Well, where are the pics? Here, I'll help:
Stan Jones, Montana's Libertarian candidate for Senate
Posted on 11/14/2002 10:23:51 AM PST by arual
America's Libertarian Party services only one purpose: Distracting and confusing the determined combatants in all our critical national struggles. Consider the preposterous Libertarian role in the just concluded midterm elections. South Dakota represented ground zero in the struggle for control of the Senate, and Republican John Thune and incumbent Democrat Tim Johnson fought to a virtual tie--with only 527 votes (less than 0.2 percent of the vote) dividing them. Meanwhile, 3,071 votes went to Libertarian Kurt Evans, a 32-year-old teacher who listed as one of his prime preparations for the Senate that his father is a known Country & Western musician.
Not all the purists and odd balls who vote Libertarian are actually conservative, but polls show that most of them are--and that most such voters would, if pressed, prefer Republicans over Democrats. Imagine if a third--only one third!--of Kurt Evans' voters had thought seriously enough about the importance of the election to cast their votes for Republican Thune. Would the fact that the Libertarian received 2,000 votes instead of 3,000 have detracted in any way from the "success" or impact of his campaign--or somehow compromised its metaphysical meaning? Yet the shift of that thousand votes to a real, grown-up, candidate could have altered U.S. political history.
Unfortunately, South Dakota wasn't the only state where the self-indulgent madness of Libertarian jokesters interfered with the serious business of politics. In the Alabama governor's race, another virtual tie between Republicans and Democrats, the Libertarian nominee drew 23,242 lost souls (2 percent) to his campaign--more than seven times the margin between the two serious candidates. In Oregon's contest for governor, the gap between the Democrat and Republican stood at 33,437 votes (2.73 percent) in unofficial counts, while the Libertarian jester, Thomas B. Cox, drew 56,141 votes (almost 5 percent). Mr. Cox, by the way, listed among his spotty qualifications for the governorship his "five years on the Math Team in grades 8-12."
This might all be amusing were it not so irresponsible. Libertarians win no races of any significance anywhere in the United States. The Pathetic Party's press release acknowledged that they "emerged from Election 2002 with decidedly mixed results," boasting that "Bob Dempsey was re-elected as San Miguel County coroner" (in Colorado) and "in California, Eric Lund was elected to the Cordova Recreation and Park Board."
Despite such glittering triumphs, the party's national standing continues its relentless (and richly deserved) decline. The Libertarians reached their feeble high water mark more than 20 years ago, when Ed Clark won 1.06 percent of the vote in his race for the Presidency (against Ronald Reagan). More recently, Harry Browne scored less than half that percentage (0.5 percent) in 1996, and then fared even worse (0.37 percent) in 2000. The Libertarians claim they are influencing the debate, but how can you honestly believe you are succeeding in your cause when you win no important victories and your vote totals only decline?
Harry Clowne and other Losertarian ideologues insist that their ceaseless, useless campaigning will magically, miraculously push Republicans (and/or Democrats) in the direction of libertarian ideas, but this forlorn hope rests on shakier evidence than faith in the Tooth Fairy. It ought to be obvious that you can only change a major party by participating in it and joining its internal struggles, and that you can't influence a political organization by walking away from it. There is simply no historical evidence to support the idiotic cliché claiming that third parties influence the nation by forcing the major parties to adopt their ideas. Populists only managed to take over the Democratic Party when they dropped their independent campaigning and decided to hitch a ride on the donkey; Socialists remained a suspect fringe operation until they, too, made common cause with the Democrats during the crisis of the Great Depression.
The appalling record of Libertarian electoral rejection doesn't mean that libertarian ideas are worthless--in fact, those values and innovations significantly can enrich our political dialogue if promoted in the appropriate manner. Ron Paul a one-time Republican representative from Texas, Libertarian presidential candidate in 1988, got the right idea after his frustrating race (0.47 percent of the vote) when he re-joined the Republicans, ran for Congress, and won his seat back--playing a courageous and constructive role representing his Texas district.
The refusal by other Libertarians to follow this successful example represents a demented eccentricity that condemns them to life on the political fringe. Isn't it obvious that, in today's political world, an outsider candidate stands a better chance of capturing a major party nomination through the primary process, than building a third party movement from scratch to beat the two established parties? Obviously, challenging the establishment in a primary requires less money, and a smaller base of support, than building a new political apparatus to win a general election. Insurgents and outsiders win party primaries all the time--as Bill Simon proved in California, defeating the anointed gubernatorial candidate of the GOP establishment.
And even when they don't win, primary challengers often play a significant role. When Pat Buchanan ran for the Republican Presidential nomination (twice), he made some serious noise and exerted a powerful influence on his party; when, on the other hand, he abandoned the GOP and sought the White House as the nominee of the Reform Party he became a painful (and ultimately irrelevant) embarrassment. Libertarians who seek to advance their challenging agenda will meet with far greater success within the two party system than they have achieved in all their weary decades of wandering in the fringe faction wilderness.
Dante is generally credited with the statement that "the hottest circles in hell are reserved for those who in times of moral crisis maintain their neutrality." In the wake of the recent elections, we should reserve some space in those inflammatory precincts for those who in time of moral crisis--and hand-to-hand political combat--cast meaningless votes for Losertarians.
—Michael Medved hosts a nationally syndicated, daily radio talk show focusing on the intersection of politics and pop culture. He is also a well-known film critic.
Then the reservations would have come up with another 1000 votes for the democrat. That's the nice thing about waiting until all the other votes are counted!
Well, where are the pics? Here, I'll help:
Stan Jones, Montana's Libertarian candidate for Senate
Exactly. The state GOP here in WI is treating Ed Thompson with the same cold shoulder.
Had Thompson decided not to run those people would have stayed home and Bingo Doyle would have won anyway. There were a lot of people absolutely fed up with the Madison corruption going on in both parties, and a lot of conservatives simply stayed home because McCallum was a RINO.
Do you support Bush's prescription drug entitlement program?
I live in Ohio and voted for Stuffed Panda for governor (whoever wasn't Hagan or Taft) and omitted my vote for gun grabber Deb Pryce. Many Republicans in Ohio did the same. Otherwise, I voted R. Sometimes - not always - I held my nose to do so.
You're right. But thank you for proving my point: Legalized pot and prostitution is all you folks really care about. You've turned liberty into license, and the fact you don't see the difference between the two is what's a threat to society. But even if you practice your license in the privacy of your own home, I would warrant that you carry that licentious attitude into the workplace, into the general society, as well as into the polling booth -- your "values" don't stop at your front door. You are just as guilty of forcing YOUR morals upon the rest of society.
Uh, no thanks. And stop presuming that my vote belongs to you and your Party; it doesn't become you...
This is true, but the majority of Libertarians vote Republican. There are several times the number of members in the Libertarian party compared to the number of votes that are cast Libertarian in any given election.
That could change though. People like Medved, and Democrat apeasing Republicans, have increasingly turned me off to the Republican party.
Every voter is "guilty" of that. Are you arguing that libertarians shouldn't be allowed to vote?
(The cat's no Libertarian!)
It ought to be obvious that you can only change a major party by participating in it and joining its internal struggles, and that you can't influence a political organization by walking away from it.
Does Michael Medved actually practice the platitudes he preaches? Do any of the rest of the crowd of 'can't wait to bash the libertarians' around here? Are all of you members of PETA, GreenPeace, Democratic Underground, StormFront, the U.N. --- active members, valiantly struggling to change them from within?
If not, you're either hypocrites, or you need to stop using this tired canard with zero validity.
You forgot to mention LIBerty. I wonder why...
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