Thanks to the Wonders of Modern Technology ...

... I "attended" two Libertarian presidential candidate events tonight: A Google Hangout with John McAfee and his campaign manager Tiffany Madison, and a conference call with Gary Johnson and his preferred running mate, William Weld.

Bottom line: I didn't change my mind about which candidate I support or why, but I thought both presentations were reasonably good.

As befits the "revolutionary" among the top three candidates, McAfee, I thought he made a good case for himself, and Ms. Madison likewise justified the campaign's value to the party in terms of creating a candidate assistance package geared toward modernizing Libertarian campaigns.

No real surprises on the Johnson campaign call. A Utah state senator came on to wax enthusiastic and former LNC chair / current LP ballot access honcho Bill Redpath explained the challenges ahead on that front. Weld got a bit long-winded, presumably because he felt the need to familiarize the listening delegates with him, but I think he helped himself a bit (his account of his 2nd Amendment issues would have stood him in good stead if he hadn't already had a couple of false starts on it in the past few days). Both candidates made strong arguments that they are the ones who can get the Libertarian Party onto the debate stage and permanently enlarge its electoral base.

In other news, Austin Petersen has had two endorsements and two withdrawals of endorsement in the last two days.

The first was conservative talk host Glenn Beck, who clearly and unambiguously endorsed Petersen ("he's my guy"), then tried to "clarify" that he hadn't actually done what he had done.

The second was Walter Block (long associated with the formerly libertarian, now paleoconservative, Ludwig von Mises Institute), who apparently didn't bother to actually familiarize himself with the candidate before endorsing him and recoiled in horror when he learned that Petersen doesn't endorse the Non-Aggression Principle.

I feel bad for Petersen. Not because I support him, I don't, but because a candidate should be able to count on prominent endorsers to make up their goddamn minds and stick to their guns for more than, say, 15 minutes before turning tail.