The Libertarian party is a joke and the more people learn about it’s platform the less we will hear from it’s tiny collection of 226,000 registered members.
If they are that small and insignificant, what are you worried about? They could hardly be costing you elections now could they?
You wrote: “The Libertarian party is a joke and the more people learn about its platform the less we will hear from its tiny collection of 226,000 registered members.”
Have you ever wondered how many Independent/Unaffiliated voters are libertarian?
From your answer, I’m going to guess “probably not”. Perhaps you should, though. There are now almost as many Independent/Unaffiliated voters in my state as there are Republicans, and this is happening all over the nation.
I live in Colorado, the birthplace of the Libertarian party. We rank #2 in personal freedoms in a recent study and are strongly independent people.
Here are the Colorado voter registration statistics from the last several years (R = GOP; D = Dems; U = Independent/Unaffiliated).
02/04
R-1044195—37.1%
D-855542—30.4%
U-911510—32.4%
T-2811247
02/06
R-1044843—36.2%
D-871689—30.2%
U-969915—33.6%
T-2886447
02/08
R-1013466—34.92%
D-885623—30.52%
U-1003003—34.56%
T-2902092
You will notice that while the Democrat party numbers stay pretty stable over time, the Republicans have been hemorrhaging party memberships for many years.
Where are they going? Look in the Independent/Unaffiliated column for the answer.
http://www.elections.colorado.gov/DDefault.aspx?tid=719
For the record, I am not a registered Libertarian.