Conventional wisdom holds that a vote for Harry Browne is a wasted vote because we know the White House will be occupied by one of the two major parties. Smaller government is politically impractical at the moment and a vote for Browne, we are told, is a vote for Gore. We must support Bush. We must settle for smaller increases.
Libertarians do exist in both major parties.
In fact, libertarians and centrists are distributed equally among the Democratic and Republican parties according to a Portrait of America telephone survey. The poll also indicates that more people hold libertarian views than those who are either liberal or conservative. Support also comes from a recent Los Angeles Times poll suggesting that, by about two to one, likely voters prefer smaller government and fewer services. But in 1994 we overwhelmingly elected Republicans to Congress on promises of reduced spending, and program elimination. According to a Cato Institute study by Stephen Moore and Stephen Slivinski, our heroes failed to deliver on these promises.