWS

In the back booth of a Blackstone Avenue coffee shop,Steve
Kubby,Libertarian Party candidate for governor,picked his way
carefully through a breakfast of vegetables,hash browns and apple
juice-and less carefully through a minefield of political topics.

The death penalty? He's against it. Too many documented mistakes. Gun
control? Against that, too. A well-armed nation is the best protection
against crime.

Three strikes? "Fell-good legislation ... terribly misapplied. A guy
who steals a pizza ends up being a ward of the state for the rest of
his life."

Public schools? Can be fixed only by the "free market." Growth? Not to
worry: "As we move from the industrial age to the information age,
just as when we moved from the agricultural age to the industrial age
the opportunity to feed, cloth, shelter and provide for people will be
greatly expanded."

Farmers? Ought to be growing hemp. The War on Drugs? A failure that
"makes millionaires out of thugs." Immigration policy? "Disgraceful.
... We have more people dying on the California-Mexico border than
ever died on the East German border." His solution?

"This is the one that scares people the most."

Scare me.

"An open border."

And so it went for almost two hours recently, as the stylishly suited
Libertarian ran through his ideas, notions and assorted sound bites.
The 51-year-old Kubby is a Lake Tahoe author, businessman and survivor
of adrenal cancer.

He made his mark in California politics as a leader of the Proposition
215 campaign for medicinal marijuana, a substance that, he volunteers,
he has taken for years. Inhales, too.

Kubby readily acknowledged that many of his positions would constitute
"political suicide" if expressed by his mainstream opponents, Gray
Davis and Dan Lungren. One advantage to being a third party candidate
is that it means never having to say the same old poll-driven politics.

Conversely, a so-called "fringe" candidate not deemed ready for
prime-time debates - or prime-time donations - often repeats the
lesson of the famous tree that fell in the forest, unheard. It's not
easy, breaking through the silence.

Kubby told of arriving at a PTA convention in San Diego only to learn
that, because the main gubernatorial candidates had canceled, he would
not be allowed to address the assembled delegates.

So, Kubby said, he moved outdoors and started giving his speech on the
sidewalk, only to be interrupted by police. After a brief showdown, he
said, he won over the officer in charge and was allowed to continue.

This victory, however, would be diminished by a subsequent newspaper
account, which described the incident under the headline: "No Governor
Candidates Show for PTA Convention."

Raising for Kubby the question: And so what am I?

A case can be made, of course, for keeping the focus on candidates
with realistic chances of victory: One will be the next governor, so
why not aim for the most-informed decision possible?

At the same time, though, it invites self-fulfilling prophecy to
declare that only candidates who can win will receive coverage - or be
allowed to participate in the debates - since only candidates who
receive coverage - or participate in debates - can win.

What cannot be questioned is that third-party candidates can make
sprightly copy. They tend to be anchored in deeply cherished ideas -

in Kubby's case, the Libertarian philosophy that less government is
better government. And often their opinions are delivered free of the
professional varnish of campaign consultants. Here was Kubby, for
example, on the enforcement of highway speed limits:

"Citizens have to face every day this gantlet of Highway Patrol, who
cut in and out of traffic like sharks, looking for the weakest in the
herd, pulling them over and collecting taxes. It is literally highway
robbery."

Now it is not necessary to agree with candidate Kubby on this or any
other points in order to concede that, in a famine of fresh political
thought, he does provide at least something to chew on:

"Put me on a TV show or a debate with the big-money candidates," he
growled, "and you are going to get a real show. ... I'll hammer those
guys."

For the moment, however, it was time for the Kubby campaign simply to
roll on elsewhere.

The busboy had come to clean the table.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady