MCViewPoint

by Walter E. Block 

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/why-the-gop-should-be-nicer-to-the-lp/

Full disclosure: I have been a member of the Libertarian Party ever since 1969 when I ran for New York State Assembly, two years before the creation of the national party in 1971. But I hold no office with them and cannot speak for them.

Marc Victor is not going to win the 2022 senatorial campaign in Arizona. The best prognostications are that he’ll only garner some 15% of the vote! So why write about him? Simple: he is neither a Democrat nor a Republican, but a third party Libertarian candidate poised to “ruin” yet another election, at least from the perspective of the latter.

Needless to say, every single election for senator this coming November is crucial. Each and every one of them without exception. The entire U.S. Senate is now on a razor’s edge, with our vice president, whose name escapes me for the moment, breaking tie votes. The next allocation between the elephants and the donkeys might well be just as close. The election in Arizona is particularly important, since without Mr. Victor, a former Marine, in the race, it would be almost a dead heat between Republican Blake Masters (backed by The Donald) and Mark Kelly, the Democratic incumbent.

Last week the three of them went head to head to head in a debate. You read that right; typically, the two major parties are able—who says cooperation across the aisle is a dead letter in today’s hyper nasty times?—to prevent any such occurrence, but this time Mr. Victor snuck in amongst his supposed betters. This Libertarian candidate must have done well, at least in the eyes of the voters, since before the debate he was polling at 6% of the electorate but has recently moved up to 15%.

There is now much wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst Republicans. It is much exacerbated since Shane Hazel (another former member of the U.S. Marine Corps—is something going on here that we don’t know about?) pulled off a similar feat in the election of 2020 which vaulted Democrat Jon Ossoff into that august body instead of Republican David Perdue, who almost certainly would have otherwise won.

Then there is the fact that Jo Jorgensen, the Libertarian Party’s candidate for president in 2020, reaped more votes than separated Biden’s and Trump’s totals in several very competitive states.

In the view of conservative commentator Edward Ring, the LP should disband. He states, “Siphoning off voters from the side that’s fighting the hardest to preserve individual liberty and economic freedom is not principled. It is nihilism.”

See the rest here

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