Monday, March 26, 2007
After decades of gathering 5% or less in elections, some libertarians have come up with the bright idea of moderating their message because it really isn't all that popular. They are tired of going to meetings, raising money, and losing pretty damned badly. But they are being challenged by the old guard who have said we lose like clockwork with our pure libertarian philosophy. This works for us.
Observation 1: The Democratic and Republican parties are loath to nominate libertarians.
Corollary 1: The cause of liberty requires a libertarian party to get libertarians on the ballot.
Observation 2: The United States elects its legislators using district-based elections.
Corollary 2: Winning office requires actually winning elections. Garnering 5-10% of the vote at-large wins nothing.
Conclusion: Fringe politics does not work in the United States. A political party must appeal to a plurality of voters (effectively, at least 40%) in some districts in order to win elections. Since districts vary, such a party could get away with appealing to less nationwide, but it must at least appeal to 20-30%.
That was their bold, not mine. I feel for the little Ayn Rand readers. Being a third party in the US frankly sucks. Your choice is to either moderate your position, or try to co-opt a party. It's a sign of maturity for some libertarians to realize that most americans don't agree with all their positions and to garner votes they have to find what people agree with Libertarians on, and run on that agenda.
They will still likely lose anyways because they have no money, and the media will ignore them. But they have some spunk, and unlike Lou Grant I think spunk is great.
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