To:\u00a0 Principled Libertarians
\nFrom:\u00a0 Mitch Berg, Uppity “Establishment” Tea Party Peasant
\nRe:\u00a0 Bamboozled<\/p>\n
My Libertarian Friends,<\/p>\n
I\u00a0likely agree with you all on more than we disagree.\u00a0 Some of you like to focus on the disagreements, which makes for fun rhetoric, but whatever; I would call myself a constitutional limited government conservative.\u00a0 The battle to limit the power of government is a long, uphill slog – against the gleefully statist Democrats, and against a GOP establishment that has plenty of constituents that benefit from the Big State, as well as a crucially large Tea Party faction that is quite the opposite.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whatever.\u00a0 It’s a marathon, not a sprint.<\/p>\n
Anyway.<\/p>\n
Now, one of you folks’s signature lines is that you’d rather be irrelevant at the polls than violate your principles.<\/p>\n
And generally – and I say this with all due respect – Libertarians achieve that wish with flying colors.\u00a0 Their irrelevance at the polls is legendary; most LP candidates are doing well to poll in full single digits – to the left of the decimal point, anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And the big “Ron Paul” takeover of the Minnesota GOP has had mixed results.\u00a0 Some districts\u00a0– like my SD65 – saw excellent efforts by solid candidates that turned out lots of new GOP voters.\u00a0 Others – the 5th CD – turned out more like frat party gags gone awry, run by people who chuckle amongst themselves about the contempt they feel for the GOP and Republicans.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As a general rule, Libertarians (with the Big L) are happy to remain magnificently above the scrums of daily life, gazing down on all the silly worker ants\u00a0and\u00a0their door-knocking and sign-pounding, focusing on big thoughts and dreaming of the utopia we’ll all share (from our neutral corners) once\u00a0 you get those damn brainwashed sheeple to see the light.\u00a0<\/p>\n
All is in its place, right?<\/p>\n
So for the Virginia Libertarian Party, it must have seemed like Free Pot and Raw Milk day; someone gave them actual money to run a campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n