From: mohr@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Gordon Mohr)
Subject: Elected libertarians & the Republican Liberty Caucus
Organization: University of California, at Berkeley
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 02:41:23 GMT

In article <1992Nov13.205833.12319@bnlux1.bnl.gov> bam@bnlux1.bnl.gov (Bruce A. Martin) writes:
>
>Another question:  did any other libertarians win?  Answer:  YES!
>                                 ^     
>				 [No caps.  Refers to philosophy.]
>
>A recent article said that, in addition to the four Libertarian Party
>candidates elected in New Hampshire, there were libertarians elected to 
>state legislatures in at least five other states!
>
>No, these five (or more) libertarians did not run as Libertarian Party
>candidates.  However, it is still a plus that there will be at least
>five more friends of liberty in these legislative bodies.
>
>These elected libertarians ran as Republican candidates, which certainly
>does not help strengthen the LP.  Personally, I disagree with the strategy 
>of the so-called "Republican Liberty Caucus" which sponsored them.  
>However, that's a matter of TACTICS -- not a disagreement about PRINCIPLES.
>Notwithstanding any criticism of their strategy and tactics, it is still
>better to have these libertarians elected than to be governed by the usual
>gang of unprincipled statists.

>If we consider ourselves the "party of principle", isn't it about time we
>started paying more attention to the principles espoused by candidates than
>to their party affiliation?

Absolutely! And it is good to see a Libertarian who disagrees with the
Republican strategy still happy about its successes.

[On libernet, a libertarian mailing list, the GOP strategy has been called
"selling out", "disgusting", and people have echoed the sentiment "I'd 
rather have my brains blown out than work in GOP".]

I hope libertarians of all stripes will give the Republican Liberty
Caucus a fair hearing, given the above results and other similar results
likely in the future. After only two years of existence, the RLC's 
successes match (or surpass) those of the 20-year-old LP. 


>bam@bnl.gov (Bruce A. Martin)        BAM    [My opinions belong to me only,
>Master of the Tripods of Hephaestus. ~~~    and they represent no one else.]

>P.S.  Here's a different, but related idea I've been trying to promote:
>
>  Instead of keeping silent until we actually have candidates on ballot,
>  I'd like to see the LP begin RATING officeholders and candidates of ALL
>  parties -- perhaps on an adapted Nolan chart, using selected issues where
>  they have taken a stand.  

Excellent idea. In fact, the RLC already does this, once a year, for all 
sitting U.S. Representatives and Senators. The results are plotted on
a two-axis Nolan scale. Although state-level RLCs are encouraged to do the
same for state officials, I don't know how many of them are currently
doing so.

A shortcut for achieving the same results, for less work, would be to
take the ratings of appropriately chosen other groups. For instance,
the Competitive Enterprise Institute focuses only on economic issues,
is almost wholly libertarian, and publishes rating of Congressmen. The
ACLU, similarly, publishes a civil-liberties rating which would probably
provide a good social libertarian axis. (Although the ACLU rating doesn't
include gun rights, and may include peripheral issues like art funding
restrictions)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.marrou,alt.politics.libertarian