Posted by Randy Barnett:
Parties Are Not Sports Teams--Parties are the Playoffs:
There has been much blogospheric reaction to my post yesterday on the
Libertarian Party (click trackbacks to read it). And I have received
much thoughtful, cordial and sympathetic email--too much to respond to
while on the road here in Alabama. I found the post that best defends
the position I was suggesting was by [1]Neo-Libertarian. Before adding
some additional thoughts of my own, here is just a bit of a very long
and well-reasoned post with some comments by me inserted (read it all,
as they say):
Now, he's a libertarian in the GOP [This is wrong; I am not in the
GOP--REB] and has argued this for at least a few years if not
longer. [However, this is correct.--REB] That might put him in a
suspect position to die-hard Libertarians. I, however, have been a
member of the Missouri LP, registered Libertarian in Virginia, and
have signed onto the Free State Project. Perhaps this inoculates me
against some of the potential criticisms when I say I agree at
least in part that splitting libertarians into two or three or four
different parties is silly.
While it might be ideal to focus attention on one party the way the
Free State Project hopes to focus attention on one state, I think that
this is unrealistic. To take a single example, given the degree to
which some libertarians are antiwar, it is too much to expect
libertarians to support the party that today more strongly considers
us in a literal war against islamo-fascism. My original point is that
BOTH parties would be more libertarian at the margins if more
libertarians were activists within them.
The most active and energetic libertarians tend to split and join
the LP. This means that literally hundreds and thousands of
activists, as well as over a million votes (combined for the House
races the LP contests) are siphoned off from the GOP.
The key I think is the activists. Some people want to advance liberty
by writing books and public speaking. Others want to get into the
trenches and organize politically. Some of the most energetic
libertarian in this latter group have been drained from both parties,
leaving the fields there more open for activists with different
agendas.
As it stands, a great deal of people are alienated from the idea of
even calling themselves libertarian because the GOP and LP are
separate. There are a lot of people with libertarian sympathies who
would be much more willing to follow our ideas if we were in their
party.
This is an important insight that goes beyond my original post.
Americans view political parties as they do their sports teams. Even
Independents tend to root for one party over the other. Libertarians
have defined themselves as a different team that looses pitifully--and
Americans do not like losers. And when you say "libertarian" to them,
they think you are referring to the Libertarian team. I think this is
why many libertarian-inclined citizens deny they libertarians. That is
not their team.
As it stands, a million dollars dunked on a Senate race would
probably end up with a Libertarian struggling to break 15% at the
polls. But $500,000 in a Senate primary could tip a
libertarian-friendly legislator to victory over a more moderate or
social-conservative opponent.
This is how Club For Growth has been successful. They pour their
money into primaries and try to influence the GOP outcome. This is
an important party of the electoral process, and one in which
libertarians could be very effective.
Joining the GOP means we bring to the table a lot of things. On
Election Day, our current numbers might appear quite small. But on
the primaries, we have greater power - a group of active,
interested, educated people who will go out and vote. We could have
a lot to say about which candidate is nominated. . . .
I know the LP won't dissolve, but I think it ought to consider
reforming as an interest group. It already has a website, contacts
and affiliates in every state. There is a lot to be done and the LP
has a lot going for it. We just need to refocus. . . .
This is VERY important. Incumbents are very conscious of potential
primary challenges. If the Libertarian Party chooses to continue--as
it will--it can save the effort of registering itself as an official
party in the states, and can run libertarian candidates in the
primaries. Even the treat of this is likely to get a response from an
incumbent. (Another idea I have pushed in recent years that is
somewhat inconsistent with the thrust of what I am suggesting here is
to run major party candidates in general election against unopposed
incumbents. So libertarians would run a Democrats against unopposed
Republicans and vice versa. This would assure their candidates of more
press coverage and a much larger share of the votes.) He concludes:
Personally, I haven't decided to call myself a Republican yet (I'm
far too uncomfortable with the South, for instance) but I'm
definitely considering working with libertarian candidates in the
GOP. I'd also like to help my favored Republican to win the 2004
nomination. So while I'm not a Republican, I think it's time for
libertarians to consider pooling together as much of our resources
as possible into the best bet for liberty: two-party politics.
A lot of libertarians and third-partiers LIKE losing because it
reinforces their view that the center is corrupt and that they
themselves are purists on the fringe. So be it. I'd rather see
progressively greater and greater support for liberty from the
center of political debate, and I think something like the
Republican Liberty Caucus might be the way to do just that.
Bruce Bartlett wrote to remind me that he has been urging a
Libertarian Caucus approach for many years.
FINAL THOUGHTS: In our political system, you have to be a member of a
political coalition to influence its direction. This means working and
compromising with people with whom you share some goals and disagree
about others. This is the insight behind Groiver Norquist's vision of
the "leave us alone" coalition in the GOP that advances the disparate
interests of its members, while marginalizing those who want to
advance their agenda by interfering in the lives of others.
Like other Americans, however, many libertarians think of political
parties like sports teams. They want their own team to root for and
cannot root for the other teams. Voting Libertarian gives them
psychological satisfaction, while in the aggregate diminishing their
political impact.
Libertarians should stop thinking of parties as teams and think of
them instead as the playoffs. In NFL football terms, The Democrats are
the AFC and the Republicans he NFC. To get into the Superbowl, you
have to survive the season and the playoffs in your respective
conference. In effect, Libertarians want to form their own league
which no one but themselves is interested in watching. And they assure
themselves of never making the playoffs much less the Superbowl.
OK, enough of the sports metaphor. It does not work completely anyhow.
Perhaps it is better simply to say that libertarian political
activists (and voters) do not have to buy into all of what either
party stands for today to realize that they may more effectively
advance their ideals by fighting to move the major parties in a
libertarian direction. With the benefit of hindsight, we can say that
this has not been accomplished by libertarians absenting themselves
from the major parties and investing their time and votes in the
Libertarian Party.
References
1.
http://neo-libertarian.blogspot.com/2005/02/libertarian-dilution-randy-barnett-has.html
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