Casual observers might look at the 2000 presidential presidential vote totals and conclude that the Libertarian Party is in a state of decline. The party's 1996 vote totals were much better.
However, by any other measure, the Libertarians have shown steady growth. 606 LP members hold elected office. Many of those are 'dog catcher' level non-partisan races, but some are important offices decided by partisan races, where Libertarians beat out Democrats or Republicans. One good example is Sheriff Bill Masters, one of the few politicians I find to be respectable. In 2000 the LP became the first minor party in almost a century to field candidates for the majority of US congressional seats.
During each four year presidential cycle the membership numbers grow. Last time around voters registered as Libertarian grew to over 200,000. That may seem like a small number, but it's quite difficult for any minor party to convince voters to change affiliation from major parties, and it's more than the Green Party.
Besides running in and winning elections one of the important functions of the LP is to act as a clearinghouse for freedom issues. The party is a sort of meetup point for property rights activists, 2nd Amendment supporters, and drug decriminalization advocates. The LP and its members are often government watchdogs, bringing up issues that the press routinely misses or ignores. See Illinois LP Director Jeff Trigg's excellent blog and the amazing amount of corruption he's highlighted there.
As the best organized of the minor parties the LP does valuable work in fighting for ballot access. Many states have onerous and unconstitutional ballot access requirements, but it takes money and organized efforts to challenge these laws in court. Cases like this, when state government officials make efforts to keep minor parties off the ballot, are important in keeping the democratic process open to the people.
Much of this is possible because the people who bother to affiliate with the Libertarian party are much more politically active than the average voter. The LP has more influence on issues, especially on the local level, than its numbers might indicate, because LP members are more likely to be organized and show up at public debates and meetings. That in itself is a good reason to join the LP.
Posted by Walter at May 17, 2004 09:24 AMI agree with you Walter, I also think that a primary responsibility of any libertarian whether as part of the LP or not is to educate people on freedom issues and in this respect I think we have made some big strides. Blogs like this one and the internet in general has broken libertarianism wide open. I expect that this year you will see the start of a real libertarian movement. I don’t expect the LP to make major strides, but I think this year will shake people up a bit and by 2008 the major candidates will be adopting some libertarian ideals, and many libertarian concepts will be at the forefront of the debate come 2008. This same kind of thing happened in 1976 when Carter was elected, it died down in 1980 because Reagan began speaking like a libertarian (even though most of his policies were not libertarian his rhetoric certainly was, at least on economic issues). I expect this year our presidential candidate (Russo, I hope) will get a good showing and it will alter the debate in the future. Some people get all out of whack about our influence because they look at the libertarian party and see that they are not really electing many in higher positions. But being a libertarian, does not mean you are part of the LP and libertarians are very influential. Whether they are RLC (republican liberty caucus) members, LP members, anarchists, unaffiliated people with libertarian values, etc. Really our ideas have been making real headway in a piecemeal fashion for a long time at least on the public conscience. The politicians still haven’t caught on, but it is only a matter of time.
You know we have made strides when people like Mike Rosen say “well I take the libertarian view on this issue…yad yada yada”, and on the other end people are referring to Howard Dean as a “Liberaltarian” because on some issues he is close to a libertarian. :)
Sorry for putting this here, but I couldn't find an email address for you on the site. I'd like to exchange links with you. You have a great site. It is also great to know about other Denver bloggers. Check out ThePostGame.Com and get back to me please. Look forward to hopefully meeting you and others at the Blogger Bash.
Posted by: Khalil at May 17, 2004 02:03 PM