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In an attempt to attract votes from fiscal conservatives, the Libertarian Party has launched an advertising blitz on the conservative Fox News Channel -- a campaign that is "aimed directly at Mr. Bush's Republican base," notes the Times article.

It is truly bizarre to see one party try to destroy another party with which it AGREES 90% of the time--to replace it with a party with which it DISAGREES 90% of the time, thus undermining everything Libertarians claim to hold dear.

Some might call this "insanity".

The NYSlimes just called the election for Bush.

Not insanity, just plain hatred. Libertarians hate pubs because they have the power and they aren't what they want them to be. If the Libertarian Party had one ounce of brain power it would withhold it's criticism of the pubs and then broker a deal prior to the election and get one or two things it wants in exchange for endorsement. This way they could slowly build their base as a party of principle while leveraging whatever strength they have at the polls.

As it is, Badnarik has to endorse Bush to suppress conservative revulsion if Bush loses, and what does he get for it? Nothing, absolutely nothing. What a bunch of asswipes.

It is truly bizarre to see one party try to destroy another party with which it AGREES 90% of the time--to replace it with a party with which it DISAGREES 90% of the time, thus undermining everything Libertarians claim to hold dear. Some might call this "insanity".

More like "crazy like a fox". I see no indication that the libertarian party is trying to "destroy" the Republicans, or "replace" them with the Democrats.

Nor do they have to actually tip the scales in an election in order to gain some clout. And they probably are well aware of the fact that it would take almost a miracle (and a *very* special set of "lucky" voting results) for them to actually tip the race this year, or any year.

Instead, they realize that all they have to do is get enough votes to be a *possible* spoiler in this or future elections in order to make the Republicans (*and* the Democrats) nervous enough about whether voters lost to the libertarians might cost them an election at some point. The hope is that this will make either or both major parties shift a bit in their platforms in order to "take back" the votes "lost" to libertarians. In this way the libertarians can influence national policy to lean more towards their desired goals in the long term, without ever having to actually win an election or even necessarily flip one.

By running ads in Republican districts in "undecided" states, for example, they're trying to get the Republicans to realize that drifting away from fiscal responsibility *will* lose them critical votes -- so that the Republicans have a real incentive to pull up the reins on spending.

This is pretty much the same "game" played by third parties of any stripe in this or any two-party nation. The Greens, the Socialist Party, the Libertarians, etc. are not crazy enough to think that they're going to have a chance to *win* this year or any time in the forseeable future, but just being in the race at all can be helpful to their goals, both in the way I describe above, and by giving their philosophies a podium.