The Libertarians' only hope

As a former card-carrying Libertarian, I agree with much of the party's platform. No other political entity is closer to my personal belief system than the Libertarians, but I have never voted for one. They won't win big. They can't win big. Here are the drastic, and perhaps to them, unconscionable, measures they need to even the deck, and how this will win them a lot of new supporters, even while losing some current ones.

Since it's difficult to design a political system for people who loathe political systems, being a Libertarian is tougher to manage than most other political philosophies. Like a group called "Humans Against Heartbeats," to some in the party, its very existence tends to contradict its own cause. In this form of government, trying to change the entire system will usually require some help from within the existing system. The best way to do this would be to disguise themselves as members of the existing system, but Libertarian philosophy precludes this.

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It takes big bucks to run for political office. Huge and often obscene amounts of money are poured into the coffers of candidates, much of it to cover media expenses, which is, and will continue to be, the best tool for any candidate to use to get his or her message across. As long as the Libertarians refuse to take part in the current system to get the money to put themselves in a position to change it back to the system the founders intended, they'll have no say whatsoever. Either way, they'll always be faced with the same two unattractive choices – irrelevance or hypocrisy.

The best way for Libertarian candidates to get in a position to obtain a high elected office in our current system would be to climb inside a "Trojan Horse" of sorts and infiltrate one of the major parties. As long as most Libertarians refuse to do this based on "principle," they'll remain as consistently overlooked as a rice cake in Ted Kennedy's pantry. They'll be forever sitting on an airport runway, refusing to get on a 747 because they're convinced they can build their own out of some two-by-fours, glue, mason blocks and the motor from a weedwacker.

Raising money requires sucking up to people and corporations, and making promises you know you'll never be able to keep. Libertarian candidates, in the recognition that this is often a corrupt and unconstitutional way to run the government, refuse (correctly) to take part in doing business that way. This is why a Libertarian will never be elected to a major national office. The refusal to collectively stow away on the S.S. Status Quo and then once as sea, take over, condemns them forever to a life of 8 p.m. meetings in backrooms of Denny's restaurants across the country.

Another reason Libertarians have trouble getting elected to a major office is the constant discussions concerning the drug issue. Every party has its single-issue voters. The Republicans and Democrats have voters who will choose a candidate based only on his or her stance on abortion, taxes, school vouchers or immigration. I have no hard data on this, but I would wager that the Libertarian party has the most single-issue voters of any party – that issue is the legalization of drugs.

I went to a Libertarian Party meeting once, and the majority of the group consisted of highly educated, philosophically sound individuals using only the words of the Constitution as their guide. Then three un-wise men who appeared to have been following a star (that star being Bob Marley) for quite some time, walked in. They were hophead magi who smelled like Willie Nelson's laundry hamper and demonstrated another reason why the Libertarian Party will never get further than playing Fantasy League politics.

If a Libertarian convention were ever to be covered nationally, much of the media focus would be on the drug issue and the many hundreds of hemp hounds that The Three Unwise Men would undoubtedly bring with them. Media coverage would turn it into nothing more than "Cheech & Chong Go To Washington." Every potential voter outside the mailing list for "High Times" magazine would be lost forever.

Major media exposure is a must to be elected. The Libertarians must hitchhike on another party's heavily financed bandwagon and keep the uncontrollably giggling doobie constituency out of the way by giving them a free place to crash, tickets to a "Laser Zeppelin" show and all the Doritos they can eat.

If Libertarians refuse to do this, they'll be forever doomed to heated yet futile discussion at a Moose Lodge somewhere while the two-party machine continues on abetting the extinction of the constitution.