Libertarians Don't Cost Republicans Races

It's time, once again, for an anarchist to explain politics. This time around I find myself having to explain the fact that the Republican Party is solely responsible for its own failures. For being a party that claims to advocate personal responsibility, the Republican Party and its supporters spend a lot of time blaming others for their failures. Articles like this have been circulating the web since last night. Through various methods of twisting logic the Republicans are trying to blame the libertarians for the Democrats' victory in Virgina. The linked article points out that the Libertarian Political Action Committee admitted that it probably wouldn't have gotten the Libertarian Party candidate on the ballot if it wasn't for a donation from a large Democratic Party supporter. This excuse misses an important point: the Republican candidate failed to gain enough support from libertarians to convince them to vote for him.

Since the concept seems alien to some let me explain how ballots work. A ballot has a list of names. You make a mark next to the name of the candidate you want to win or the candidate who has the best chance against the one you want to lose. Pretty simple, isn't it? This brings us to the next point. If you want to win an election you have to convince people to put a mark next to your name. There are many ways to do this. Most candidates promise voters free shit or promise to take previously given free shit away from people. Those aren't the only methods though. People can be convinced to vote for a charismatic candidate or, in rare cases, a candidate who practices what he preaches.

The point is, Republicans have failed to provide a candidate that can successfully do any of these. It's as simple as that. For some reason the Republican Party has decided to run candidates that say really stupid shit, attempt to appeal to the middle by holding no principled positions, and attempt to appeal to the religious zealots by beating the social issues drum. I think the continuous defeats of Republican Party candidates speaks for the stupidity of these tactics.

If the Republican Party wants to win elections is needs to do one thing: stop sucking. That's it. If it fields candidates that people actually like then it won't matter who the Libertarian Party puts forward. Most people who vote for Libertarian Party candidates know that that candidate isn't going to win. But those voters hate both the Republican and Democratic candidate so much that they're willing to cast a vote for a person who they know won't win. And it's not a case that a person who votes Libertarian would have otherwise voted Republican. Since the Libertarian Party is, effectively, a party that is fiscally conservative and socially liberal it appeals to people on both sides of the aisle. That means many people who vote for the Libertarian candidate may have voted for the Democratic candidate if the Libertarian Party didn't get on the ballot.

For those of you blaming the Libertarian Party for the failures of the Republican Party I have this to say: pull your heads out of your asses and stop trying to lay the blame on somebody else. If the Republican Party didn't fuck up so much people may actually support it.