American Politics Journal -- Why Republicans and Democrats Don't Need to Worry About Libertarians

American Politics Journal

Why Republicans and Democrats Don't Need to Worry About Libertarians
It turns out they have ethics issues, too
By Melinda Pillsbury Foster

Feb. 24, 2002 (APJP) -- The Grinch Who Stole Congress, standing over seven feet in height, fuzzy and green, greeted convention attendees as they registered for the President's Day convention of the Libertarian Party of California. No one explained why Libertarians, anti-tax and anti-regulation, at least rhetorically, would object to the Grinch making off with Congress.

As the Grinch pressed the flesh so did three candidates for National Chair with very different agendas.

Libertarians are a lot more like Republicans and Democrats that you would have imagined, and as different.

The privatization of Social Security touted by President George Bush this past election cycle was the brain child of CATO Institute, a Libertarian think-tank located in Washington D.C. The very word privatization, was coined by Robert Poole, founder and president of Reason Foundation, located in Los Angeles. He is also a Libertarian.

Much of the political policy now surfacing in both Congress and state legislatures comes from Libertarian sources. That is the success of the party.

But that is far from the whole story.

Libertarians, who have no power and push to sell should be immune to the temptations that accompany power, right?

Wrong. The issue of their Chair's race is, surprise, ethics -- or the lack of it.

First, allow an insider to clarify a few things. The Libertarian Party is not, despite the name and the occasional association with 'candidates,' a political party. It is a membership organization, a discussion club whose members like reading about just how good it is going to be. Like the virgin, eight times widowed, Libertarians are used to being lied to about the main event, in this case campaigns and candidates.

But they continue to send in their checks. They might know it is just entertainment, but one of the candidates for Chair says they are being intentionally cheated

Does this concern Libertarians? Yes. That is why the Chair's race is hot.

Two of the candidates for Chair are from Massachusetts. The other is the present Chairman in Texas.

This reporter interviewed the chairman of the Libertarian Party of Massachusetts, Elias Israel, when he was attending the California convention to promote his candidacy. When asked about campaigns that he thought were significant Eli cited precisely two, both in his state. The candidates to watch, according to Israel, are Carla Howell and Michael Cloud, also known as Michael Emerling. These races, the chairman opined, were the stuff that changes minds, law, and the world.

Carla Howell is the candidate for Governor in Massachusetts. She is also promoting an anti-tax initiative in that state. She has been touted as frontrunner for the Libertarian presidential nomination in 2004 for two years now. Hers is the premier campaign for the entire Libertarian Party, according both to Chairman Israel and the National Newsletter. The pages are filled with the smiling images of Howell along with copy touting her candidacy. But it is widely whispered that she laundered funds through the LP National Committee. The treasurer of National resigned recently and changed his registration but refuses to comment.

Also there, and growing in presence, is Michael Cloud. The two have a lot in common. They obviously use the same photographer and both live in the same house, just outside Boston proper. Each has raised around $60,000 for their respective races in the last few months according to the FEC reports, and most of the funds come from outside the State, raised through direct mail and telephone solicitation from party membership with astonishingly high turnover and therefore little memory of promises made in the recent past. Like most Libertarians, Carla and Michael are uninvolved and relatively unknown in their own state.

By no real world measure are they 'real' candidates.

Howell runs on the theme "Small Government is Beautiful," a motto she copyrighted. Michael Emerling Cloud runs on the theme of "Personal Responsibility is the Price of Liberty" -- a curious choice for someone who declared personal bankruptcy on fellow Libertarians who loaned money to assist him in starting his workshops in political persuasion and is known for his outstanding lack of even a nodding acquaintance with personal responsibility.

Is this a Ponzi scheme, or does it just look like one?

So George Phillies, the nerdy professor from Worcester, runs on a platform of reform. He means it but is often lonely. Eli runs on selling Howell and Cloud as the Great White Hope for Freedom. He is polished and persuasive and reminds the listener of Cloud. Jeff Neale, the candidate from Texas, just runs.

Republicans and Democrats need not worry about Libertarians. It is unlikely that George will be able to change anything. But it is nice to know that minor parties are not immune from the frailties of human absurdity.