Should the Libertarian Party Even Bother Existing Anymore?

This discussion has come up quite a bit recently and it’s just the question to ask for the future of the libertarian party.

Should the Libertarian Party (LP) bother to continue whatever it is they do?

In 2016, they had the best ticket by far in their history. Two people who were actually credible were at the top of the ticket, but despite national attention and more, they flopped.

Hell, even the LP primary had a blogger (who has been on the news before) bragging about how often he was getting laid on the campaign and a wanted murder suspect.

It made the primary something to note, but still brought in only a whopping 3%.

Looking at LP history, despite them having been in every race since 1976, they have bombed in every one.

They’ve bombed despite having a Koch and a Paul on former tickets. They’ve nominated for president, people who were wanted in several states, and had at least one guy hoping for a presidential bid who was living in a car.

With every decent name who offers to join in, they have about two dozen total nut cases, and the decent names tend to just be self promoters whose mouths water at the thought of running for congress so it can get them on local TV, or a Wikipedia page.

Looking at the future of the LP, things don’t really get much better.

The best option for 2020 is Justin Amash, who can’t win.

After that, the field fills with people such as Adam Kokesh, Larry Sharpe and others who, if given the nomination, are so bad that I’m stuck thinking… “Why even bother.”

I’m just wondering if the LP will even continue to be a thing. I think the answer to that is yes, and no.

The LP should remain an entity, but the focus of just nominating people needs to die.

If you are running in the LP, you just don’t win. The focus needs to be changing politics to actually win.

For that, the future is ranked voting, similar to what is being done in Maine.

Having the line “I don’t want to waste my vote” be meaningless is ideal. So, the LP should take their time to get ranked voting ballot initiatives, to get the half of the country where it’s feasible to do so and bring the LP to life.

After that, market the LP as a path to obtaining a place on the final voting ballot, without the major party primary hell, and the LP will see a sea of better candidates.

Unless a major voting reform is done, the LP will never become a thing – unless someone like Mark Cuban or Jeff Bezos ran as a Libertarian, in which case I doubt the party would even nominate them to begin with.

What should the liberty movement do in the meantime?

The key is a man named Neel Kashkari.

For those who don’t know him, Neel Kashkari is a well spoken Republican who ran for governor against Jerry Brown in 2014. He ran as a fiscal conservative who was liberal on social issues,  he also mentioned he hated the Iraq War.

If Kashkari ran in Texas, he would never get to be the pro-pot, pro-abortion and pro-gay republican he was.

So what does this all mean?

Libertarians should run for the nominations of the second largest parties in their state. The reason is the Republican party’s in states such as Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Hawaii etc., are just as dead as the Democrats in Texas, Kansas, and pretty much any place Ruby Tuesday’s is called fine dining.

So what do those platforms look like?

Libertarians running in the GOP

For this, be like Bill Weld. Be the pro-choice and pro-gay republican in a liberal state which can’t be called a racist.

Talk about real economic reform which involves free markets, but promise a stronger social safety net.

However, try to one up the democrat on issues a liberal likes. Be more anti war, more for criminal justice reform and more likely to go out and talk about negative externalities to help the environment.

Libertarians running in the Democratic Party

For this, be a democrat who isn’t an idiot on economics.

Show a more free market plan and brag about stances such as support for gun rights.

Also, talk about an issue such as the Federal Reserve or corporate subsidies, and use that as a friendly way to reach Republicans while maintaining a Democrat base of support.

This is a model for conquering the Democratic Party and GOP in dead states.

The next part is the moderate states like Ohio, Florida, and New Hampshire etc.

I would say the liberty movement should likely just handle it on a candidate by candidate basis and select their representatives based on incumbents.

An example being how, in 2014, John Kasich was impossible to beat. A libertarian Democrat would be very strong moving forward. Another would be Marco Rubio in 2016, who easily won reelection, but having a more centrist type democrat might have pulled the election away from him.

Conclusion

Yes, be part of the Libertarian Party and encourage them.

Also make it so every state has ranked voting and the two-party system gets destroyed.

That way, strong candidates can run easily on libertarian ideals without bowing to the right or left.

However, run as Republicans or Democrats when the race means something.