Writing at TechCentralStation, Pejman Yousefzadeh questions
whether the existence of a separate Libertarian Party has
diminished the influence libertarians might otherwise have on both
Republicans and Democratic. He acknowledges that "when it comes to
elections, the Libertarian Party is at best a marginal contender,"
but given how evenly divided the electorate is, a possible strategy
might be:
to augment the influence of libertarians in public policy; invite Democrats and Republicans to bid for libertarian support with policy concessions to libertarians in exchange for libertarian votes. That way, libertarians could influence policy and serve as kingmakers for whichever party did the best job of attracting libertarian support on substantive policy issues.
It has long seemed to me that the religious right became a major
player precisely bcause it didn't form its own party and
run candidates sure to lose. Of course, the "kingmaker" strategy
assumes there are enough libertarian-leaners to make a difference,
but I suspect a lot of voters are "small 'l'" libertarians (or at
least "neolibertarians")
without labeling themselves - favoring government limited as much
as is practically possible to its core mission of defending life,
liberty and property (in Locke's phrase) and relying on freely made
transactions within a dynamic civil society to provide the
rest.