Mataconis???

BTW, another fact:

Ron Paul, the only other former Congressman to run on the LP ticket got 435,000 votes in 1988. So, Barr got nearly 100,000 over Ron Paul.

I believe I’ll trust the judgement of the Libertarian Party of Alaska, whose leadership voted to endorse Sarah Palin for Governor in the 2006 election, and whose State Chairman Jason Dowell campaigned at her side. I’d say that’s a pretty powerful statement. Alaska Libertarians know best about Palin.

As for which poll showed Barr at 6%, two Zogby polls over the summer. This was big news. Wasn’t some obscure polling firm. It was Zogby.

And other polls relfected that. Gallup and others had Barr as high as 3% nationwide over the Summer.

To say the LP has had no impact on public policy or debate is utter hogwash.

It was the LP who has pushed the decriminalization of MJ on various states, working with such diverse groups as MPP and NORML.

It was the LP who got civil asset forfeiture reform passed in CO.

There are more ways to influence public policy than electing people to legislative office or the Presidency. Only now is the LP finally figuring it out. If the LP has a fault besides infighting, it’s a lack of organization. Where we are organized, we are effective.

However, that does not mean the LP should cease to exist.

By your own reasoning, since Doug Mataconis does little for the liberty movement except bitch and moan about the LP, perhaps he ought take his own advice and end The Liberty Papers, because his own impact has been zero, zilch, nada, and null.

The only thing worthwhile here is watching Doug argue with that other idiot in Dondero.

Again, live and let live.

I agree that the LP hurts libertarianism. I’m focusing my efforts to helping elect pro-liberty candidates through the GOP and the RLC and the Campaign for Liberty.

The LP is a joke.

As your comment to the listener about the non-existent telephone booth(anymore)indicates, yours is a more undercurrent criticism. Those dirty libertarians who smoke pot and hate war are just not as acceptable as real life ’successful’ people who accept the hegemony.

No, my comment was directed to the FACT that the Libertarian Party has had exactly ZERO impact on the public debate in this country for the past 30 years.

If I had the money to donate to a libertarian cause right now, and I was looking for a return on investment, I’d send it to groups like Cato or the Reason Foundation long before I’d write a check to the LP

If people in the Libertarian Party chose to organize and compete on an unlevel playing field, be a small libertarian and let them . . .

I never said anything to the contrary.

At the same time, I’d feel free to argue that the LP is a waste of resources and that any donation of time or money would basically be going down a rat-hole.

No, it’s not Doug. If people in the Libertarian Party chose to organize and compete on an unlevel playing field, be a small libertarian and let them . . .

I personally have never been able to identify as a Republican or Democrat. By the same token, investing my efforts in the pluralistic mush of think tanks, institutes and organizations defined by the IRS or FEC aren’t my cup of tea.

Compromise for the war and welfare parties simply because its more comfortable or practical is middling world view that I’d rather not embrace. Radical, uncompromising views thrust into that middling world occasionally drives an issue.

As your comment to the listener about the non-existent telephone booth(anymore)indicates, yours is a more undercurrent criticism. Those dirty libertarians who smoke pot and hate war are just not as acceptable as real life ‘successful’ people who accept the hegemony.

Third parties are a very normal part of American life. While they may never have a chance electorally, they satisfy a niche in the polity. Nixing the LP will do nothing for liberty. Statists and authoritarians will rule as far as the eye can see, quit agonizing over it.

You look at the top of the ticket and declare the party over. I look down ticket and see record number of voters voting for Libertarians. Then I look over at the Republican party that has lost its soul traded it to fundamentalist Christians who haven’t a clue about individual liberty and smaller government. A party that has spent the last eight years spending the country into poverty while they strip the public of their rights of privacy, habeas corpus and our wealth. A party that like the Democratic Party has given up its purpose in exchange for corporate gold used solely to stay in power.

You might argue, Follow Ron Paul. Well didn’t you watch the Republican convention. They have tossed him aside.

If you want to just look at one race and declare the party dead then you are clueless. What I see is the Republican party in dissaray

Jason, Ron Paul and his ilk aren’t liked by many Libertarians here. Ron Paul should have never been associated with the word “Libertarian” because people don’t like their beliefs associated with him.

I think that the Republican Party dissidents have fled to the LP and diluted it’s content. I think we should flood the Elephant and change it to be more Libertarian. If we ever had a chance, now is it. The GOP is circling their wagons and trying to re-focus their efforts. I think the LP and the GOP share a great many things in common.

In Liberty,
Jason Hellenberg

Palin, one of three serving libertarian Republican Governors in the Nation (SC’s Sanford & Otter of Idaho), was chosen to head off Barr, who in late summer was polling as high as 6%.

Name one reputable national poll that showed Barr “polling as high as 6%” prior to noon on August 29, 2008.

I was following the polls pretty closely back then, and I’m willing to bet that it doesn’t exist.

And I won’t even bother to comment on your contention that Sarah Palin is a libertarian, mostly because it’s clear you have no coherent definition of the word.

the question isn’t whether it’s time to scap the LP, which is not a question non-LP members are really entitled to ask.

Not really, I think it’s a question that libertarians in general should discuss even if they’re not party members.

It’s really a question of how to best advance libertarian ideas.