Let me put it this way. You have a leftist Democrat candidate, a small government Republican candidate and a small government Libertarian candidate. Democrat wins 49% of the vote. Republican wins 48%. Libertarian wins 3%. Who is the Libertarian helping ? This is the point I’m making. (Mind you, if the Republican is an establishment, pro big government type, I will state that it is the Republican’s fault)
Now, with respect to Gov. Johnson, I don’t regard him as a Conservative but Libertarian. While there are some aspects of the shrinking government agenda most of us can agree on, some of the stuff (the drugs issue) are non-starters. My problem with Johnson is that he came and went and did very little to improve the standing of the NM GOP on his watch and all but passed the office to that bloated, corrupt, megalomaniacal buffoon, Richardson. Had he left a better record and not been so far out, we could’ve had him in DC now instead of Bingaman or Udall. As it is, he merely cuts in to Ron Paul’s base and not much else.
I get your point.
Votes aren't owned; they are cast. Some may be cast willy-nilly, others with great deliberation, but unless you're in Chicago they are entirely the result of individual actions, not some external force.
We differ on the significance of the margin of defeat being attributed to "siphoned votes" that went to a Libertarian candidate (or a Green or Peace and Justice for that matter). With secret ballots, we cannot know but what a voter might have just left it blank if his or her preferred candidate was not listed. Or not even voted in that election.
Election outcomes would be a whole lot more predictable with just two candidates for any office, wouldn't they? Or maybe one?
To overcome the "spoiler" problem--which is nothing new, if you recall the election of 1912--a different way of counting votes has been proposed and studied called approval voting.
While each method has its flaws, none of them are as severe as restrictions some states place on minor parties attempting to gain ballot access. By the time they've gathered sufficient signatures to qualify a candidate for the ballot, they're about out of money that could have been spent on running ads.
FReepers seem a bit misinformed about libertarians, I've noticed. I agree they're not the traditional conservatives we usually find at Chamber of Commerce luncheons. But they are not by any means "big government" types like you also find at C of C affairs. Calling them "liberals" would be appropriate only if you make it plain you mean "19th Century liberals" like Locke, Jefferson and Tom Paine who valued human rights (except for slaves) more than any presumed divine right of kings and other government functionaries.
To them, and to me, the same rights are bestowed upon us all, no greater or lesser among the governing class. The government therefore has no rights simply by its existing that are not inherent in each of us as individuals.