Yeah, same here. They certainly have a valid point about fiscal conservatism. I like pretty much everything from the Cato Institute except their foreign policy stuff. However, anyone dumb enough to actually vote Libertarian should be institutionalized.
I think the real circus will be about 2008 or 2012 when the social cons and fundivangelists start throwing fits when they can't impose every element of their views on Republican candidates and start running really serious Third Party campaigns..likely leading to Democrat victories.
Feel free to bring up the above prediction in 8 years. I hope I turn out to be horribly wrong :-).
For a "strategerist", you haven't given this statement much thought.
For example, I voted Libertarian for President in 1996 (Dole v Clinton), not because I was "dumb" or need to be "institutionalized", but because a) Dole was so far ahead in Texas that my vote wasn't going to change the outcome one way or the other, so it was a "safe" vote even though the Clinton presidency completely horrified me, and b) Dole was enough of a RINO on many issues that I didn't want to give him my "approval" in the form of another vote in his total. (Although I would have voted for him if there had been any chance at all that it might have actually helped him oust Clinton, of course. And I voted straight-ticket Republican in 96 not including the Presidential vote.)
Instead, while I couldn't affect the final outcome at all, I was hoping that in some small way the addition of my vote to the Libertarian vote total would be able to help affect future Republican policy in the way described in my earlier post on this thread. (And in case you're wondering, I'm going to cheerfully vote for Bush next Tuesday.)
So yes, there can be reasons to sometimes vote Libertarian beyond being stupid or crazy, contrary to your assertion.