Travis Pahl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in part: >> >> Wrong. If they have any brains, they look at those Libertarian votes >> >> and >> >> realize that there isn't a single thing they can do to get them. >> >If they put up Ron Paul or someone that voted like him, I would vote >> >for the republican instead of the Libertarian. >> But there are very few yous and mes.
>The whole point of this subthread is that IF there are more and more >libertarian votes then it will influence republicans and democrats to >nominate more libertarian candidates. But how are you going to get so many more libertarian votes? That's up to the voters! The candidate doesn't get to pull the levers. >You counter the arguement by saying that they feel there is nothing >they can do to get those votes so they will ignore and not adjust >their policy/candidates. >I point out that there is something that they can do (run candidates >who are more libertarian). Yes, they can do that. But they'd better not be TOO OBVIOUSLY libertarian, or they'll lose support. As I've written, there's considerable wiggle room among politicians due to slackness of the leashes the voters hold. I think it was on the LPNY_discuss Yahoo group that I wrote that pundits now consider such figures as Rudy Giuliani, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and John McCain (their names tend to be invoked together) as the up-and-coming moderate figures in the Republican Party. However, they're only similar if "moderate" be judged along the usual "left-right" axis, which is as much as most of the pundits see. If the likes of those 3 are pretty much interchangeable in terms of their political fortunes and favor in the GOP, then clearly there's much room to wiggle along the libertarian-authoritarian axis. If, however, a distinctly libertarian tendency were noticed within the GOP, it would tend to come under fire as finer distinctions were made. That's why I'm starting to wonder if even the RLC is too open & obvious; maybe they should operate in a more conspiratorial mode. There was a time about 25 years ago when, realizing (as Jeff Friedman says libertarians did at the time) that being obviously libertarian was not a populist strategy, Craniacs pushed such things as "Inquiry" magazine and "Byline" radio commentaries not as libertarian, but as independent, neither-left-nor-right, nondogmatic, populist, etc. In other words, push libertarian ideas without people catching on that an ideology was behind it. >> In most districts where Republicans >> had a chance of being elected, a Ron Paul would be defeated in a primary, >> and clobbered in a general election. >And so you suggest that we should just go along with whoever they give >us? No, we need to get involved with determining who the major parties give us, but to be realistic about the limits on the wiggle room they have in a democracy. > How will that change who they offer next time? Voting LP in >signifigant numbers WILL change them. You mean, it WOULD change them, if LP candidates got signficant numbers. But how many demonstrations do you need that that's not something to hold your breath for? >Also what is so special about this area of texas that resulted in a >libertarian being elected that is not present in the other 220+ >republican congressional districts in the nation? Not MOST of them, but probably in very few. It's obviously a very conservative voting district. He still came close to losing a primary a few years ago after many terms a Congressman. Mostly, he gets elected because he's a Republican incumbent with lots of experience. The first time he got elected to Congress (in the 1970s), he was probably the most attractive candidate in the GOP for whatever reasons. I doubt that being specifically libertarian had anything to do with his being nominated, but being perceived as conservative must've helped. Being an obstetrician-gynecologist opposed to abortions probably helped him raise money in the wake of Roe v. Wade. Being a hard money advocate at a time of high inflation might've helped raise money too. It'd be interesting to see who his rivals for the nomination were. In Your Sly Tribe, Robert _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
