By BOB PALMER
Former Publisher
Mt. Pleasant
Tribune
Despite what
former UCLA Coach Henry Russell Sanders once said, winning isn’t the only thing
to the Libertarian nominee for Texas’ 4th Congressional District, Louis (Lou)
Antonelli, who knows he has an uphill battle as a third party candidate.
Antonelli, 63,
has a long history in public service as well as community journalism. A life-long
conservative, he says the most interesting thing that ever happened him is that
he reportedly once made a future president of the United States cry.
Antonelli says
he does not remember seeing Barack Obama shed tears while they were both
students at Columbia University in New York City, but an alumni blog salutes
Antonelli and another conservative student colleague for causing moisture to
come to Obama’s eyes in frustration.
The pair staged
an anti-Soviet protest at Columbia University in New York following the
shooting down of a Korean Air Lines Flight 007 from Anchorage to Seoul by a
Soviet interceptor.
A bystander to
the student protest later reported “Lou Antonelli and Jon Crane get more
students to protest Soviet downing of KAL 007 than ever supported South Africa
divestiture. Obama left campus for the last time in tears.”
Antonelli and
Obama’s time at the university overlapped slightly and they interacted at least
one more time when Obama and fellow liberals accosted Antonelli and some
friends after a Student Republican club meeting.
Ronald Reagan
was President in 1983 and Antonelli says President Reagan had the strongest
influence on shaping his political philosophy.
“Reagan had a strong Libertarian streak in
him,” said Antonelli. “He often spoke about the need to cut back big
government.”
Antonelli sees
Reagan as influencing his position as a pro-life Libertarian.
“Ronald Reagan
said we don't actually know when life begins exactly, but if you don't know,
err on the side of ‘don't do any harm,’” Antonelli explained.
The Libertarian
candidate for the 4th District seat made vacant when President Donald Trump
appointed incumbent John Ratcliffe to be Director of National Intelligence does
endorse an end to capital punishment and making marijuana legal.
“I think any
drug that's a natural product that grows like marijuana and mushrooms shouldn't
be illegal,” Antonelli said. “Now if you have to make something like meth, you
have to cook, that's another thing.”
Antonelli noted
how capital punishment is the only punishment that cannot be reversed.
Antonelli pointed out how prisoners are often released after decades in custody
when new evidence exonerates them. That is not possible if the prisoner has
been executed.
“Kinky Friedman
said, ‘How can Christians support capital punishment when the founder of their
religion was executed as a political criminal?’” Antonelli cited.
As a business
owner, Antonelli definitely supports lower taxes and smaller government, both
Libertarian touchstones.
Born on Jan. 6,
1957 in Medford, Massachusetts, Antonelli is the son of Sergio and Anna Savini
Antonelli who immigrated to the United States from Italy after World War II.
Antonelli
credits the Boy Scouts of America for having a strong positive influence on his
early life. He embraced the Scout Oath and Law and quickly found a role as
Troop Scribe, reporting Scout events to the local newspaper. His first story
was published when he was 12. He later worked for his local newspaper all
throughout high school.
Although
Massachusetts has a liberal reputation, Antonelli said Italians found
themselves more welcome in the Republican Party than with the local Democratic
Party which was run by Irish descendants.
“There are
plenty of conservatives in Massachusetts,” Antonelli said.
At Columbia
University, Antonelli quickly immersed himself in student politics winning a
seat on the student council as well as joining the Young Republicans.
After college,
he volunteered to run as a Republican for a heavily Democratic Congressional
seat in Upper West Side Manhattan in 1982 when he was 25
“It used to be
what you'd call a Standard Bearer,” Antonelli said. The Republican Party
Chairman in Manhattan was actually a really nice guy. His name was Roy Goodman.
I went to his office one time and said do you have anybody to run for the
office? He said no, you want to do it? I said sure, so I did. It was an
interesting experience.”
Antonelli
believes his political activities influenced others.
“I think
actually the thing that had the most positive influence on the most people goes
back to when I was in college,” Antonelli said. “I showed college students at a
very liberal university, you could be conservative and be a rice guy, too.”
Antonelli packed
up and moved to Texas when he was 28. He’s worked for a number of community
newspapers since then, and while in Cedar Hill he met and married Patricia
Randolph, a Dallas native, in 1999.
He went to work
in Clarksville in 2015 and the Antonellis bought The Clarksville Times from its
owner in 2018. The started a second newspaper in Mount Pleasant at the start of
this year.
In addition to
publishing two newspapers, Antonelli is also a prolific science fiction writer,
having 125 short stories published in 15 years. He is a two-time Hugo award
nominee, and in 2017 he was a finalist for the Dragon Award for his alternate
history novel “Another Girl, Another Planet”.
Antonelli has
been a much sought after panel participant and speaker at conventions for
science fiction writers across the country, although that’s been severely
curtailed this year because of the COVID pandemic. His last convebtiom was in
Atlanta in February before the quarantines began.
Some might
consider Antonelli’s Quixotic quest as the Libertarian candidate for Congress
in the strongly Republican 4th District of Texas his greatest piece of living
science fiction.
Antonelli would
disagree that someone should run for office only when convinced victory is in
the bag.
“If you've ever
thought about service in elective office, do it,” Antonelli urged. “Get it out
of your system. You might win and if you don't, you'll see what it's like. I
think you'll have a lot more sympathy with elected officials if you serve as
one yourself in some capacity.”
Antonelli served
as an elected trustee of the Cedar ISD from 1992 to 1995. He is currently a
member of the Clarksville Planning and Zoning Commission, and President of the
Clarksville Lions Club.
The Antonellis,
who have no children, are members of First Baptist Church in Clarksville.
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