I'm not sure Ron Paul is out. He's always been a Republican and it hasn't stopped him from running before -- and by no means is he a fan of Bush.

I don't know, I've looked over the congressional results (all but 3 states-Massachusetts, Ohio and West Virginia- have official results up now), and the reality is is that in most states the libertarian party is pretty fringe. By far the most votes they get are in districts where either the Democrats or Republicans did not run. You'll see a Libertarian getting 2,000-4,000 votes at most, and then 20,000 votes in a district with only 1 major party candidate.

This might also account for much of the higher than normal 3rd party vote in Senate and Governer races. Don't forget in 3 Senate races, one of the two parties didn't run. In congressional races, the 3rd parties received about 3% of the vote.

Well, the non-competitive districts that show high than otherwise Libertarian totals would be a supportive outcome. If the race isn't competitive, then voters are free to show their real likings, and if they are going Libertarian over Republican, that substantive.

In the races that mattered, there were Libertarians that costed Republicans Governorships, and Senate seats, while no Greens were able to do so.

Adam, if you get into this (3rd-Party conclusions) with some good data, send me an email of it and I'll put it up on the weblog.

Thanks Mydd in regards to posting some of my information, I'm not going to wait too long for those 3 laggards, Ill use unoficial results if they take too long.

In regards to the libertarians, I'm not talking about uncompetitive seats. As far as I can tell, they receive the same number of votes in a safe seat and in a competitive district, I'm talking about a district where there is no Republican or Democrat on the ballot. My guess is, is that in the vast majority of cases people come out to vote for other races and mark the libertarian because they feel they should vote, and don't want to vote for the incumbent. It's the same phenomen no matter which 3rd party, the Greens have the same result as well.

I highly doubt that 19% of the Massachusetts electorate chose to vote for Cloud. I think it's much more plausible that 19% of the electorate cast a vote for "Anybody but Kerry".

I'm just guessing that the surge in the third party vote can be attributed to the high number of non-competitive races this cycle. (A lackluster slate of major party candidates in California probably didn't hurt, either.) Here's a question for someone to research -- were there more incumbents running unopposed in 2000 or in 2002?

If BushCo continues its all-out assault on the Bill of Rights, the Libertarians could definitely see those 2002 numbers go even higher in 2004. Perhaps even enough to cost them electoral votes in western states like Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado.

(them = Republicans, of course)

In regards to Libertarians, I think I found this link on Seeing the Forest back in November:
http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/index.html

What I found fascinating about it was having some of my friends take this and compare where we fell on the Left vs. Right, Authoritarian vs. Libertarian axes. I found out that the fellow I work with, who is a dedicated 2nd amendmentist* and also who has run under the Libertarian ticket for the Oregon state house came out less libertarian (but definitely more right than I am left) than I did.

As an environmentalist, I'm convinced that we need to work with hunters to preserve habitat. Well, as a lefty libertarian, I'm ready and able to match this work with the righty libertarian -- we don't have much choice in this if we want to keep our country from turning into a police state.

* I know that he and I have a lot in common -- it's just that I believe our freedoms are safeguarded mostly by the 1st amendment and he believes you have to have guns in order to safeguard them. (I'm pretty sure that if we need to "overcome the government by force" we'll lose -- we have much more power because we have the ability to express dissent.)

There's an assumption here that's never discussed, same as in Nader 2000 conversations -- who can say that these people, if they didn't have their 3rd party choice, wouldn't have just sat out the election?

I think that a big majority of these voters would have not voted otherwise. These are people who "can't" vote for the establishment. But we need research on this.

Yes, the direction for the Democrats is libertarian, not left.

All I can say about Nader in 2000 is the people I know who voted for him, always vote and would have voted for Gore without Nader in the race. Gore would have received a much higher percent of the vote in WI and MN without Nader.

If I recall correctly, the polls (if they were accurate) said that 60% would vote for Gore, 20% would vote for Bush and 20% wouldn't vote at all.

"Yes, the direction for the Democrats is libertarian, not left. "

No, it has to be both. The Democrats won't stand for anything unless they also include the left side. This is the philosophy that says we (the people) are stronger when all of us are stronger. It is not just about what I can win, but that we all win. As a society, we support and will fund good education for everyone's children, not just our own because that is the only model that will work in the long run.

Mary, you're onto something but to get the MOR voter you need to put it into dollars-and-cents terms, e.g. "A good public education system adds $XXX trillion dollars because it makes a high-quality workforce available." and so on.

I am in agreement with Jim Dallas, for the most part:

"I'm not sure Ron Paul is out. He's always been a Republican and it hasn't stopped him from running before -- and by no means is he a fan of Bush."

I think he did start his political life as a Libertarian though. I used to live in his district and I could swear that he ran unsuccessfully for what was then Greg Laughlin's seat. Then, in the next round, Laughlin switched from Dem to GOP and Paul ran against him in the primary as a Rep and won, then went on to beat the nice, but unfortunately-named "Lefty" Morris. I might be wrong though. I've blocked quite a lot of this traumatic period.

At any rate, Paul is a strange dude and nothing he does surprises me anymore. BUt I will say this to his credit--he believes what he believes most of the time and isn't afraid to put his money where his mouth is. THis has not won him a lot of love from the GOP leadership. I believe that his nickname in Congress is "Dr. No."

Paul was a Libertarian, even in the House, he ran as a Libertarian in 1988 as well.

I would agree that the movement in the Democratic Party is toward libertarian thought; which is strange, because there are signs that the movement in the Libertarian Party is toward enveloping State Rights Dixiecrats, and outlawing immigration.

Wow. I guess that I can see the Libertarian party moving that way -- possibly because a number of them are strong 2nd amendment supporters and also really believe in limited government. I'd say the Cato Institute is certainly more the face of today's self-proclaimed libertarians.

However, I think that the Democratic move to more libertarian thought is due to the intrusive government in our bedrooms, and these days in every aspect of our lifes. I know that I don't like watching the police state edifice that is being constructed now.

On some fronts, there are reasons to be happy that Armey and Barr have decided to join the ACLU and stand up for our constitution. In this battle, we will need to get every ally we can.

As far as I know, the LP's official platform position is for open borders; there may be party members who advocate immigration restrictions, but that's not the party's position, nor have I seen anything that proposes changing the position.

Does anybody have the state legislative results?

for Mydd and anybody else interested, my tally of the 2002 U.S House election results are as follows:

Massachusetts either was there all along or it was just posted today. Ohio is unofficial and West Virginia is from the CNN web site (the first district only had no challenger and was not posted, I don't know if it was on the ballot or not, Florida does not include uncontested races on the ballot. There were 4 Republicans and 2 Democrats in Florida who were elected uncontested.

total votes 73,275,487
Republican 37,390,392 51.0%
Democrat 33,653,254 45.9%
other 2,231,841 3.0%

Ron Paul actually started his service in the congress in the seventies, representing much of what was Tom DeLay old district.

He then left, and then came back to defeat Greg Laughlin who was then Gov. Bush's pick to serve in the 14th district.

He is pretty popular in his district which is bigger than the state of Massachusetts.

I should have put what I was saying in context above, I wasn't talking about the official platform of the Libertarian Party, or the establishment; but a trend I'd noticed of confederate flag wavers voting, or the like, running as candidates in the Libertarian Party.

Overall though, behind Guns, this Homeland Security and Patriot Act gigs are what are driving the Libertarian Party upwards. And choice, pro-choice on schools, drug use, and schools.

Does anybody have the final tally of all votes? I'm debating somebody who is quoting Matthew Dowd asserting that the GOP won 51.9% of total votes. That seems a bit high to me, given how narrow many of the races were and that Democrats did well in some big states.

Greens ran competitive Assembly races, facing both Democrats and Republicans in two districts this cycle... both Jo Chamberlain and Doug Thron got 10% (or more) of the vote. How often have the Libertarians managed this?

The Green slate received 4-6% across the board, statewide, in California - and in a significant chunk of the state, they polled in double digits or better. In Santa Cruz, for example, every candidate except one (who was running against a local favorite son) received well over 10% of the vote... outpolling both Nader and Medea Benjamin (2000 U.S. Senate candidate), and indicating growing support for the Green Party.

I think most of us in the Green Party fully expect a breakthrough candidacy sometime in the next couple of election cycles... either a statewide candidate polling well into the twenties, or a legislative/congressional candidate coming close to (or actually winning) office. The curves from the last three elections show that, at the very least, we can expect to increase our percentages across the board by at least 50%.

"A good public education system adds $XXX trillion dollars because it makes a high-quality workforce available."

Sorry, but the government education system COSTS us at least $100 billion a year MORE than a free market, private educational system would, because government schools spend twice as much per student as private schools (and produce an inferior education besides.)

Would some low-income students be left out, if government schools were closed tomorrow? Not likely, since the many people who care about educating them would have twice as much money left over to help through private charity.

If the Democrats want to win in 2004, they should definitely move toward liberty, cutting federal spending by 5% (they would still have far more pork to hand out than Clinton did), and publicizing the Bush Administration's attacks on individual liberties.