I recently responded to a post at the Nolan Chart site, and thought I'd reproduce my response here.

I responded to this particular comment:

The adoption of libertarian ideas as public policy could be accelerated were the ten to twenty percent of American voters with libertarian views to exert influence en bloc in the political process. One of the several ways to do that is through a libertarian political party.

I absolutely think that a political party (and my preference is still strongly for the Libertarian Party) can be an effective way for people to speak 'en bloc' and to effect significant change. However, I think the premise of many folks - and I include Donny Ferguson here, based on his recent communications - that the LP can (and must) make that change solely or even largely by electoral means displays some perilous naivete about the American political process.

Look at the numbers. Your most optimistic estimate of "American voters with libertarian views" is twenty percent. I'd actually say it's higher, because I'm an optimist and think that everyone holds a 'libertarian view' about something. But I assume that you mean holding libertarian views to a greater extent than they hold non-libertarian views.  If that's the case, I suspect that even ten percent is wildly optimistic at this point. But let us say that fifiteen percent of voters meet this criterion.

So let's look at a hypothetical case to see how this plays out in American two-party system. Best-case, wildly optimistic scenario:

• We have a district that's 'uber-libertarian', say 20 percent.
• There's no incumbent in the race.
• The district is 20% registered Libertarian, 20%DP, 20%RP, and 40%Unaffiliated.
• We have a district in an area where voters can register and vote Libertarian and candidates can run as Libertarian without any penalty or extra costs (such as petitioning).
  
• We have a candidate who is deeply involved in his community and can attract voters who view themselves as nonpartisan.
• We have a candidate who is well-funded and well-staffed, and lots of volunteers.
  

Even with this rosy scenario, voters will still take a 'hit' because their candidate will be deprived of committee assignments and other duopoly-held perks within any American legislative body. This is going to reduce the number of voters for the LP candidate - those who are libertarian-leaning but not dedicated to the Libertarian Party will (rationally) choose the major-party candidate who is most closely allied to their views.

Say there's a popular Republican in this race, and a less-popular Democrat.

If the  candidate attempts to move into the issue space' of either the DP or RP candidate (in this case the DP candidate would make more sense), he will lose the votes of at least some LP stalwarts, without necessarily gaining the corresponding votes of the DP or RP opponent - because voters will know they can get the same 'commodity' in DP or RP package with all the perks of legislative alliance with a major power party (committee assignments, etc.).

Also, the LP will have a harder time attracting career politicians  (or as they like to bill themselves, 'public servants'), and although that is certainly not a negative to someone who favors the citizen-leader model, it will mean that our candidates are, on average, not as schooled, not as slick, and not as marketable, as candidates from the two power parties. We're trying to play in the Big Leagues without having developed a really good Farm Team, yet.

We cannot count on overcoming these very real obstacles created by the two-Party system by simply saying that Libertarians are better people. We're not, really. We're simply regular (well, on average!) people with better ideas. We should not attempt to  wholesale sell Libertarian office-seekers or holders as more ethical, brighter, nicer, etc. individuals than office-seekers of other parties - because it will only take a few counterexamples to show how silly that contention is - and I suspect we can all think of at least one counterexample if we are honest with ourselves.

So this all may sounds negative, but it's not meant to. I do think we can - and will - win elections. And I absolutely think  that we should try to. But I also think our most profound effect may not be in the winning of elections - at least in the short term (next decade or two), but more in the creation and shaping of legislation, in the development of a group of citizen-activists who will think (cliche alert!) 'outside the box' when it comes to both policy and action, and (perhaps most profoundly) in the shift of power-party politicians to an adoption of more and more libertarian rhetoric and (with our vigilant watchdogging) action.

To simply take the actions and techniques that have made Democrats and Republican politicians successful in a system that was designed by them to work that way for them, and to expect those practices to make us successful in the same way, is at the least, naive. It'd be like putting simple gasoline in a two-stroke engine and expecting to get superlative results because the fuel works just dandy in your four-stroke engine. Different circumstances call for a different application of tactics.

¶ 12:55 PM