Excuse #2 “The election was close. Our 1996 voters instead voted for the Democrat or Republican.”
The election was close in a few states. In many other states the election was anything but close. Gore carried Massachusetts by 24 points; Bush carried Utah and other states by 40 points. Most people in most states have a reasonable sense of who is ahead in their state. When one candidate is ahead by 24 or 40 points, voters know that the outcome in their state is certain. They may vote for whomever they want without fear of the wasted voter superstition, the erroneous meme ‘you’re wasting your vote.’
Of course, there are a lot of voters who are unaware that there is an Electoral College, let alone how it works. Most of these voters think that the national vote totals, the 50 million votes cast for one candidate or the other, determine who won the election. These voters can’t imagine why the state by state vote totals matter, or why voting for Gore in Massachusetts was seriously unlikely to affect the election’s outcome. For the current Libertarian Party, these people won’t matter for a few election cycles yet. Before people can choose to Vote Libertarian!, they need to hear of us and to decide to vote for us. To become a possible Libertarian voter, people need to have at least a little political sophistication, enough that they surely know how the Electoral College works.
Did the closeness of the election matter? It’s easy to test if voter concerns that “the election is close” depressed Libertarian vote totals. Draw a graph, taking as the horizontal axis the difference between the Bush and Gore vote percentages. States that Bush or Gore carried by a lot will be at opposite edges of the graph. States that were near-draws will be in the middle. If “the election was close” hurt Browne, Browne will have done the worst with the states in the middle of the graph where the election was close, and the best with the states at the left and right margins, where the election was not close at all.
What is ‘better’ or ‘worse’? We are comparing 1996 and 2000. The appropriate comparison is with Browne’s 1996 vote totals. If the Browne vote increased from 1996 to 2000, Browne did well. If Browne’s vote percentage fell from 1996 to 2000, Browne did poorly. Plot the change in the Browne vote against the percent difference in the Bush and Gore votes. If the closeness of the election matters, the plot will look like a bowl, lowest in middle. Browne will do least well in states where Libertarian swing voters might affect the outcome.
I did that graph. There are a few states that are way off by themselves, such as Georgia. You should take note of them, but they’re not following the general rule. I computer generated the average curve, which in a certain mathematical sense is the best possible description of the data as a smooth line. (It’s a quadratic, for those of you who remember high school algebra.) The curve is very close to a straight line. Harry did no worse in states where the election was close than he did in states where Gore or Bush ran away. “The election is close” phenomenon did not depress Libertarian vote totals.
There is one peculiarity in the graph. The fitted curve is straight. It also has a substantial tilt. Browne selectively did better where George Bush did well, and selectively did worse where George Bush did poorly. Why?
As one explanation, perhaps this was an echo of Project Archimedes. Remember Archimedes? It was a direct mail campaign. Several million copies of its letters went out. They may not have persuaded people to join, but some fair fraction of them did persuade recipients to read about the Libertarian Party. For all that we say that we are equidistant from left and right, the letters went selectively to right-wing mailing lists, and pushed issues likely to appeal to people on such lists. And the letters? They just happened to feature the words and face of Harry Browne. All that paper, millions and millions of pages, went selectively to places with right-wing households, places where Bush would do well. The Project Archimedes letters boosted Browne’s vote with conservatives to whom the Party did recruitment mailings.
As an alternative explanation, it may be the case that Libertarians on the average are more supportive of liberal candidates than they are of conservative candidates. This explanation is consistent with exit polling data. In the case of which I am aware, the Libertarian Party candidate was selectively supported by voters who would elsewise have supported a liberal Democrat over a conservative Republican by a 3:2 margin.
When I was in Oregon and county chair I wrote letters to the editor frequently, and I sent out a few media releases. Because of those efforts I got a few calls for more details which was more than the state party was getting at that time.
There is no reason for the LP not to be sending out an issue oriented media release every week. The representative candidates, senatorial candidates, vice-presidential candidates, and national presidential candidates should be doing the same and the LP should make an effort to show the media how the government’s regulations and policies harm the public.
The LP should have short 200-250 word summaries on 10 to 15 issues on the website that can be copied and used as brochures for candidates, members and the general public.
The state parties should be doing something similar and if the state party can’t do it then the regional reps should step up and do so.
None of this is expensive.
I don ‘t recall which election it was but in one of them Browne was on the radio a number of times and I think that may have played a part in his vote total.
Harry Browne was on a bunch of talk radio shows during both of his campaigns. He made it on to some television shows as well.
I joined the Libertarian Party in 1996 because of the Harry Browne campaign. I consider the Harry Browne campaign to be one of the best things to ever happen in the Libertarian Party and movement. Why? Because they brought in more new dues paying party members than anything else has, with the party reaching its all time high for dues payimg membership in 2000, and they propeled LNC fundraising to its all time high, especially when adjusted for inflation, in the year 2000, and all of this was accomplished with strong hardcore principled libertarian messaging that did not sound cringey, and Harry Browne brought that message to a lot of people who never would have heard it otherwise, and he did this while running under very difficult circumstances in highly competitive fields of minor party and independent presidential candidates.
Rest in Peace, Harry Browne.
Andy, you make valid points. I recall that they were the reasons I believed at that time were the reasons for Harry Browne’s disappointing vote totals from those elections. I voted for him in 1996 and 2000. I was fortunate to meet him in person at the 2000 election night rally in Atlanta.
Harry Browne ran in highly competitive fields of minor party and indeoendent candidates in 1996 and in 2000. He had to contend with the higher profile and better funded Ross Perot and Ralph Nader in 1996 and he had to contended with the higher profile and better funded Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan in 2000. Also, Howard Phillips of the US Taxpayers Party/Constitution Party and John Hegelin of the Natural Law Party both had ballot access in a lot of states in 1996 and in 2000.
In spite of his relatively low vote totals Harry Browne brought a lot of new members into the Libertarian Party and he did this while espousing a hardcore libertarian message.
Andy… I voted for Harry Browne in both 1996 and 2000. I also thought he ran a radically libertarian campaign that wasn’t IMO left or right leaning. I never realized that Prof. Phillies had issues with Browne but I find his view of the campaigns looking back interesting and much of the financial stufff I never had any idea about.
George has always been a critic of the Browne campaigns. For many of us familiar with George’s newsletters over the years, this is nothing new.
I’m guessing that with the news of Angela McArdle’s financial (and ethical) misadventures gaining so much attention, George has thought he’d get more traction now over his decades old complaints of the Browne campaign.
Clever but wrong. Look more carefully at the dramatis personae, the ones who are still alive.
Cynically, I can think of 630,000 reasons why ” someone ” has stepped forward again to help the current chair implement the latest wild assed scheme to make the Party relevant.
There is also the arcane idea that one can learn from experience.
That’s a reasonable inference, but is not correct. However, like the Vampire Nostradamus (fine series of Mexican horror films on a limited budget), some things have risen from the dead.