Steve Trinward
Contributing Editor
Who are we trying to elect?
A critique of the "electability" political
model
I'm going to begin this column, which I hope will find its own niche over time, with a statement many people will find heretical:
The Libertarian Party should stop trying to find people who can eventually win statewide and national elections, and focus instead on impacting and changing local and state laws.
There, I've said it! Bring on the tar and feathers, put me in the stocks, whatever … But bear with me for a while. This has taken some thought …
Let's begin with a look at the average libertarian, if such can be defined. (What the heck? If you'll buy the premise …)
First, we have someone who, almost by definition, would probably put a desire for making rules for how other people should behave at the very BOTTOM of his or her preference list. The primary concern of most libertarians I know is how to maximize control over their own lives!
Next, the mere thought of withholding an opinion -- on pretty much any topic -- is probably the farthest thing from this person's mind, under most conditions. Most of us are convinced we've discovered the 'one true path' to peaceful and productive human society endeavor, and it galls the hell out of us to meet up with someone who is too 'unenlightened' to realize this. Letting that potential convert go about his or her business while still deluded by the statists … is just not acceptable.
Finally, we have a general personality type which is, perhaps not anti-social, but certainly tending toward a preference for individual pursuits, solitude and a sort of benign neglect. We'd frankly rather be hanging out with our friends and families, than wrangling over some bond issue or legislative boondoggle. We consider focusing on groupthink, or community involvement of any kind, as generally only useful when there is a specific goal at hand; once that goal has been attained, the alliance is history (except perhaps for a good victory party?).
Okay. Now let's consider what it takes to become a serious and viable candidate for public office, under the current structure and conditions of electoral politics:
To become truly effective, and "electable" at the Congressional or Gubernatorial level (according to the current wisdom), you must first be willing to run for, and attain, a series of public offices, over a period of many years. This implies a pretty serious commitment to THAT purpose -- realistically, it must be a career pursuit! (Note: I discard the notion that someone who is merely a respected local businessperson can spring onto the national or even statewide scene, without having done some kind of work in the political trenches. Even the exceptions to the rule only do so with the full blessing of the local Republicant or Demoncratic machinery.)
In other words, instead of focusing on something more palatable (or honorable, if one truly values personal autonomy, and eschews authoritarian control over the affairs of others) and productive, one must learn to speak in sound-bites, to debate without arguing, to take positions tenuously (so you don't alienate those who may not have reached your elevated state of reason yet) … In short, one must learn how to work within the existing tight constraints of present-day party political action.
Next, you must be willing to "play politics" with people who are at best seriously misguided, and at worst willing accomplices in a corrupt and venal system of powermongering, while managing to keep your cool, and not call them what may be on the tip of the tongue … for fear of losing the fence-sitters from the final vote tally. (Given how much of the electorate is really not committed in FAVOR of a particular candidate, but is usually waiting to see which one they DON'T want in office, this is especially important.)
As Tom Knapp noted in a recent e-list posting, "People get elected to Congress by having good name recognition in their districts … by building a record both with the public and with their party of getting things done ((the right things, in the opinion of the public and their party) … by building political organizations that provide a framework of support (signs in yards, workers at the polls, walkers in the precincts) which can make them a "household name" or at least a name which is remembered positively in the voting booth. … [and] by raising sufficient funds to advertise their candidacy to the electorate and, likewise, gain them good remembrance in the voting booth.…Dick Gephardt wasn't BORN the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives. He started his career of political office with three years as a precinct committeeman for the Democratic Party in St. Louis, then spent five years as a St. Louis alderman before running for Congress.
"We have to do the work if we want to get the paycheck. That work means walking precincts, speaking cogently and reasonably on issues, electing local and lower-level officeholders, establishing a record of good conduct in office, building a network of activists, building and maintaining a reservoir of firm public support and using that reservoir to push our candidates into higher and higher office. … Nobody said it was going to be easy."
No, nobody did say that … But then, nobody said this was the only way to effect political change in a society, either.
Okay, now put our "typical" libertarian in this context. Most libertarians do not by nature enjoy the civic organizational involvement it takes to develop a reputation with those likely to come out and help in an election effort. No, they'd rather be home cleaning their guns, or writing their treatises, or chatting on discussion e-lists, or ... anything else!
Even those of us with a stronger social conscience would rather be doing either front-line rabble rousing, or behind the scenes brainstorming -- not sitting through evenings of boring silly council meetings, speaking only when the time is right, playing the game of local politics … and then running for office, and running for another office, and establishing the model-citizen level of involvement expected of ... an electable politician!
Meanwhile, even while holding strictly to libertarian roots, and taking pains to present only the purest of pro-liberty positions, we must resist the urge to verbally tear the opponent "a new one" or otherwise upset the public peace, in order to keep from losing the vast bulk of voters whose "apathy" may only be overcome on Election Day.
The question then is: Why would a libertarian want to go through all of that stuff? Better yet, How does a person, willing to go through all of that, still remain committed to Liberty?
Awareness of this paradox informed the LP very strongly in its early days. The expectation then was not that we would elect a lot of Libertarians, but that we would get our ideas adopted and co-opted by the Demopubs (one wing or the other), and greater Liberty would somehow result.
Michael Doughty, another regular on the LP discussion lists, recently put it this way:
"How many political parties have been able to elect a Federal officials in 30 years? What usually happens is the following: (1) A political party appears in protest to some issue or issues; (2) Said political party grows increasingly, gaining ground; (3) One of the two major political parties feels threatened by the new party's success, and starts to preach their line of reasoning, even if only temporarily; (4) The third party stops growing so quickly and/or disappears.…This happened in the cases of the Anti-Mason Party, the Prohibition Party and the Socialist Party, and has actually happened twice with the Libertarian Party."
He cited both (a) the "Reagan revolution," which promoted libertarian-leaning Republicans, including a few folks who were even LP activists in the party's formative years, and which led to the promotion of Alan Greenspan from Randist acolyte to Federal Reserve chairman; and (b) the recent declaration of war by the Republican Liberty Caucus, against the Libertarian Party candidates who helped defeat two GOP Senate hopefuls and thsu shift the balance of power back to the Democrats. In both cases, Libertarians played a significant role in the subtle shifts of the power-base; in both cases, the major parties have had to take a new look at their priorities.
What he and others holding this position may have forgotten is this: Other political factions, with less clarity or conscience, can steal our rhetoric and then carry on with business as usual. In many ways, this was the case with the Reagan revolution, and even more pointedly with the Republican Party's ten-point program in 1974: it sounded very pro-liberty on the surface, but once they got to passing any of it, it was watered down and edited out until it bore no resemblance to the original, and even became the basis for further interventions into our lives and property.
We must always bear in mind this simple fact: The Socialists had a platform that was perfectly congruent with the pork-barrel and the kickback, the status quo of lobbyists and imperial decrees. Our own idea(l)s about Liberty and individual sovereignty are not actually going to be adopted by people for whom holding political power and authority over others is a goal and a basic purpose in their lives.
About 20 years ago, Wendy McElroy wrote a treatise entitled, "Climbing Off The Bandwagon," in which she introduced the concept of Voluntaryism, declaring that "politics will not bring freedom any more than violence will bring peace." She also noted that "Two politicians, one of whom is an anarchist, have more in common that two anarchists, one of whom is a politician." I would even go so far as to change "anarchist" to "libertarian" in its truest sense; either way, she was clearly ahead of her time in these observations, which loom ever-more appropriate in today's political morass.
Some of us still have yet to learn this lesson -- and are still trying to "be like Mike," instead of either (a) building from the bottom and changing the culture with hardcore and grassroots radical candidate campaigns; or (b) using the non-electoral side of political activism, to change the culture with hardcore and grassroots radical issue campaigns. It's taken me 30 years to finally start figuring it out; I'm not surprised newer acolytes to the faith are still puzzled.
I admit that, given the almost two centuries of disfavor in which the concept of "citizen statesman" has resided, and given the fact that the only folks who vote at this point are those who are either: (a) still deluded that it makes a difference to keep the WORST person out of office; or (b) affirming their own integrity, by voting only FOR candidates they support, and blanking the rest of the sheet, just so they can look at their own mirrors every morning ... this is probably our only recourse in the electoral arena. The question remains, is that the only political venue we have available? What if there is indeed a better way to affect the society around us, and move it toward a more libertarian position?
I do believe there is a place for Libertarians running as candidates. The forum provided by an electoral race is not usually present when we are just trying to make the public aware of our positions; that soap box is much more in the public eye when there is a declared candidate perched atop it. Moreover, the repetitious running of candidates, year after year, begins to push against the perception that we are just another fringe-group; each time we go around, there is a little more credibility in the effort. But if that effort has as its primary goal the election of those candidates, instead of the advancement of the principles and actions of liberty, I believe we are wasting our time and effort, as well as expecting "square peg" libertarians to fit into the "round holes" of conventional politics.
I fully believe in the concept of "citizen statesman" whereby elected office is held by people with no desire to make a career of it. In the present context, this is next to impossible to achieve, given all that must be endured in order to achieve such elected office. This might be why I am (1) strongly in favor of term limits; (2) very skeptical of anyone carrying the Libertarian label who says (s)he's going to "win" the race ahead -- for any office that is worth holding; and (3) firmly convinced that the road to Liberty is paved with the cobblestones of citizen involvement, initiative petitions and grassroots activism. None of these require "viable" candidates in order to work.
