The Deeper Meaning of Bob Barr’s Nomination
It’s not uncommon to hear libertarians qualify their label by saying, “with a small L.” The point is that not all libertarians belong to the Libertarian Party, which is, by many accounts, full of crazy people. Take, for instance, the LP’s 2004 Presidential nominee, Michael Badnarik, who believed that using Zip Codes subjected one to Federal laws, wished to subject Congress to a week-long course in the Constitution taught by, who else, himself, suggested strapping prisoners to their cots to make their muscles atrophy, and, naturally, disavowed the authority of the IRS. Actual floor delegates can be even more entertaining.
But while the LP is full of crazy people, it is not completely full of them. There are some reform-minded members, and as reason’s Brian Doherty reported two years ago (and I noted here), they are changing the party. The first step came at the 2006 convention in Portland, where the moderates purged the platform of policies like ending paper money — in other words, much of the sort of stuff that made Ron Paul so unpalatable.
Besides diminishing the appeal of the party, the more eccentric positions dilute the impact of protest votes. As Megan McArdle lamented about casting a protest vote for Paul, which parts of his agenda, exactly, would she be empowering? Granted, Paul had many unlibertarian positions, but the point remains that in order to be influential, votes for third parties must be more transparent and less risible. In effect, the purists must take a back seat.
Which brings us to this year’s LP convention, at which the reformers scored another victory with the presidential nomination. Bob Barr is a former Republican who’s tacked dramatically toward libertarianism since leaving Congress. Unlike past nominees, he’s savvy, sane, and well-known. He stands a good chance of influencing the public dialogue about national problems and an even better chance of spoiling the election. This is in large part to the prospect of record numbers of people voting for the LP in November, which would be a triumph for the party. And that’s exactly the problem libertarian Tim Lee has with Barr the nominee.
Broadly speaking, there are libertarians who think that the LP is a good vehicle for pushing the freedom agenda and those who think that it is full of cranks. Worse than that, they think those cranks are ultimately counter-productive and should be excluded from public discussions of libertarianism. Since the party is full of these crazy people, anything that gives them more influence, including voting for a reasonable and articulate nominee like Barr, should be discouraged. As Lee writes, “every vote he gets will mean more visibility for the embarrassing candidate the party is likely to nominate in 2012.”
This takes it as given that the gains of the reformers are short-lived — or not all that worthwhile in the first place. I’m not so sure. The Portland convention was an off-year, low-profile, poorly attended affair, so the platform reformation might be dismissed as a fluke. This year’s convention was a bigger affair and a fight over a more consequential decision. And the people who want to appeal to a broader electorate won again. Voting for Barr just may gives these people the upper hand in fights to come, resulting in a more viable, relevant Libertarian Party. That sounds like a good goal for libertarianism in general. I’m not so willing as Lee to write them — and Barr — off, but then again, I’m not a bona fide libertarian.
Related on ITA:
“Political Shorts” by David Darlington
“Bob Barr” by David Darlington
Bob Barr will be my guest on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com Friday at 5 PM ET.
You can join in the conversation by following the link from my blog:
http://garybaumgarten.blogspot.com/2008/06/libertarian-presidential-candidate-bob.html
There are a lot of crazy Republicans and Democrats too. The real issue with the Libertarian Party is that they are a political party that doesn’t seem to care about actually winning elections and affecting public policy. The Bob Barr nomination is sign that something has really changed within the LP. Given how disenchanted many Republicans have become with their party, Bob Barr could attract a lot of pragmatic people to the LP, which would change its characteristics permanently.
The spoiler problem is the real reason “small-L” libertarians should hesitate to vote for Barr. I think it’s pretty clear that McCain should be preferred over Obama from a libertarian standpoint. So, assuming that Barr has no chance of winning (and he doesn’t, unless both McCain and Obama have serious meltdowns in October), a vote for Barr is nearly the same thing as a vote for Obama.
Personally, I’d love to see an Instant Runoff voting system implemented in the U.S., whereby one could rank the candidates in preference order. When votes are tallied, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and his/her supporters’ votes count for their second choice. Then the candidate with the second-least number of votes is eliminated, and so on.
I think you make some really great points about the progress made, but there are two issues that remain unaddressed by your piece.
First, is it even possible for any third party to break the current two-party stranglehold on American politics? (This is arguable directly related to the spoiler problem Eric mentioned.)
Second, what do you think about Wayne Allen Root and the possible allegations of patent tolling as mentioned here:
http://techliberation.com/2008/06/05/libertarians-for-patent-trolling/
The Libertarians will never be a viable party worthy of competing with the Republicans and Democrats. In 2012, the Libertarians will perform at less than 5% regardless of whether or not Barr pulls in a lot of votes in 2008. People are voting for Barr because he isn’t McCain or Obama, not because he’s a Libertarian.
And, don’t forget about Duverger’s Law, found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger’s_law
The Libertarians have a tough road to hoe.
Eric,
No, it is NOT at all clear that McCain should be preferred over Obama.
First, a GOP President along with a GOP Congress have increased spending faster than anyone since LBJ in the 1960s. They enacted the largest pork barrel spending bill ever, created the largest new entitlement since Medicare and Medicaid, and got the federal government deeply involved in local school districts. They also squandered a balanced budget and started an unnecessary war in Iraq that brought us $4 a gallon gasoline.
McCain will be worse.
Here’s what is clear: The GOP need a HUGE “come to” moment. I intend to help give them one by voting for Bob Barr this fall.
Much more importantly (from a libertarian standpoint) than the two candidates rough parity on the taxing/spending issues would be the basic fact that Obama is likely to roll back the current administration’s egregious infringements on the basic political rights of the citizenry, and McCain is not likely to do so.
“tough row to hoe”
I always love these discussions of “smart politics.” No, Barr isn’t exactly a libertarian but the purists must take a backseat because he’ll pull in more votes and build the LP. Interesting reasoning. But two problems:
(1) The U.S. has an absolute district electoral system, unlike, say, Israel or Italy. Hence, if you get less than a majority [or, in some races a plurality] you might as well not have run. No one in their right mind thinks that Barr is going to get 51% of the vote. Hence, if a miracle occurs and he gets 10% of the vote, the result is the same as if he had gotten 1% of the vote [no result]. If you want to “play politics” for power you’ve got to begin by focusing on the minimal conditions for gaining power. The minimal condition isn’t increasing your vote total from 1% to 10%,
(2) I think that we’re all agreed that, UNDER PRESENT CONDITIONS, the only way to attract more voters to a third party is to make that party’s stances seem reasonable to the marginal voters. However, since most contemporary Americans are mild to rabid collectivists, that means an LP pushing some degree of collectivism. Maybe you can advoccate a somewhat slower rush into the abscess of the total state, but you’d better not oppose the trend if you want to be popular. “Liberate” a country here, regulate another industry there, that’s the path to more votes.
(3) Which gets us to the bottom line. The LP was founded on the idea of creating an additional channel to propagandize for the ideology called libertarian. None of its founders believed that libertarians were going to seize power by running for dogcather [the only electoral office in which an LP candidate has a chance - since he or she wouldn't be identified as an LP candidate in such a race]. Everyone, to start with, understood that the LP candidate for President, for instance, would get miniscule vote totals for the foreseeable future, because virtually no one would agree with his stance.
The true nut cases in the LP, are those who actually believe that they’re going to obtain power in a collectivist America by runnning on the LP ticket. The more sensible [but still not sane] among them have reached the logical conclusion: You can’t obtain power if the LP is advocating libertarianism, not in contemporary American. [You can only run for public office as a libertarian and win AFTER Americans have become converted to libertarianism through a long, and generally nonpolitical process of ideological persuasion.] Since the goal of these “practical” people is personal power, not the triumph of the libertarian ideology, they are doing what it is logical for them to do - diluting LP libertarianism so it is indistinguishable from the message of the existing parties. To do otherwise would be to give up their dream of being deity and dictator.
And there it is….. On the one hand we have the “we never learn anything” LP people who you have described well in this blog entry - you know, the guys with the paper hats and the capes who think that romance has to do with “the pounce and rape” technique. On the other hand you have power want to bes who would never be acceptable in the “mainline” parties, but who are willing to compromise away an ideology with a 300+ year tradition to boost their vote totals from nothing to nothing plus nothing.
Time real libertarians did the logical thing: repudiated the LP as the mistake turned into a bad joke its been for the last 20 of its 30 years.
jwpegler,
I have seen no indication that Congressional Democrats have any more restraint regarding spending than the Republicans. For instance, the Democrats wanted an even more generous Medicare prescription drug plan than the Republicans did.
I’m skeptical that Obama would do anything substantive to roll back the Patriot Act, but his silly support of a “windfall profit tax” on oil companies seems to indicate he would be no friend to the free market.
So while Obama might appear preferable on a few libertarian pet issues, I do think it’s clear that McCain is the better choice from an overall libertarian perspective.
In response to a few points:
1) No, I don’t think the LP exists to score electoral victories. It exists to influence public debate, and, along with allies at think tanks like Cato and Reason, to provide policy alternatives. High polling for the party can lift the tide for these other effects.
2) I doubt Root has any significance at all beyond those very few who are interested in LP internal politics. I doubt he will in any measurable way be the face of the party (unless he does something awful to draw attention to himself) during the election. Most people will never hear his name. (Can you name Nader’s past running mates?)
3) The spoiler concern Eric mentions is only relevant to libertarians in swing states. And yes, moderate libertarians are starting to see real little difference between Obama and McCain (rightly or wrongly).
Zach–what’s a moderate libertarian? Someone who only wants to reduce the size and influence of the government a little bit?
Eric,
Sarcasm aside, I think it refers to a libertarian who prefers and/or advocates slow, steady changes in government toward their end goal. This compares with the more bombastic faces of the Libertarian Party, who promise and promote extremely far-reaching changes in the way government works in very short periods of time.
JW and Eric,
If you are concerned about spending (which I certainly am), one of the best solutions has always been to have one party in charge of the white house, and the other in charge of Congress. Since we are virtually guaranteed to have a Democratic Congress in 2008, this would suggest you should vote for McCain. Gridlock can be a beautiful thing.