I love the small resurgence in libertarianism that is surging through the U.S. in the form of renewed interest in causes such as the Ron Paul movement within the Republican party, the Libertarian party, the Tea Party, and also the Free State Project. This is great, and I hope it works out well. I tip my hat to this movement and support it where I can.
However, I want to provide a reality check here. Consider and compare these numbers:
- Bob Barr (latest Libertarian Party candidate) in 2008 Presidential Election: 523,686 votes – 0.4% of the vote
- Ron Paul in the Republican Primaries: 1,160,403
- The Socialist Party’s votes in the 1912 Presidential Election: 901,551 votes – 6% of the popular vote
That’s right, there were about as voters for the Socialist Party of America in 1912 as were are Republicans in 2008 who supported Ron Paul. And from 1900-1932, the Socialist Party of America NEVER took a proportion of the presidential race equal or lower to that of the Libertarian candidate Bob Barr in 2008. In fact, Bob Barr has took under 1/12 of the proportion that the Socialist candidate took in 1912.
Don’t want to be a pessimist or anything, but I found this interesting. The Socialists Party of America had 6% of the country. The Libertarians rarely have gotten over 0.5% of the popular vote. Until they reach at least 3% of the popular vote (which is still half of what the Social Party of America attained to in 1912), the U.S. Libertarian Party should probably stop patting themselves on the back and recognize that they are still a very marginal party.
What explains this? No doubt the U.S. is more of a “two party” country now, with probably more things in place to marginalize “third parties”. But still, one would think the Libertarians could at least attain to the sort of popularity that the Socialists attained to 1912. After all, one would think America was not very Socialist-friendly in 1912. But perhaps there was more sympathy for Leftist ideas in America in the early 1900′s than a Gen-X-er might suppose.
So, I’m left wondering, what is a “harder sell”: Libertarianism in 2009 or Socialism in 1912?
Here’s my initial thought, lemme know what you think: maybe the third parties in the pro-liberty camp should join the Republicans and work towards bring the Good Ole Party back into shape? The more Ron Paul’s the better. Maybe we’d have two libertarians running against each other in the next primary?
Ian,
Assuming that getting elected (or at least electable) is the goal, that is precisely what needs to be done. So, I believe you are right. And in the strategic sense, I am with you in what you are saying. Apart from a huge miracle, we will not see a 5% result for any third-party in our lifetime. If the Libertarian Party really gets their act together, experience prolonged and rapid growth for 20 years, they *might* gain a consistent 1% result. Maybe.
Part of me likes the idea of subverting one of the two parties in the two-party system. However, the idealist in me is repulsed by it. So I am ambivalent about the idea of a libertarian-minded person running for the Republican Party. It’s probably what has to be done, but it still stinks.. I think as much as it is a threat to the Republican status-quo, it also sort of plays into their status quo… Think about it… if Ron Paul is exclusively running for the Republicans, then from their perspective as long as he doesn’t win the primaries, they get a guarantee that he won’t “cause any problems” in the actual elections. By encorporating the liberty minded people the Republican Party is able to further marginalize them. And then I wonder: Can the Good Ole Party be brought back into shape?
I’m sort of suspecting that the success of the Ron Paul movement within the Republican Party is probably the initial burst that will eventually quieten down a bit. Not that there will be any less grassroots support, but other things, like weeds, will choke them out.. And it will be more of an uphill battle next time. It’s kind of like how the Libertarian Party had smashing success in the early 1970′s right off the bat (if they continued on that growth rate, the USA would have had a libertarian president by 2000). Sort of like how a rookie pitcher usually has a sharp first few starts and then becomes more average as time goes on and other teams get used to his pitches. I’m not saying Ron Paul is a rookie in any sense or that he’s declining, I’m just saying that the Republicans were not quite “ready” for this sort of thing in their primaries, and they probably will be more ready next time. They will spin things more and what Fox did to Ron Paul will probably be worked into other avenues to try to stiffle him.
I love what Ron Paul has done and I hope there are 100 more like him in the future.
His approach also has the distinct advantage of throwing the political gatekeepers for a loop (they can use ballot access laws very easily to mess with a Libertarian, but not a Republican or a Democrat). I also got kick out of the fact that one of the Democrat contenders (Kusinich) announced that he would select a Republican (Ron Paul) as his running mate! That was neat!
Now here’s the key thing in my mind.. I love the interplay that happened between third party candidates and Ron Paul’s primary run. The way the Libertarian Party and Consitution Party cooperated (or at least could potentially cooperate) with Ron Paul’s primary run, and in turn he helped out them. In fact, in Montana, the Constitution Party actually rejected their national candidate and put Ron Paul on the ticket instead. I believe this will be important. I think the links of support between third party libertarian candidates and libertarian candidates within the major parties will be vital. If such a mutually reinforcing networks can be built, the third parties may begin to get greater chances of becoming viable, and the candidates working with the major parties will be less isolated when they have support from their third-party allies. And if someone like Ron Paul would ever win within the Republican Party, it would be very interesting to see him pick, say, a libertarian running mate. I guess we need people working on the fringes and also within the mainstream, and the more links we have between these two “fronts”, the stronger they will each be. Now, the only pressing problem here seems to be, to what extent should the third parties support a like-minded candidate within a major party? For them it might feel like they are de-validating their reason for existence and it might offend some of their more staunch ideologs..
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