Ericdc wrote:Back when republican meant something there wasn't probably as many folks looking for an alternative either. Lots of conservatives are looking for an alternative now.
When was that? It has stood for a mixed bag of things over the years. While generally, it has been more right than wrong, it has and will remain a coalition of different interests. What did Lincoln stand for? Not exactly a small decentralized government guy with a weak federal government and with a weak President. Teddy Roosevelt was President as a Republican and then later ran as a Progressive. Not a libertarian or conservative as we define them today. Reagan was such a powerful influence that few forget what it stood for prior.
Our system is such that the two major parties will never stand for anything. This is really generally a good thing.
The sincere libertarians just need to accept the reality of the math of our system. You want to win, it requires TWO wins. Running on the libertarian ticket gets you the first win, but assures you of losing the second. It will be extremely rare for a particular philosophy to hold the majority. Most will be lucky to attract 1/3rd support in terms of being the first choice. Even if the libertarians get the support of 33 out of 100 voters, they still lose the general election nearly every time. Even if the district slants 60/40 to the right. They still lose 40/33 to the left. But if they run in the Republican primary, they win 33/27 in a two-way race even if they get no other support at all. They then go on to win the general election 60/40. With good qualified candidates, they will often be able to win with much lower support in less favorable districts.
And if they do that at every level of government, they have quite a significant representation at the federal level, in a large fraction of the states, and many local governments. And now they have credibility, influence, and start getting real results.
And the Republican party starts to stand more for what we would like than they currently do. They have no choice. They need to get a majority to move legislation, and that means concessions to the libertarians. And when the results are positive, they get more support and its not just a fad that independent freedom loving young people go through in their youth before realizing it is a dead end.