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Building the Libertarian Future
...through practical politics...
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Sat Feb 04, 2012 at 00:00:00 AM MST
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| In a widely-circulated message "Paid for by Gary Johnson 2012" a writer identified as Andrew Ferguson wrote in part:
"Flash back to the last election cycle. No, go back two, to 2004, when the LP, still reeling from Harry Browne's machinations, nominated a complete unknown as its presidential candidate. The list of "missed opportunities by the Libertarian Party" is a long and tragicomic one, but surely the choice of Michael Badnarik must be at or near the top: in an election evenly split between the military-statist Bush and the eco-statist Gore, the LP could've had a healthy cut of the excluded middle - but Badnarik's was not the name to draw those voters. |
| AUGeorge :: Johnson Campaign Disses Our Former Candidates |
| In 2008, with that swing-and-a-miss behind them, the LP whiffed with the opposite approach, nominating a big name who was a, shall we say, imperfect fit with party ideals. I'm not one to deny the place of pragmatism in politics, but the man who authored the Defense of Marriage Amendment and fervently prosecuted the Drug War was a strange choice for the supposed party of freedom. No matter how hard he pushed his Road to Damascus narrative, a large chunk of the LP base (namely, donors and state and local party poobahs) was never going to buy into his campaign.
As a result, Bob Barr's failure was utterly predictable - the rift in the party in 2008 was clear for all to see - but more to the point, just as utterly inevitable. In Barack Obama, the Democrats found a candidate who could reach out to the same undecideds the LP tries to make its own - those looking to cast a vote in dissent, anything so long as it has nothing to do with the party in power. Empty as we now know (or always knew) his promises of "Hope" and "Change" to be, they were nonetheless effective in closing off any change the Libertarians had of playing a role in the last cycle.
All of which is to say, the LP screwed up by getting its candidates backward - if anything, the off-the-ranch Republican with name recognition would have fared much better in 2004, serving as an alternative to two unpalatable statists. Meanwhile, 2008 would have been the time to run an outsider, someone who could elucidate a libertarian point of view, in the rare moments he (or she - vide Mary Ruwart) was called upon to do so." |
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