Politico article features several Libertarian Party members

Politico has a new article by James Hohmann featuring several Libertarian Party members responding, both positively and negatively, to Rand Paul’s candidacy. Bob Barr, ex-Libertarian and 2008 nominee, offers a defense of Paul’s strategy of appealing to Republicans within the two-party system. 2012 nominee and likely 2016 candidate Gary Johnson, who has been featured most often in coverage of the Libertarian reaction to Rand Paul, repeats his criticisms of Paul’s hawkishness and social conservatism.

The article also features quotes from Sean Haugh (L-NC) and Mark Fish (L-AK), two Libertarian candidates who saw Rand Paul campaign for their Republican opponent in 2014, as well as Carla Howell, the Political Director of the Libertarian Party and former candidate for Governor of Massachusetts and US Senator. Excerpt below:

But others, especially those who identify with the Libertarian Party, have a word for Paul: sellout.

“There are a lot of libertarians who will sit down and talk with you for hours on end about the Fed and macroeconomic theory and Hayek and so forth,” said Bob Barr, who represented Georgia in Congress for five terms before running for president as the Libertarian Party’s nominee in 2008. “That’s great, but the average voter doesn’t know who Hayek was, doesn’t know who Milton Friedman was and doesn’t know what the Federal Reserve does.”

“Rand is much more founded in the real world than his dad was when he was a candidate,” Barr continued. “Rand understands that if you want to win a national election as a libertarian – that is with a small ‘l’ – you have to appeal to a lot of Republicans. We have, after all, a two-party system – period, end of argument.”

Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party presidential nominee in 2012, chastises the younger Paul for supporting a budget that includes sizable increases in military spending and for cozying up to evangelicals. Paul continues to personally oppose gay marriage and does not call for the legalization of marijuana.

“He is running as a Republican,” said Johnson. “If he were libertarian, he’d be running as a libertarian.”

Johnson, who served two terms as New Mexico’s Republican governor, briefly joined the GOP field in 2011 before leaving to accept the Libertarian Party’s nomination. He won 1.2 million votes in the general election, or 1 percent of the popular vote. He said he hopes to run for president again in 2016, partly to offer a contrast to Paul.

“If you Wikipedia classical liberal, that’s what most Americans are and that’s certainly what libertarians are all about,” he said by cell phone as he walked between meetings in New York City. “If I do [run again], it’s still a ways away…I would like to do it, but no timetable at this point.”

Several ideologically-pure libertarians mused about what they viewed as the staleness of Paul’s presidential stump speech: calls for term limits, a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget and a law requiring senators to read bills before they vote on them.

“The balanced budget stuff goes back to the ‘80s, and the term limits stuff was big in the ‘90s,” said Brian Doherty, a senior editor at the libertarian magazine Reason. “None of that’s fresh. None of that’s a new vision … It’s not really distinctly libertarian.”

Doherty, author of the book “Ron Paul’s Revolution,” said Rand is determined to avoid a repeat of his problematic 2010 appearance on Rachel Maddow’s show, during which he suggested that portions of the Civil Rights Act might be unconstitutional because they restricted the freedom of segregationist business owners.

Doherty said Rand, unlike his father, does not want to get burdened with theoretical debates about what happens when his philosophy is applied in full. “He doesn’t want moments like that,” the editor said. “I think that’s the root of the prickliness…If you’re a typical party hack of whatever sort, everyone understands you’re just a politician … No one expects intellectual coherence from you.”

[…]

Carla Howell, the political director of the national Libertarian Party, thinks Rand might ultimately hurt the cause by “pandering to Republican elitists and special interests.”

“The question is: which side will he help more?” asked Howell, the Libertarian nominee against Mitt Romney when he ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002. “Will he deliver on advancing freedom more? Or will he saddle us with more big government by helping politicians like Mitch McConnell and whoever ends up being the 2016 Republican nominee?”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/rand-pauls-kinder-libertarianism-116833.html#ixzz3Wut9I6OB