Topic: Election 2008
The Libertarian Party should Clone Success
The LP will become completely irrelevant if it doesn't learn from its mistakes and return to its ideological roots.
by Rick Fisk
(libertarian)
Monday, September 15, 2008


With all of the problems the Libertarian Party have suffered over the past few years, and especially the past few months, I thought it might be a good time to offer some constructive criticism rather than to simply pile on. I am a long time fan of the LP. I realize that there are a few principled libertarians and anarchists who view the party as a statist enterprise and there is some merit to this argument, especially in the past few election cycles. But I also believe that the LP could repair some of the damage its current and recent past leadership has wrought on the party.

The LP has lately been over-run with people who are just not libertarian yet argue that the LP has for too long stressed ideological purity. There are many valid criticisms that can be brought to bear against the LP. However, to suggest that sticking to principle is bad for the party is a self-refuting claim. This is no solution to the LP's problems. The LP was created not as a true political challenge to the Republicans or Democrats. The party was created to protest the boondoggle that the two-party system had become while educating the electorate on libertarianism. To suggest now that adherence to principle turns off the electorate is an intellectually bankrupt argument. It is a preposterous claim and is more indicative of the claimant's frame of mind than those he or she is suggesting be appeased.

Unfortunately, there are certain people of prominence within the LP and in the libertarian punditry who are quite squeamish about taking the Non-Aggression Principle to its logical conclusion. The implications are too uncomfortable to bear it would seem. I'm not quite sure why this is the case but it most certainly is the case. The most obvious example of this can be seen in those who continue to suggest that our military response to terrorism is indeed libertarian and necessary.

How absurd. Those who suggest this should be ashamed of themselves. Rather than shame, they have been proud to proclaim their support of a policy which sets aside libertarianism's most fundamental principle and have even managed to turn the LP platform (at least for a time) into a statist manifesto for pseudo-libertarians with regards to "national defense". In spite of this terrible setback, one can't place the blame solely on the party's leadership for this turn of events. The party membership has to accept some responsibility since it was they who allowed their platform to be co-opted, in effect rendering the LP an unlibertarian enterprise (if it wasn't already). Shame on us. Truly.

This isn't to say that there weren't some influential and outspoken libertarians who voiced an opposing view. However, if the pro-war "libertarians" are not fully repudiated and the LP does not revert back to a comprehensive and detailed platform reflecting the principles on which it was founded, I don't believe that it will attract any true libertarians into the next decade. It will probably just die from atrophy or become the Fascist-Lite Party since the only members it will attract are those who are that subset of the Republican party who want lower taxes. Why join an ineffectual little brother to the statist, fascist, Republican party when you can just become a member of the real thing?

So, what to do? The first and most obvious step is to restore the LP platform and leadership to represent true libertarian principles. The "Party of Principle" needs to return to its principles if it is to instill any trust in the bloc of voters that Ron Paul has managed to unite (no thanks to the Libertarian Party leadership).

The second thing, and I truly think this list can be limited to two things, is to elect just one (more), decent Libertarian to any national or state office.

The Libertarians need to examine Ron Paul's success and clone it. The main reason that politicians get re-elected is that their constituents get comfortable with them, flaws and all. There are some pretty corrupt politicians out there who get re-elected because their constituents trust them, whether or not this is warranted. They know them, they understand their accomplishments and are comfortable with them. Unless they pull something particularly egregious, they keep electing them until they stop running, generally speaking.

Ron Paul gained his constituent's trust and went far beyond just gaining familiarity. He vocally opposed anything that didn't conform to constitutional boundaries. He returned any unused funds allocated his congressional office back to the treasury each year. He even opposed a popular (at the time) President's foreign policy because it was not only unconstitutional but violated the NAP. And in response they have for each election cycle re-elected him by ever-growing margins. He's virtually untouchable in his district. Just ask the growing list of unfortunate and now deeply in-debt challengers who have sought to unseat him.

It has been said that the LP should just abandon its Presidential aspirations due to the lack of success it has had in fielding quality candidates. But the fact is, it is not the quality of the candidate that is the sole problem if it is even relevant. Look at the candidates fielded by the Democrats and Republicans. Both are utterly dismal examples of what one would consider decent candidates. Neither has ever advocated anything remotely resembling liberty for the people of this country and neither has the economic IQ of a lab rat.

Ron Paul's success over the past 18 months and the culmination of this into real political clout on a national scale, has been overlooked totally by the LP leadership. His example completely repudiates the current leadership view that libertarianism should be watered-down for the masses.

His success is due to his principled actions and his willingness to accept the responsibility to educate his constituents about libertarian principles in both word and deed. They do not deviate from the NAP. Not even a little bit. The electorate, being much smarter and educable than most people ever give them credit, responded. Many of Ron Paul's most vocal and dedicated volunteers were in fact Libertarian Party members. And the results were and are stunning. During this past GOP primary season, Ron Paul gained more votes than the past two Libertarian presidential candidates received in the past two national elections - combined.

The LP needs to concentrate its efforts on getting an LP candidate - one who actually espouses libertarian principles - elected to congress. Just one. The first one will be the hardest. However, every subsequent election for that candidate and others, will be exponentially easier if that candidate can just imitate the finest libertarian candidate holding national office, Ron Paul.

If the LP is to ever become the true "Party of Principle" and give its fans any hope at attaining a return to constitutional (libertarian) principles, it must earn some political capital. It cannot do this by waffling on its principles or running half-hearted attempts to get its candidates elected after having abandoned its core principles.

The good news about this list totaling two items, is that Libertarian Party members do not have to wait for the LP's clueless leadership to get on board. Of course, a third thing could be added to this list - elect clueful libertarians to the LP leadership - but it is not required in the short-term and the second on the list can be accomplished in this election cycle. The clock is ticking though. In 50 days or less, the community of libertarians has to come together and focus their efforts on one or more winnable districts. It's just a matter of getting the word out to the activists and pooling our resources and efforts.

If we can come together (again) and do what we did the past two summers, the groundwork will have been laid for the future sought by LP advocates.



©2008 Rick Fisk, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Monday, September 15, 2008
Last modified: Monday, September 15, 2008

The views expressed in this article are those of Rick Fisk only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Rick Fisk is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.

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Reader Comments:

Posted By: Jonathan
Date: 2008-09-15 16:21:12

The principles of the Party have not changed. 

If we wish to clone Ron Paul's success, that's easy leave the Libertarian Party all together and run as a Republican which what Ron Paul has done. The moment he became a Republican, is the moment Ron had success. Remember as a Libertarian candidate for President, Ron Paul did not raise much money nor recieved many votes. This of course contradicts the premise of your whole article.

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Posted By: Rick Fisk
Date: 2008-09-15 17:03:59

"If we wish to clone Ron Paul's success, that's easy leave the Libertarian Party all together and run as a Republican which what Ron Paul has done."

That is a silly statement. It's technically true, but it isn't all he's done. The LP most certainly has been slowly abandoning its principles and the most notable example of this was the effort to change the platform in 2006.

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Posted By: Scott Semans
Date: 2008-09-16 10:16:03

I agree on the problem as stated, but your two solutions are mutually incompatible. I just emailed all natcom members, echoing recent blogs urging them to dump Barr. Three replied, two substantively, one sympathetically, but none positively. Natcom sees itself as responsible to the membership, but the idea of the LP being responsible to the movement, to representing its values, is absent. A political party's usefullness to a freedom movement is the ability to capture the public's brief attention span which occurs around election time. To aim at winning elections or improving percentages is to fundamentally misunderstand the role of an ideological party. This is where the so-called pragmatists have gone wrong, and the liberventionists have cheered them on because otherwise they would be unable to promote militarism within a body that is otherwise organically opposed to it. If the LP were going to elect a true libertarian to high office, it would have happened by now It hasn't, simply because the public is not even close to ready for it. Constitutionalism (as represented by Ron Paul) is a more saleable philosophy, and Constitutional conservatism (Bob Barr) is even closer to the political mainstream. (The difference in success level reflects Paul's high personal integrity and Barr's utter lack of it, not their ideologies). Thus you can not have both a principled platform and natcom, and a successful candidate for high office. The LP needs to abandon the illusion that success is measured in votes or margins of victory, and realize that it is but one component of a larger movement. Success for any movement means attracting writers, intellectuals, the media - the opinion makers. The voters, as always, will follow. Attracting egomaniacs and opportunistic politicians such as Barr and Root is neither measure of nor road to success, it's just one more dead end for the movement at large.

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Posted By: Robert Butler
Date: 2008-09-16 10:32:23

I completely disagree with the thesis of this article.  You don't beat a Fortune 500 company by trying to beat them at their own game.  The problem with the Libertarian Party is not "purity". (A ridiculous term.)  Purity is the result of inbreeding, not growth.  And the LP can never grow if it only accepts purebred inbreeds.  (And I don't mean to insult any one person, only point out the silliness of the term and the thoughts behind it.) 
The Ron Paul movement is a unique combination of people from all over the political spectrum.

The various components:

Paleo-conservative Republicans
Christian Coalition Republicans
Constitution Party
Libertarian Party
Leftists against Nafta and Cafta, etc. (anti-globalists)
People who just want change
Racists and White Supremacists (a small percentage) (don't tell me they don't exist in the movement, as ED of the Libertarian Party I met them many times, they think they are libertarian or paleorepublican.)

There is no possible way you include all of these people within one cohesive political party. A good indication of this is to ask Ron Paul supporters who their second choice is. They will answer: Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin, Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader, and even Barack Obama and John McCain.

I attended Ron Paul's famous press conference in Washington last week when he strongly recommended his supporters vote for an independent or minor party candidate. It was very interesting sitting in the small room with these folks and seeing how they related to each other.

There is a better way to elect candidates than political parties. With the Internet, the information age, etc. Political parties are really no longer necessary. It's possible to build movements, and temporary coalitions to elect people to office. A Ron Paul couldn't be elected by a party, but he could be elected by a coalition.

There are very recent examples of success without political parties. Jesse Ventura and Joe Lieberman are the results of temporary coalitions and movements. And in the near future, there will be many more candidates who win this way. The question is: Who will be the most important and best organized movement?

Top-down command and control doesn't work any more in the new information age. Grass-roots peer-to-peer networks are the future.

The Ron Paul movement is a huge peer-to-peer network. And look at how great a job it is doing!!! We need to keep this organizational structure intact.
By becoming a political party with rules, bylaws, committees, subcommittees, a party platform, you will complete burn out your energy and frustrate the people who are fueling your efforts.

For several years, I have been working on a way to harness the energy of a political peer-to-peer network. I have finally finished thinking about it and I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and go to work. I call it ICAN Independent Candidate Action Network. In just two weeks we have already 200 members and we're growing virally. We have 8 candidates on board including David Krikorian from Ohio. The website is [link edited for length]

For Liberty,
Robert Butler

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Posted By: Robert Butler
Date: 2008-09-16 10:39:01

Just to clarify, I should have said I was ED of the Libertarian Party of Ohio.  I didn't intend to imply the national party.

 Thank you,

Robert Butler

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Posted By: David S
Date: 2008-09-16 13:54:21

What success?  As much as I love Ron Paul I have to admit his success was mainly to arouse a very dedicated, but small following. Maybe he got 6% of the Republican vote in the primaries. If you include the Democrat votes then RP probably got 3% of the total. That's not exactly earth-shaking. Ron Paul's pro-constitution message doesn't play well with the average American who wouldn't know the constitution if it bit him on the a--.

Most Americans either want free stuff from government or they want the military to beat the hell out of some other country. It doesn't matter what country or why, just so long as we're kicking butt somewhere.

Americans don't give a rat's petutti about the erosion of our constitutional rights or about the financial disaster we are heading for. They'd rather talk about Britney's underwear...or the lack thereof. That's the situation we are in.

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Posted By: Rick Fisk
Date: 2008-09-16 22:00:44

"As much as I love Ron Paul I have to admit his success was mainly to arouse a very dedicated, but small following."

 And getting elected 11 times in succession to Congress is not something you would call success? What IS success then?

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Posted By: David S
Date: 2008-09-17 09:00:44

"And getting elected 11 times in succession to Congress is not something you would call success? What IS success then? "

 All of that happened before the Ron Paul revolution. And there are many congressmen who have been elected over and over by their constituents. There is nothing remarkable about that.

If Ron Paul had won the Republican nomination that would be a great success. But unfortunately he didn't come close. If he had come close to winning that would have been a great success, but he didn't.

The fundamental problem is that the vast majority of Americans don't give a damn about constitutional government.

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Posted By: Rick Fisk
Date: 2008-09-17 10:53:47

" All of that happened before the Ron Paul revolution. And there are many congressmen who have been elected over and over by their constituents."

 No. So, his 11th term will begin *after* the primary run.

 

Second, it IS remarkable given his views and opposition to current GOP principles. He runs on the platform the Libertarian Party would do well to mimic.

 Third, if it's not so remarkable, then why can't the LP get even one candidate elected to Congress on their ticket?

 Fact is, they need to do this so they can begin amassing a track record. If they don't, then Bob Barr, Russ Verney and Mr. Redpath will have killed the party and the naysaying membership, like yourself, will have contributed to its demise.

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Posted By: David S
Date: 2008-09-17 12:42:03

I've been a Libertarian for many years. I frequently vote straight party LP ticket. And I will likely do so again this year. But I am also a realist. If any of them get even 5% of the vote it will be a miracle. Bob Barr will be lucky to get 1%. The reason for that, as I said earlier is that Americans don't care about constitutional government.  My disgust is not with the Libertarian party but with the American voters.

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Posted By: Tony
Date: 2008-09-30 18:34:43

I do not think that all libertarians must agree to think exactly the same way.  If I think the federal government should be reduced by about seventy percent, I'm not going to criticize or tell a fellow Libertarian their in the wrong party because they believe it should only be reduced by 50%.  Maybe there will be a day when we will have to part company, but for now we are trying to go the same direction.   As the Republicans continue to pursue a course of larger more socialized government they will turn many to the Libertarian Party.  Fortunately unlike the old "principled" libertarians, these libertarians may actually set a course to win elections.

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