http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,146%257E237339,00.html


Will Libertarians bolt The Stupid Party?

By Bob Ewegen


Saturday, November 24, 2001 - ast week's column detailing the Libertarian
Party's new majority on the Leadville City Council caromed around the Internet
and brought a cascade of intelligent, and often delightful, responses from
readers.

A Libertarian Leadville is a significant historical event, as well as a triumph
for alliteration. There are currently 270 Libertarians in public office in the
United States. But except for a brief tenure in Big Water, Utah, a hamlet of 230
people, Leadville marks the first time Libertarians have won outright control of
a governmental body in the U.S.

That's a significant landmark for Libertarians, who have quietly become
America's best organized and most significant third party. They have a strong
enough presence nationally to qualify for taxpayer funding of their presidential tickets. They also have enough integrity to turn down those "federal" dollars
rather than joining the rush to the political hog trough. That's because they
believe strongly that there is no such thing as "federal" money, only your money
taken without your consent. Libertarian candidates will happily accept your
voluntary contributions but scorn the notion of sharing in the exactions taken
from you by force.

Unlike flash-in-the-pan parties organized around cults of personality like Ross
Perot's and Ralph Nader's, Libertarians have organized at the grass roots for
the long haul. In the last election, Libertarians fielded 75 candidates for the
84 seats up in the Colorado Legislature - often providing the only alternative
to the Demol-ican or Repubocrat parties in the 21 districts where one or the
other of the major parties didn't field a candidate. One Libertarian, Steven
Lee, even captured the endorsement of the supposedly liberal Denver Post in
Senate District 26.

Libertarians are a long way from replicating their Leadville success on a
national scale. But they are fast approaching the point where they may force the
major parties to reckon with Libertarian ideas - as Democrats did in the 1930s
by coopting such Socialist planks as Social Security. Their Leadville success
shows Libertarians may have already reached that point in Colorado, where the
national party was born in 1971.

In the 1998 election, Republican Bill Owens won the governorship over Democrat
Gail Schoettler by just 7,928 votes. The main reason for that photo finish in a
state where registered Republicans outnumbered Democrats by about 150,000 voters
was the superbly managed campaign Mary Alice Mandarich mounted on Schoettler's
behalf. But it's worth noting that Libertarian candidate Sandra Johnson received
22,159 votes - nearly triple Owens' victory margin. A few more defections from
the GOP to the Libertarians would have elected Schoettler.

The growing Libertarian presence may spell problems for the Republican Party if
it can't wean itself away from the religious right's insistence on sticking its
nose into our private lives the way Democrats intrude in our economic affairs.

One Republican friend with Libertarian leanings moans: "There are two parties -
The Evil Party and The Stupid Party. We belong to The Stupid Party."

To Libertarians, the Democratic Party's fealty to the Marxist principle "from
each according to his ability, to each according to his need" truly is evil.

But Libertarians are equally appalled by Republican efforts to dictate what goes
on in your bedroom, your choice of intoxicants or even the manner of your death.

San Miguel County Coroner Robert Dempsey recently switched to the Libertarian
Party to protest U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's assault on the Oregon
"Death with Dignity" law - a measure twice approved by that state's voters.

I called Dempsey to discuss his switch.

"Ashcroft's action was the final straw. I've been a Republican all my my life,
believing in less government and more freedom. I was on the San Miguel County
Republican Party Central Committee for 15 years. But the religious right has
taken over the Republican Party, putting in more laws to take away your
freedom," Dempsey said.

"Here are the Republicans pushing for state's rights - and trying to take them
away in Oregon. I want less government spending, more freedom. I could never
join the Democrats, they are controlled by socialist ideas. But I've had it with
the Republicans and their hypocrisy."

Those are strong words and constitute a strong warning to The Stupid Party. If
the GOP doesn't wise up and back off its assault on personal freedom, its
influential small "l" libertarian wing may desert to its uppercased namesake.

Bob Ewegen is deputy editorial page editor of The Denver Post. He has written on
state and local government since 1963. E-mail him at: [email protected]