[sinkspur]

Both parties fear the libertarian party far more than they do any of the others, including those who have had some limited success in the past (reform, green).

LOL!!! Nader says the same thing.

The fringers are not part of the debates for the same reason children are not allowed to drive cars.

[z3n]

"LOL!!! Nader says the same thing.
The fringers are not part of the debates for the same reason children are not allowed to drive cars."

Nader will never appeal to a large segment of the voters. Even Ross Perot, with all the money he dumped into his campaign(s) and got into the debates could not muster more than small fractions of the voting population

Libertarian party is definately not well run at the mommet, or well represented.
However, the fear comes from the fact that the libertarian party, giving some good representation and enough momentum (not even as much as Perot got) could easily threaten to appeal to large blocks of both democrats and republican voters (the small government republicans and the social liberal democrats).

[Protagoras]

The fringers are not part of the debates for the same reason children are not allowed to drive cars.

Typical goofy comment.

If you think that Democrats are adults and Libertarians are children, you shouldn't be allowed to post anymore than children should be allowed to drive.

[dcwusmc]

Perhaps the "fringers" would become more mainstream if the American Public were to learn more about them in this sort of setting. Which exposure, being anathema to both wings of the ruling party, the republicrats are loathe to provide. And face it, the libertarians are far closer to conservativcs than Bush, Rove and Company are. True they are wrong on open borders, AT LEAST until the welfare state is dismantled... but B, R & Co aren't even waiting for that before opening the back door!