Mathematically, Flash’s assertion may hold sway, as the final results separated (D) Napolitano from (R) Salmon by less than 12000 votes (out of > 1M) while (L) Hess collected 20,000+ votes. However that analysis completely ignores the (I*) Mahoney factor who collected nearly 85000 votes! (Source: Az Recorder 2002 general election results: http://www.azsos.gov/election/2002/general/ElectionInformation.htm

It had everything to do with a strategy that leveraged public campaign financing to wage a 2 against 1 war on the conservative candidate.

The 2002 election should have been a 2 way fight between Big D Democrat Napolitano and Big R Republican Matt Salmon. But “someone” fielded an independent candidate Mahoney who siphoned off 4x the votes the Libertarian candidate received.

Both Napolitano and Mahoney took public money to finance their campaigns. Matt Salmon stood on principles and did not. Mean while, Napolitano and Mahoney tag-teamed Salmon and played the “M” & “P” card (Mormon and Polygamist). Salmon’s response was weak, but of course, Napolitano hasn’t done squat about the P’s since either!

Place blame where due, but the Libertarians don’t own this one!

As for direction for 2008? Three things:

1. The Libertarian Party is about to nominate a mainstreamer – Wayne Root of Las Vegas. He’s the best LP candidate since Ed Clark!

2. Support libertarian Republicans for Congress like Tom McClintock in California, and right there in Pennsylvania, William Russell against Murtha.

3. Join the Republican Liberty Caucus at http://www.rlc.org. Best group going for Mainstream libertarians who care about winning elections.

Eric Dondero, Founder
Republican Liberty Caucus

Libertarians get tired of that argument, and to some degree it’s understandable. You can’t really fault people for voting their conscience.

But the reality is, that’s why we form coalitions. If you have two groups, for instance, social conservatives, libertarians, and defense hawks, who on their own can’t beat the Progressives in a four way contest, each group has a choice to make, and that choice is going to be based on which groups you find least distasteful. The groups that least hate each other will coalition to defeat the groups that they really hate. That’s why it’s always going to be a lesser of two evils choice.

The Democratic Party is a coalition too, of various interest groups that want something from government, greens, internationalist elite, and peaceniks. They also don’t always like each other either, but their coalition works a lot better than the Republican one.

Roberta is an anarcho-libertarian, which I’m not going to begrudge her. If your assumption that forming a government at all is an evil in itself, that’s an entirely different assumption than we’re making, which is that this system is faulty, but necessary.

But the worst thing about libertarians, the one I’ll never get over, is all the Democrats they help to elect. Janet Napolitano is a liberal Democrat governor of Arizona and Kathleen Sibelius is the liberal Democrat governor of Kansas. These are two conservative states with liberal Democrat governors thanks mainly to libertarians voting for the libertarian candidate who had no chance of winning. How libertarians think they will ever get any of the their ideas into actual policy changes by helping liberals into office is a mystery to me.

My hopes are smaller and of the small-l libertarian kind: I am trying to communicate my displeasure to the the Right half of the Party of Treason, in the hopes that they’ll abjure themselves of their meddlin’ ways. The best tool I have to persuade them is the only coin they understand: my vote. I’m tellin’ ‘em no and I’m doin’ so loudly. If we reward them for their terrible choice of candidate by giving them our votes, they’ll give us more like him.

On the incrementalism vs. “purism” thing, I have a different take: if you want to break a board with your hand, you have to hit through it; if you swing no farther than your goal, you’ll never get there. I aim for no government at all. (I’m going to have to look up the L. Neil Smith essay on this very topic). Purity? I don’t give a darn. I do believe in the Zero-Aggression Principle and have never seen it as a “purity test;” it is such basic ethics that anyone who cannot abide by it cannot be trusted in civil society.

I hope to change our government enough that I won’t have to spend my declining years shooting at baddies, that’s all.

I would consider myself a politically active and pragmatic minded libertarian. I have been organizing libertarian focused events at the law school all year and I’ve been helping others to sponsor similar events themselves.

But it is slow going. There is no shortage of politically powerful interest groups that benefit from the current social democrat atmosphere. Florida is undergoing a huge battle at the moment between raising taxes and cutting government services and the big government RINOs are making it really hard for meaningful reform to take place. But the current situation is still preferable to a Democrat majority that would be split between liberals and socialists. Even in the currently mediocre environment we still managed to pass a constitutional referendum doubling the property tax exemption and giving a huge bunch of property tax cuts to business.

Anyway, things aren’t hopeless. There are many people out here fighting the fight and winning an inch at a time.