My take on the recent LP Convention

This is my response to the recent LP convention and potential schism within the party afterward on Third Party Watch. If the LP is finally getting its act together, there are opportunities abound for them to become a serious player in U.S. politics again, especially if its looney wing decides to bolt. But its still has a long way to go.

---Sean Scallon

Most Paleolibs, especially centered around the the Von Mises Institute at Auburn University won’t have anything to do with the LP either, especially when it runs candidates like Chief Wana Dubie for the Missouri state legislature or has members named Starchild.

The people in charge or have strongly influenced the LP for the past 23 years have the pure libertarian/anarchists types that’s driven the party into irrelevency and have drawn weirdos to its banner that’s driven people away from the party. Jesse Ventura should have been a libertarian. But as he told a news reporter in an interview “I thought I was a libertarian too, but then I saw their platform. These guys are a bunch of anarchists.”

Now, I don’t know the whole details of the platforms that have been replaced or what’s been thrown out. Obviously if there’s going to be a schism its got to be over serious policy divisions like the war on Iraq, not over legalizing prostitution or opium dens or because you lost the game fair and square and now you’re crying like a baby because you didn’t get your way. Obviously if the LP starts supporting the war or the expansion of federal power because of it then it is becoming GOP light. But if not, it has a golden opportunity to draw in disgruntled conservatives and small “l” libertarians that vote for the GOP if it presents itself in a less-radical light like it was back in 1980. Or draw liberals who are also dsigusted with the rise of state power.

But beyond this, the LP has to find and organize libertarian-leaning social groups to its banner. They’re all out there, they have communities, they just need to be engaged. The LP did not do this and the party suffered. The LRC needs to start organizing and concentrating its strength in libertarian places. This what the whole Free State Project is an attempt to do in New Hampshire. Running candidates everywhere who have zero chance of winning is not sound a strategy. The Greens are far more influential and far more success at influencing the debate because they are concentrated in places where they are strong and have organized their voting base. The LP or any legitimate schimatic party needs to do the same.