One thing libertarians are not, is politically adept.
The consistent mistake of third parties is to run for the presidency first. Instead they should run for the weakest congressional seats they can find, and build momentum to become a “tie breaking” party in Washington.
With as few as a dozen seats in the US House, the libertarian party would have enormous influence playing off the Democrats against the Republicans. In this way, the libertarians could find their core agenda addressed, and not have to compromise any of their principals.
Does anyone believe that if they applied themselves to it, the libertarians couldn’t get 12 seats out of 435 up for grabs every two years?
Jury is still out on that. i will have to concede that the Libertarian Party nomination of Bob Barr was a huge gamble. The party lost.
Fact is for the Libertarians or any third party, the Presidential election is at this time, an opportunity to get exposure for the party and it's views. It provides funding to the party.
With as few as a dozen seats in the US House, the libertarian party would have enormous influence playing off the Democrats against the Republicans. In this way, the libertarians could find their core agenda addressed, and not have to compromise any of their principals.
Have to agree on this point. The obvious role would be a consistent national platform for the third party office holder to "hold the other major parties feet to the fire". Make them turn their campaign rhetoric into legislation or repeal of legislation.
Does anyone believe that if they applied themselves to it, the libertarians couldn’t get 12 seats out of 435 up for grabs every two years?
i don't.
There are three main third parties at this time: Libertarian, Constitution, Green. It tends to divide independent minded voters. There are some 'weak' districts that a Libertarian has ZERO chance of winning...but a Constitution party candidate might win, or a Green Party candidate might win.
The only problem i see is that as Bismark once said: Politics is like making sausage, you don't want to know what goes into it."