Maybe the Montana GOP ought to go to the Libertarians and offer them a deal: we'll set you up with at least one State Legislature win if you agree to stay out of State wide races you can't win.

The problem with going to the "Republicans" with a deal is that they've proven they cannot be trusted, unless they are small "L" libertarians like Butch Otter or Ron Paul (in which case this might be part of a viable strategy). It was precisely this strategy that cost the Libertarian Party Alaska when Dick Randolph ran there for governor in 1982.

If we're costing them races, maybe they should beg forgiveness for their irresponsible spending which is why people are likely voting for Libertarians who used to vote Republican. Or did they even consider those 10,000 Libertarian voters to be free thinkers who refuse to support a party that is in favor of turning America into a theocracy run my zealots? How dare Medved call Libertarians Nazi-lovers when his party is borderline Nazi already and we're the exact opposite. We oppose their ideals for a reason. Equality, freedom, and common sense are valued by those 10,000 voters and they made it clear they would rather support those ideals than vote for oppression and economic disaster. Have they seen the national debt clock lately?

Libertarians did not cost the Republicans the seat in Montana or in any other state. In fact it is highly likely that if the lebertarian was nto running most of those votes would not have been cast at all or they would have gone to the democrat. While it may be true in the past that libertarians generally favored republicans, this year that is far from the case and likely may have went for over 50% democrat.

Actually we should be upset that they took votes away from us. It is much more likely especially in close elections that people that might vote Libertarian voted for the "lesser of two evils" or didn't vote for the libertarian because he couldn't win and instead voted R or D. They likely took far more votes away from us than we took from them.

There are 2 kinds of conservatives - fiscal and social. The Rebubbacans focus on the latter group, hoping enough people will be drawn to the polls by their own hatred of people who think they have the freedom to be different.

I'd like to know where TerryP gets the "fact" that "those votes would not have been cast at all or they would have gone to the democrat.". Fiscal conservatives, whether or not registered with the GOP, will vote for a Libertarian before ever supporting a Democrat. Maybe if the GOP stops pushing for bigger government they will win back these thinking voters who know better than get suckered by the modern GOP's divisive social issues. Remember the 80's when Reagan at least talked about small government? If not, expect to be schooled with more of this siphoning effect.

Doesn't Medved claim to be a Christian? He's a a**hole with room to spare. He should be blaming people like himself. They hijack the GOP and turned it into a big government party just like the Democrats. I suppose tommorrow, he will blame Chelsea Clinton. Idiot.

MarkN

Why don't you try reading my post again. I did not say that all the libertarian votes would go to a democrat or not vote at all. I said that of the libertarian votes that would have voted for an R or a D if a libertarian was not on the ballot possibly even over 50% of them could have went to the democrat this year instead of the republican. In the past I am sure that the republican would have received a higher share of those votes.

I am a fiscal conservative libertarian and this year I did not vote for either party when it was just a D or a R. If I would have had to choose I may have even voted democrat. If you call the republicans spending fiscally conservative you must be in a dream world. I would far rather have gridlock where each party does not allow the other to get there way. This means that you would have had to vote for a democrat this cycle. Spending usually does not increase as much when each party has some control. This is the main reason why a fiscally conservative libertarian would vote for a democrat. Not because they think a democrat will all of sudden stop spending but they will cause gridlock instead and spending will be slowed. Divided government is usually far better for spending then total control of gov't. If republicans are so fiscally conservative then spending should have slowed dramatically in the last few years. Not!

What about the strange fact that Stan Jones was the Montana Senatorial candidate, yet on his website he clearly stated that he was running for Governor?

How did that happen?

Ummm no, Chris. Medved is a Jew, not a Christian. Read this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Medved since this blog apparently kills links) if you don't believe me. He's not a Christian fundie, he's just your average statist Jew. The only difference is that he's not comfortable with sitting with the hippies.

The modern Republican Party and it's ideological forbearer the Whig Party were founded on and promoted Mercantile policies from their very beginning. Policies that were championed by Henry Clay and brought to fruition by Abraham Lincoln. The Whigs and Republicans both supported high protective tariffs, internal improvement subsidies, fiat money, central banking and a strong central government. In over 175 years, the only major variation has been the jettisoning of the support for tariffs in exchange for mercantile style trade agreements. It was in recent years that they began recruiting social conservatives. Don't ever forget, however, that the Republicans overriding policy is a mercantilist state. They have never supported free market capitalism, despite their rhetoric, and they never will.

The Democrats on the other hand were actually a party of limited government principle until the disaster of 1896 when they sold their soul to William Jennings Bryan and progressive (read Socialist) politics.

Think of your choices as this. When you are voting Republican, you are voting for Mercantile policies. When you are voting Democrat, you are voting for Socialist policies. Social issues are a smokescreen. Both parties are equally statist when it comes to the social issues.

I had to choose the lesser of two evils in this past election. I had no Libertarians on my ballot in Florida. At the state level I choose the Mercantilist choice. At the federal level, I held my nose and choose the Socialist choice, out of almost pure desperation to stop the neo-conservative and zionist agenda of this administration. Hopefully, in 2008, we will have Libertarians on the ballot in Florida. Because I find both Mercantilism and Socialism equally distasteful.

In Alabama, I took a different tact. I not only wrote in the Liberterian write-in candidate for governor, but voted NOTA (written out as "none of the above") for most offices. I acturally voted FOR 3 candidates. I chose to vote, but will not ever again vote for the lesser of two evils. While my vote probably not counted, I did make an effort to show that I was against both of the SOBs. In our efforts to gain legislation for equal ballot access, we should also fight for every vote even "none of the above" to be reported and a vote aginst a candidate should carry some weight. It would certainly change the percentages.

Trouble in Florida, is that there is no write-in line on a ballot, unless there is actually a qualified write-in candidate for a particular race. On my particular ballot, the only available write-in line was for the governors race. I felt compelled to vote for the Republican in that particular race because the Democrat running was a particularly obnoxious one.

PEOPLE AT THE BALLOT WALK IN WITH LIBERTARIAN ON YOUR T SHIRTS.

It is noteworthy that our Missouri candidate also had more votes that the separation between the Democrats and Republicans in that state. I have not seen any data on exit polling of where our people would have gine, in the absence of our candidate, but it might be worthwhile as a political mechanism to assert to the Democrats, where they are a majority, that we were of benefit to them (they will tend to find this claim to be credible, just as Mr. Medved did, whether it is true or not) nad that they can improve this circumstance in the future by easing our ballot access requirements.

"PEOPLE AT THE BALLOT WALK IN WITH LIBERTARIAN ON YOUR T SHIRTS."

Gary Fincher got arrested and prevented ffrom voting for doing just that in New Mexico a few years back. His wife was sentenced to prison posthumously for this "offense" even though she complied with the demand to remove her LP jacket.

Gary Johnson, then NM Governor and a former LP member, promised to pardon them, but never did.

"Montana provides an even more alarming example. Democratic John Tester beat the Republican incumbent Conrad Burns by a margin of less than 3,000 votes. At the same time, Libertarian standard bearer Stan Jones drew 10,324 votes. In general, Libertarians draw more than two-thirds of their votes directly from Republicans. Once again, the Stan Jones juggernaut (which earned an anemic 2.6% of the total vote) drew more than enough support to change the course of history for the worse."

Mostly true, except the last part: we actually changed history for the better.

Go LP! Thanks for getting the NSGOP out of control of the Senate.

Stan Jones deserves a medal!

What is the criminal offense in wearing a LIBERTARIAN t-shirt at a polling place? If they were candidates I could see how it could be seen as campaigning within the polling place, but regular folks not associated with any campaign should be able to wear anything they want.

I think that wearing a Libertarian Shirt should be worn at GYMS, Grocery stores, Trade Shows, Malls, RV Shows, Beach Events. It cost only the price of a T Shirt and let it speak for itself. I really would like people, everyone of us to start a trend, like the smiley faces. People will see it enough, remember it and hopefully by 2008, well you get the idea. But if all of us do not do this. Even though we got votes, we didn't get enough to get enough of us in office.
Instead we got the dumicans. If we can win out either most of the repukicans in 2008. I don't know. I am just wasting my breath.

http://www.lp.org/lpn/9812-clothing.html

FRom the Wikipedia article on Medved:

"A caller to Medved's show once noted the uncanny similarities between the host and the character Ned Flanders from the television show The Simpsons—similarities such as their glasses, moustaches, sweaters, voices, and faith-based family-oriented lifestyles. Since then, Medved has sometimes jokingly claimed to be the inspiration for the character. "

What about the strange fact that Stan Jones was the Montana Senatorial candidate, yet on his website he clearly stated that he was running for Governor?

How did that happen?

You might be looking at an old website. What's the URL? The one I looked up says he was running for Senate.

http://www.mtlp.org/jones/menu.htm

That was a quote, looks like I can't do italics here.

"Maybe the Montana GOP ought to go to the Libertarians and offer them a deal: we'll set you up with at least one State Legislature win if you agree to stay out of State wide races you can't win."

Let's not and say we didn't.

I'm much happier that we got the NSGOP to lose the whole US Senate. That's way more juice than one state legislator in a small state.

Actually there was one LP member elected to the legislature, Joel Wilcox in NH. He ran as a Democrat because the LP did not make it on the ballot there (twice in a row).

Several other LP members ran as Republicans in NH and VT but lost.

Frank Gonzalez, who ran as a Libertarian last time, ran for US Congress again in Florida as a Democrat (but with a libertarian platform), and increased his vote total from 28% to 41% in a heavily Republican district with an entrenched incumbent.

It almost never happens that third-party voters "cost" a mainstream candidate a victory.

What costs them their victories is the lack of turnout for their candidate.

If 50% of people vote, and it breaks down 48% D, 46% R, and 6% L, that means 24/23/3% of voters. So the R's could not scrape up a measly 2% improvment (4% of remaining voters) in turnout?

These couch potatoes are to blame for R's losses, not civic-minded libertarians participating in the democratic process.

It is anti-democratic in the extreme to say "you should not vote for the best candidate, but you should vote for whom I tell you to", as well as to call for less, rather than more, ballot access.

The issues in Montana is what cost Conrad Burns his job. The Missoulian Newspaper called Burns a liberal spender. Plus Burns supporterd the Patriot Act. Jones and Tester hammered Burns on that issue. Jones did well in the one statewide debate he was invited to (Montana Public Television and C-Span). Had Jones been invited to the other 6 or 7 debates his vote total would have been closer to 10 percent. Polls had Jones anywhere from one-percent to five-percent. Plus people were fed up with the negative ads from both Burns and Tester. Voters needed a candidate that actually wanted a smaller government and lower taxes and that wasn't Burns or Tester. In the end Jones's 10,000 plus votes was good in a state where people don't vote on principle but party line. (One party is good the other one is evil)

I think you have won the battle but lost the war. While republicans have not acted very libertarian they were by far the most individual rights party in the running. Face it.. other than sex, drugs, and Terrorist right. The democrats have no other pro choice issues that doesn't restrict or enslave people with force. I have cast my last ballot for republican and the socialist Democrats. I will vote republican from now on. The way for this party to grow is to stop making personal attack and move on the issues. Its hard to win more republicans when you attack those they support. Try to pointing out why you are the party for individual rights far more than anyother party.

If you vote for candidates that do not represent your principles, then you have truly wasted your vote.

As for Michael Medved, this is what he gets when he berates and alienates libertarians. It serves that d*ck right. This should teach him not to call us losertarians, but I think he is too stubborn to understand.

If you thought that Ralph Nader was attacked for "costing" Al Gore the Presidency, then we should prepare for the attack that the statist members of the G.O.P. will unleash on us for "costing" them the House and the Senate.

"While republicans have not acted very libertarian they were by far the most individual rights party in the running."

Huh? In what way? They've grown spending faster than at any time since FDR, with the NSGOP in charge of all branches of government for the first time since the 1920s; put more people in prison (mostly for BS like drug laws) than ever before, funneled hundreds of billions of dollars to their crony corporations, stolen two presidential elections in a row, engaged in more known graft and corruption than any presidency since another Republican (Ulysses Grant);

They have invaded and occupied two foreign countries, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths (including thousands of Americans), at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars and growing; legalized torture, justified prison rape, retroactively legalized massive illegal secret wiretapping and secret indefinite detentions in secret prisons without charges or legal representation, including for US citizens.

They have prevented humanitarian aid from being sent to the victims of the worst natural disaster in America, actually used troops to halt aid on its way, disarmed and forcibly moved survivors, and forced people out of undamaged homes in the area.

There is nothing pro-liberty whatsoever about that fascist gang of scum. Good riddance to them, and kudos to Libertarians for contributing to their defeat!

I usually will describe myself politically as Libertarian. I believe in very limited government that both stays out of people's personal lives and their finances. With that in mind I went to this site. Unfortunately I am dismayed and greatly disappointed in the stream of comment here. There has been some grumbling from certain posters about "statist Jews" and "Zionists". Until this posting their comments have gone without critisism. As a proud and freedom minded Jew I find this ugly and offensive. It is not that because of ones Jewishness that I think of them as being above reproach. Anyone who shows obecience to the all powerful state is deserving of heavy critism. However the comments of the aforementioned posters reveal them to be only smokescreened anti-semites.

Mickey, I would disagree with calling someone an anti-semite because they think our government's parties of control have an influence from statists (Jewish, Fundamental Christian, atheistic communist, or otherwise) or Zionists (those that support a Jewish homeland in Israel). NOT believing that the US should be statist (big government control), and NOT believing the US should be supporting another country, any country, is NOT anti-semitic. It is anti-statist and opposed to deciding the fates of other nations. As libertarians we are opposed to an assault on religion but at the same time we do not feel compelled to support the current foreign policy because it ties us to the will of other countries, good or bad.

Generally we support the ability for people to live amongst each other in free soceities. That is not happening in Israel and Palestine. The current, and previous administrations have gotten America into trouble by their support of other countries, not just Israel but South Vietnam, South Korea, Iraq, and many others.

We would support their rights to be free and peaceful but their situation is none of our business. We believe in their rights to defend themselves but wish to have no part in it. Having said that, in a libertarian world you or anyone else would have the right to provide support to whichever side of a conflict you want, good or bad. Free people can do what they want as long as it does not violate the freedoms of others.

That is why I, and hopefully others here, have not reacted as you have to the "statist Jew" or "Zionist" comments as anything other than what we see them as politically - disagreements in philosophy, not assaults on religion or those that practice the religion.

I hope you are still a libertarian. Peace.

I have never used the term "statist Jew" myself. I have used the word "Zionist". The word has a clear defination. I am strongly opposed to Zionism and Neo-Conservatism. It does not imply anti-semitism in anyway. The anti-semitism charge is typically slung by neo-conservatives who cannot justify their warmongering, imperialist policies. I will continue to oppose Neo-Conservatism and Zionism with every resource I can.

I would be very remiss were I not to mention that many Jewish people, many of them in Israel, also are strongly opposed to Zionism.