Click here if you are not using Microsoft's
defective Windows Explorer browser. Why?
Posted January 31, 2007
re: politics, Libertarian Party
The rock lies low in the valley, and the presidential campaign of 2008 looms large on the horizon, like a glorious old volcano, aged by wind and rain and storm, capped with a receding hairline of snow. Numerous Sisyphuses in America’s biggest small party prepare themselves to begin the ascent up the hill, pushing the rock with them. The weight of the rock is great.
Libertarians famous as well as not so famous
(and even in-) have started to line up for the presidential race in 2008. Since these United States labor under a two-party system, the Little Party That Won’t Quit is also the Little Party That Can’t Win. The best it can hope for is a to cause a ruckus, change some minds, and perhaps spoil the election for either the ’Crats or Repugs. Such efforts can indeed change the political landscape. Even, perhaps, for the better. But the history of this endeavor, for the Libertarian Party, is not a glorious one.
To do amount to something, to break out of the box of obscurity — that is, to get even half the votes that Ross Perot did — takes one or both of two things:
In the past, Libertarian Party members have chosen against the latter, and only once had a realistic line on the former.
Russell Means could have garnered the LP lots of interest in the race against George H.W. Bush in his first, post-Reagan run. They chose Republican-libertarian Ron Paul, who pulled votes abysmally.
With a rich man on the VP slot, in 1980, they got a big source of funds, produced a flashy campaign, characterized themselves as low-tax liberals,
and did the best they ever did, or probably ever will do, with nearly a million votes. The poor showing, and the seeming compromises
tore apart the libertarian movement, with many libertarians foreswearing their party altogether.
The dream of many Libertarians — to break through
when the electoral climate seems ripe for a minor-party challenge — has proven impossible so far. What Libertarians have found out is that opportunity (basically, political demand) creates its own supply. In 1980, when things looked ripe for a third party challenge,
a major-party politician, John Anderson, broke from his party and filled the apparent need, stealing Libertarian thunder. Twice, in later elections, Ross Perot did the job even better. The political economy is obvious; there is no magic bullet. Libertarians can’t expect to take their Dark Horse philosophy public with a Dark Horse itself, not and win big. They need big money and they need some major gimmick.
Take the Libertarians’ perennial right-wingish attempts at Big Names: Ron Paul and Harry Browne.
Murray N. Rothbard pushed hard for Paul, arguing that choosing his main challenger, Russell Means, would have been choosing death for the party. A less accurate prophecy could hardly be imagined. Ron Paul almost killed the party — the next outing, with Andre Marrou, it garnered less than 300,000 votes.
Then Libertarians twice put up Harry Browne, a nice, distinguished writer and speaker who wasn’t a boob, a man with some popularity in the greater world outside the libertarian movement. He’d written a best seller or two. But he never broke a half million votes; his second outing pulled fewer than his first.
Rational people would quit. But Libertarians aren’t rational about politics; they are passionate. They want freedom, and they don’t want a revolution to get it back.
We’ll see. This mode of liberation is far from likely . . . at least not as long the LP itself stands in the way (which is something I’ve argued at length).
There’s a familiar stink in the air this year, with a Clinton again in the running, with the Repugs scrambling, and Ron Paul, once again, considering an outing. Fortunately, this time the Texas Congressman is considering a Republican Party run, so the hopelessness of his effort can somehow accrue to the G.O.P. and not the LP. A more lackluster speaker can hardly be imagined. Paul is the perfect local politician, a quiet country doctor with a slight scent of crankism about him. He almost certainly would not campaign in a way to really bring in interest; he’ll play it milquetoast, almost certainly, and he’ll bring up the Federal Reserve too often in speeches and conversations.
The LP race has a wealth of candidates, and the upcoming race might get interesting, for there’s one candidate who could at least run an amusing campaign, and thus garner some broader interest than usually gets sparked by the Losing Party. That candidate is Doug Stanhope.
Stanhope is a stand-up comedian. Further, he’s not just another such performer, he is one of the most controversial figures in the entertainment industry . . . to the extent he’s known at all. He will say anything, it seems. And his persona is that of a druggie, a gambler, a drunk and a lech. He is precisely what the Paleo wing of the movement hates: a libertine.
But he does seem to be a libertarian. And he does seem to be serious about libertarianism. As a deeply disturbing as well as often quite funny man, he could certainly garner headlines.
Many libertarians might see him as doing damage to the Party and its creed, simply because of his libertinism. Perhaps. Still, the man does talk responsibility, which many of the more mainstream candidates often forget to talk about, and that in itself is an issue that needs direct debate. And really, in a debate with a major-party candidate, I can see how the undignified response of a libertine to nearly any statement made far preferable to some namby-pamby response; sometimes You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me
is better than I respectfully demur.
I’m afraid I don’t see much point in the hippy anarchist approach of Kent "Dull ’Hawk’" McManigal. I bet I’d really enjoy talking to Mr. McManigal, in person, but I just don’t see the point in a committed and up-front anarchist running for office. Try another approach, folks.
Still, the thought of Murray N. Rothbard rolling over in his grave about McManigal’s long hair and Western outfit (Where’s the suit and tie?
) does in part justify looking at his website for more than two minutes.
There’s one woman in the race, so far: Christine Smith. She’s an attractive 40-year-old professional living in sin with a man — how shocking! She claims to be a writer, but her Web page of autobiography lurches from first-person to third-person narration, and back again. Apparently she’s attempting to break into the entertainment biz; she describes herself as a writer, author, social justice activist, singer, and an aspiring model and actress.
This appears to be an early-in-her-career publicity stunt, in some ways, and it is hard to take her seriously. At least now. Maybe in the future she’ll appear as more substantial. Her earnestness seems like innocence, especially compared with the professionalism behind Stanhope’s dissolute pose.
A more standard stance can be seen in the candidacy of Steve Kubby. The name Kubby is cuddly, and he wears a suit and tie, and he’s gaining a lot of hits on his website. His hook for Libertarians is his personal stand on medical marijuana: he’s not merely for it, he hasn’t merely campaigned for it and defended it, he’s used it. A long-term cancer survivor, he cites his use of cannabis as the contributing cause of his continued existence.
As such, Kubby has a chance to break through into a few news stories. He looks, once again, like a Libertarian who could break through the barrier that surrounds all LP efforts.
But he seems more of the same to me. Another interesting man, like Harry Browne, who has at least a little something going for him, some small breakout appeal, but who will not likely get very far. The barrier against freedom, the obstacle to even a small hope, via the Libertarian Party vehicle, is just that high.
A much more conventional LP candidate can be found in George Phillies. That is, here’s a man with even less hope of breaking out than Steve Kubby. He’s a college professor, and obviously no dummy. Indeed, nearly everything I’ve read from him (and admittedly that isn’t much) sounds pretty good to me. I like him, I’d even vote for him, as hopeless as his candidacy would be. But barring the Second Coming and being anointed by Jesus Himself, Phillies has no hope of breaking out of the LP’s persistent obscurity. Let me repeat: No hope of sparking interest outside the small libertarian movement, no hope of getting big money. He could be the best candidate since David Bergland, but he’d get Bergland’s returns, probably; he’d be lucky to get 300,000 votes.
Stanhope is, among the candidates so far, the only one with a chance of making lots of headlines. But even then, without money, betting on him is like betting on the horse with the limp.
Whatever candidate the LP chooses, that candidate will have to part the waters, if not walk on them, to make any headway. (OK: metaphor alert. I'll restrain myself from multiplying and mixing these things.) That person will have to brilliantly condemn the establishment and offer both an inspiring vision of a possible future and a respectable, practical scheme to get there.
I’ve seen so little imagination in LP campaigns that even mentioning the task seems to make the whole thing all the more Sisyphean.
Still, I can’t help but come up with some off-the-cuff campaign slogans and ideas for these candidates, marketing memes that might (just might) help them break out of the coffins of their seemingly inevitable fates.
With Stanhope, you have to come out straight with his disreputable character, his persona as a dissolute, a libertine. Admit it up front, and use it to justify the candidacy itself. Make the case that, yes, he’s bad; but after Clinton and Bush, character can no longer be an issue. The age demands an image of its accelerated grimace. And the people demand honesty even at the expense of decency. And then make the case that even a dissolute can stand on principle, and offer a respectable defense of every peaceful life, and a decent life for all who want it enough to work for it.
This isn’t quite good enough. The first clause aims to recognize Kubby’s struggle, which is part of his cachet. The second, to tie it to the voter. Whatever slogan the campaign cooks up, it has to identify the USP of the candidate, in this case a man who has struggled against disease and the state, and who has learned what can help America not only survive, but thrive.
Phillies is, not surprisingly, stressing the basic libertarian message. His current slogan? Peace, Liberty, Prosperity: A Good Life for Us, Our Children, and Our Grandchildren.
This is standard, boilerplate sloganeering, and will get him nowhere. To my mind, he has to position himself in an interesting way. He has knowledge to back up his positions. But now he needs to position himself, to get his substantive positions heard in the first place. I suggest Mr. Veto.
Come out swinging against the establishment. Say to people,
What can one Libertarian do against a well-entrenched establishment? Veto. That’s what. Every move to interfere in distant nations? I’d veto. Every increase in domestic spending? I’d veto. Every move to increase taxes? I’d veto. Every attempt to regulate the private and communal lives of the people of the United States? I’d veto. Indeed, until Congress authorizes a pull-back out of Iraq, and a repeal of 1974’s Budget and Impoundment Control Act, I will veto. And until I see a Constitutional Amendment from Congress limiting their own terms, I’ll veto every other bill. And, as long as I’m in office, if I see one earmark hidden in a bill, I’ll veto the whole thing. You ask what a lone, elected Libertarian can do? He can halt Congress’s irresponsibility, that’s what. He can up the ante. He can challenge the status quo. And that’s not nothing. That’s more than we’ve had from any president in a long, long time.
A straight Veto campaign could spark interest, I think, and even give a shot in the arm to a candidate as seemingly staid as Phillies.
What I’ve written for Phillies could easily be taken up by any of the other candidates, too. Kubby could take it up. So could Stanhope. And so could even the other, darker amongst the dark horses, too. The point is to find a theme that can resonate widely in contemporary culture. And the Mr. Veto (or, well, Ms. Veto) notion could very well break a little into the dominant public conscience. Better yet, it points the way to freedom while concentrating on near-term practical politics, not utopian schemes with zero chance of flying (such as Dull Hawk McManigal’s). This in itself is a step up from usual Libertarian posturing. And there could be a lot of variations:
After all, if you are going to run against Washington,
really do so. The idea is not original with me, I’m sure, and recently I’ve seen other libertarians talk about just such a method for change. Maybe there’s hope. A little.
To light even the tiniest hope, though, Libertarians have to do something with spark, something with originality (compared to previous campaigns, Lib and non-Lib), something that leads people to ask the right questions, demand the right kind of responses from other politicians. But Libertarians seem uninterested in really rethinking what they are doing and saying. They seem addicted to losing.
So, as much as I’d like to help, and as much as I wish them luck, I don’t see any Libertarian really succeeding. The Libertarian Party has been discredited with the stench of failure, and, after all, any minor party has a huge, uphill battle no matter what ideas are presented.
But that’s only the half of it: libertarians have the biggest, largest rock to push up that hill, for liberty has been shouted out of the Constitution, and governments in America are generally designed to preclude liberty, not defend it. Americans have almost uniformly bought into the central conceit of statism: that everyone can live at the expense of everyone else, and live better than if living by peaceful, uncoerced and unexploited interaction only. And even those who suspect that we’re in a world of hurt, and that the system is something ugly and fraudulent, what incentives have they to vote for the vanguard pointing the way out? Giving up on the addiction to government will be almost impossible for Americans. They’ve invested heavily in the intrusive state. There’s little evidence that they are anywhere near ready for a new birth of freedom.
Still, I could be wrong. Maybe the LP has a chance. Maybe America has come to this. In any case, the Libertarian candidates for the U.S. Presidency have my best wishes.
 |
Click here for this site's general fair-use permissions statement. |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|