The 2000 Election — More Myths in Ruins

Myth #4. Libertarians on the average have some preference for the Republican Party over the Democratic Party.

In fact, to the extent that they had a preference, more Libertarians were apparently willing to sacrifice their Libertarian vote to rescue a Democrat than they were to sacrifice their Libertarian vote to rescue a Republican. I compared the change in the Harry Browne vote between 1996 and 2000 with Bush and Gore’s performances in 2000. Browne lost votes in states that went for Al Gore. In the states that went most heavily for George Bush, Browne tended to break even. Ignoring outliers, Browne did no worse in states that were very close than in states in which Bush or Gore ran away in the vote. The outliers, the few states where Browne improved dramatically, were states where Bush and Gore ran a close race. To the extent that either Bush or Gore captured Libertarian votes, the votes seemingly went to Gore, suggesting—as an alternative to the Project Archimedes interpretation—that more Libertarians thought it was important that Gore won than thought it was important that Bush won. [The perspective that a Libertarian could prefer Gore to Bush if they were the only two choices appears to be very difficult for right-leaning Libertarians to grasp.]

Myth #5. 50 State Ballot Access Signifies to the Press.

Nader was not on the ballot in 50 states. He had extensive press coverage. Browne was on the ballot in all 50 states in 1996. A Libertarian was on the ballot in every state in 2000. Browne had negligible press coverage.

Myth #6. In Pennsylvania, only a few activists were unhappy with Harry Browne.

In November, 2000 there were 30,248 registered Libertarian voters in Pennsylvania. Of course, all of them did not make it to the polls on time. Nonetheless, the Party’s U.S. Senate candidate received 45,775 votes, half again as many votes as there were Libertarian registrants. In the same election, Pennsylvania’s voters gave Harry Browne a grand total of 11,248 votes. That is, three out of four voters who were willing to support John Featherman for U.S. Senate were unwilling to cast a vote for his Presidential running mate. At least two out of three voters who registered Libertarian—and probably more, since Libertarian voter turnout is certainly not 100%—declined to vote for their Party’s Presidential candidate. This is a level of rejection almost without precedent in American history. Only a tiny minority, given voter turnout percentages perhaps as few as one in six, of all registered Libertarians could be prevailed upon to support Harry Browne. Nonetheless, the Party faction that gave us Browne 1996 and Browne 2000 was hard at work preparing to give us ‘the same or more for 2004’. It is then no surprise that by late 2001 at least some Pennsylvania activists not in the Party leadership were openly calling upon the Party to sever its ties with the Libertarian Party of the United States.

In December 2000, Browne had been defeated again. His campaign had raised millions of dollars, some of which was even spent during the general election season on public outreach. All his promises and strategems were, in the end, for naught. He ended the election well behind where he had placed in 1996. Behind the scenes, his inner circle supporters remained active in the Libertarian Party. They knew in advance they needed a new Presidential candidate for 2004, and were already busy grooming one.