David Weigel has a nice piece on the current state of the Libertarian Party in the new issue of Reason, saying that the challenge for presidential nominee Bob Barr “and the reformers is to deliver on their promises: to score a record vote total, to grow the party’s membership, and to force the two big parties to pay attention. They need to prove that libertarians can do more than form a protest bloc in the GOP or think-tank their way into the mainstream of politics and policy. If they pull that off, the Libertarian Party could reach unprecedented heights.”
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Weigel says, “They need to prove that libertarians can do more than form a protest bloc in the GOP or think-tank their way into the mainstream of politics and policy.”
No qualm there, but doesWeigel really think that this is isn’t going to happen (as he says) – “embracing a man with Barr’s mixed record would damage the party in the long run.” Or damaging the very core of what libertarianism is, or general perception of what it is about?
On these counts, I doubt that Weigel has a clue as to what constitutes success. I would make an educated guess that he believes that vote totals is the principal goal, and if you have to compromise 40%+ of the fundamentals of libertarianism, then so what!
I can think of only one scenario where Barr gets the hoped for 3 million or more votes . . . if McCain picks Joe Lieberman as his VP running mate. If that happens, look for Barr and Baldwin to get quite a lot more votes than either their respective parties ever have gotten.
Remember though, such a vote total would have very, very little to do with Barr or Baldwin, but of the very bad taste left in the mouth and protest of conservatives to have a Democrat turned Independent on the GOP ticket. Again, would this be success? Not to me it wouldn’t.
Poor Milsted. Torn between supporting rightist Dixiecrat conservative Ron Paul & starting his theoretical “upper left” party-progressive party equivalent.
What a mess.
G.E., agreed.
We are not getting the other two parties to pay attention, we are slowly turning into them. It’s funny, GOP people are trying to take over the LP, and Ron Paul is trying to take over the GOP…
Not to worry. It ain’t happenin’