The Libertarian Party is an interesting political entity.
It maintains the most rudimentary positions on freedom, liberty and economics, though it could always do a better job. It has also seen its popularity gradually rise (and drop) since its foundation – 2012 was the first year the party was able to crack one million votes.
Although it will likely never meet the popularity of the Republican and Democratic Parties, it should never sacrifice any type of substance for vanity. The Libertarian Party should be the party of educating the masses on an array of issues, whether it’s foreign policy or the minimum wage. This third-party organization could accomplish big things if it wasn’t always the place to be for those on the fringe (similar to that of the Green Party).
Over the weekend, it was reported (serious or not) that Morgan Freeman was considering heading the Libertarian Party for the 2016 election. His running mate would be Vin Diesel. On top of this, John McAfee, who has an interesting personal life to say the least, is also vying for the party’s nomination.
Is Freeman a libertarian? What about Diesel? Ditto for McAfee. Whenever Freeman has talked politics on television or in the newspapers, it seems his ideas have always come from a left-wing perspective. So why the Libertarian Party?
In recent election cycles, Libertarians have had a history of nominating candidates who aren’t really libertarian at all, or who are libertarian-lite.
In 2008, former Georgia Republican Congressman Bob Barr was the party’s nominee, and he certainly didn’t have a libertarian record. Barr supported the Patriot Act, the War in Iraq and a national sales tax. This is libertarian?
Gary Johnson was a better option in 2012, but he still had some explaining to do on various matters.
Of course, one cannot forget 1980’s Ed Clark, who seriously irked Murray Rothbard when he completely distorted the libertarian message and summarized the political philosophy as “low-tax liberalism.” Oy vey!
Fast forward to 2016 and the Libertarian Party is on the cusp of selecting non-libertarian candidates again. Is the political organization doing this to garner mainstream attention? Is the party’s leadership working hard to gain the likes of Freeman or McAfee to garner exposure? There are many questions to ask, even if this story isn’t correct.
In the end, Freeman has been right on some issues, such as his criticism of Black History Month, but has been wrong on several others, like endorsing President Obama and accusing Tea Party supporters of being racist.
What’s interesting is the fact that the Libertarian Party has been around since 1971. So they’ve had quite a while to promote the message of the non-aggression principle. Now compare that to Ron Paul, who did what no man before had ever done: pontificate the ideas and virtues of Austrian economics, limited government and a non-interventionst foreign policy to millions of people in just two election cycles (2008 and 2012).
The Libertarian Party has had some good nominees in the past, like Paul himself or Michael Badnarik. The party should go back to those types of candidates who actually believe in libertarianism.
One thing Freeman has better than the aforementioned, though: a superior voice.
For the LP to be heard, they need to be taken seriously, and to be taken seriously, they need to nominate well-qualified candidates who will get votes. Say what you will about Johnson, Clark, and Barr’s political philosophies, but those were the #1, #2, and #3 best vote getters in Libertarian Party history. The Badnarik campaign, while more radical and purist, failed to get much coverage, traction, or votes.
I think the Morgan Freeman thing was a joke from McAfee; we’ll see. Also, McAfee is pretty libertarian if you look into his positions, although he’s more of a pragmatist like Johnson rather than a purist/radical. I’d be happy with either Johnson or McAfee as the nominee. But it would be a wasted opportunity to nominate a radical nobody like DW Perry or somebody similar.
The Clark campaign was fairly radical by our lowered standards of today.
Barr & Johnson got a decent number of votes, however, neither resulted in much in the way of new supporters for the LP. The result is the Party is smaller now than it’s been for 20 years.
A few more of these kinds of “successes” and there won’t *be* a Libertarian Party.
I would trade a radical candidate who got a quarter of the votes of a “celebrity” but who managed to recruit a few thousand new Libertarians for a celebrity “credible” candidate any day.