How about the Republican Party of Eisenhower and Goldwater, which has ceased to exist? The folks who are staffing the 2007 Republican Party leadership, in fair part, would be easy to find in 1960. They were southern White Democrats, who have now taken over a party and changed everything except the name.

As a Libertarian State Chair, I am saddened to note that there are incumbent Republicans in Massachusetts. There are state reps, and state senators, and even a “County District Attorney” and “County Sheriff”. Of course, MA mostly doesn’t have county government any more, and the County Sheriff has jurisdiction over his jail and court house. Period. We even have 13% registered Republicans in Massachusetts. With some luck, MA will soon be leading the country by becoming a Republican-is-a-third-party zone.

Best,

George

Aside from the one historical shift to the GOP (in the 1850s), what other third party plan, sacrifice, acumen or anything has actually worked by your criteria ? Blaming the anarchists is so gauche.

The history and foundation of the libertarian movement is radical. Tweaking it with better software might help but attracting candidates that can win is very hard. Anybody not attached to an ideology who is accustomed to real world success will naturally look to one party or the other for their own perceived potential for success. What’s the incentive to run or associate with ANY third party when ultimately its just an ‘independent’ effort anyway ?

LP delegates should at the very least demand an articulate voice for the liberty message. Get money, get signatures, get the angry middle, get lucky – win ? Third Party affiliation need not apply.

Like I said—if you got what you claim to have gotten out of what Kubby said, you need a remedial reading course. Let me know when you enroll and where to send the five bucks.

If you look at the first question, Kubby blames Libertarian failure entirely on the other two parties- but any day now the Libertarian ship will come in, as people become fed up with the duopoly. That’s been promised since before I joined the party, and it’s no closer to happening now than it’s ever been.

Thirty-plus years of the same tactics and the same strategy producing the same results suggests that the LP needs to change SOMEWHERE… but Kubby is delivering the same old “educate the voters” and “we exist mainly to provide an alternative” rhetoric that the anarchists have spouted straight along. To me Kubby is the LP Business As Usual candidate. He might get my support in the regular election if nominated, but the absolute most I’d do for him now is not vote NOTA against him.

If you honestly believe that your paraphrase was accurate, I’ll make a matching contribution of five bucks toward getting you enrolled in an English as a Second Language course if others will kick in.

I think ‘bupkis’ is … well, wrong. First, third/ideological parties don’t tend to stick around for over three decades – just keeping it together is a HUGE accomplishment. I live in a state where ballot access is hideously difficult, so I am amazed to see the dedicated folks holding it together and growing the Party. Second, just look around – politicians on both ‘left’ and ‘right’ are falling over themselves to paint themselves as libertarian (while carefully avoiding, of course, being called Libertarian). When you consider that politicians follow public opinion rather than the other way around, that’s an amazing thing.

Again Kubby disappoints: “Yes, we’ve had thirty years of failure at getting elected, but absolutely none of that is OUR fault, so let’s not change a single thing,” to paraphrase.

With that kind of leadership, we’re going to get the same results we’ve had the past thirty years- bupkis.

Well said. Dan Sullivan, in a discussion about the LP’s newsletter, had a very similar point:

“[A]re we
looking for followers, or are we looking for leaders? ... The strategy I advocate, and the one I think Nolan and other radicals advocate, is to develop leaders. This means using the LP News and other resources to turn our supporters into experts—not only experts at addressing libertarian philosophy and its ramifications, but at achieving libertarian goals generally. If we have the leaders, they will attract as many followers as they need. However, if we focus on attracting followers and have no good
leaders, we will either dissolve into obscurity or, worse, turn into a
leaderless mob.”