The Libertarians have come up with an intriguing, clever, and sort of odious tactic toward achieving some significant political power in the nation. This tactic is, in a word, invasion. Well, they call it the Free State project, and the link, for further information, is given at the end of this post.

Federal funding for political campaigns is based on something Stephen can probably be more specific about, but it has to do with how many votes you get where. Part of the reason we've got a two-party lock on the U.S. government is that these smaller parties don't have the resources for advertising, because they don't have the votes, because they don't have the resources, etc.

Anyway, hardcore Libertarians came up with an idea of picking a state and encouraging Libertarians to *move* there, thereby concentrating their numbers in one place, thereby increasing the odds of some Libertarians being elected to local offices, where they can put some of their ideas in place. Meanwhile, the increased percentage of Libertarian voters in that state will earn them some monetary support for national elections. Or something like that. There are more hardcore political junkies here than I am that can speak of this more exactly than I can.

Anyway, they want to have 20,000 people signed up in order for this to work, and they've only got about a quarter of that, so it may not happen. However, within the past couple days, they have made a decision on a state. That state is New Hampshire.

My first thought is, ok, there are 1.3 million people in New Hampshire. 20,000 people would account for roughly 1.5% of the population. With about 40% of those 1.3 million voting, that's still less than 5%. By contrast, Wyoming, the least populous state in the country, has 400,000 people, where 20,000 would be 5% of the population and something like 13% of voters.

But the more I think about this, the more my feelings about the project become personal, rather than a mere dispassionate interest in the logic or politics of it. I've always liked the Libertarian party while remaining apprehensive about it. I like a lot of their ideas but find them either impractical to implement or scary in their extremes. But the more I learn about the Free State Project, the less I like them.

(1) New Hampshire does not have the state pride of, say, Texas, but it's up there. I suppose most are ambivalent, but there are a fair amount, especially in the northern half, that are *proud* not to be mired in the taxes and bureaucracy of Massachusetts or the weird activism of Vermont. New Hampshire could have just as much a maple syrup industry as Maine or Vermont does, but we're just as glad to slough off the bulk of the tourists.

Even were this not true, the point of state and other local governments is to serve people with different or more specific needs, ideas, and desires than that of the population at large. By rights, the elected officials of local governments should be that of the people who live in New Hampshire and have a vested interest in how it is run. This is not to say that someone who moves to New Hampshire should be granted lesser representation than someone who grew up in it, but if you're moving to New Hampshire purely for the reason of commandeering its government for use as a stepping stone toward a higher goal, uh, thanks but no thanks.

The most whacked part about it all is that no party claims to understand and appreciate the importance of local governments serving local needs more than Libertarians themselves. Were they to have their way, the federal government would have a lot less power than it does, state governments would have more, and smaller governments even more than that. On this point, I am wholeheartedly with them. But do these means jive with those ideals?

(2) In light of the above, New Hampshire is one of the dumbest choices ever for this project. There is no area of the United States less warm to "outsiders" than New England. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying there is this mass prejudice or coldness toward tourists. Certainly there are all kinds, but my experience hasn't been that New Englanders are colder toward "outsiders" than they are toward anybody else. HOWEVER, a political invasion from outsiders interested in using the place as a stepping stone to power could not possibly be more staunchly resisted than it would be here.

(3) Continuing that thought, I have to figure a lot of the reason behind the choice of New Hampshire has a lot to do with public perception rather than practical realities. We do stuff first: the primaries start here, and the first votes in national elections get cast here (at the very place Leen and I honeymooned, actually). Moreover, we have the motto "Live Free Or Die," which, if it does not embody Libertarian ideals, nothing does. But despite the bold motto and the fact that a large portion of the population *is* pretty darned resentful of freedom-restricting legislation, we're not mavericks. We don't go around with six-shooters and figure we'll change the world by telling big governments and their taxes and their helmet laws to shove it.

What I'm trying to say is that our state image and motto and so forth fit its population, but not in the way I suspect Libertarians are counting on.

(4) Should the Free State Project happen and work, and somehow we get a viable new party in our government system, I would still resent the use of New Hampshire (or any single state, really) to accomplish that, but it might be a good thing. But what I think incredibly more likely is that that 5% increase of Libertarians would do nothing more than shave off some conservative votes from the Republican Party and level out the playing field with the Democrats, which are regularly outnumbered here. That can't be good for Libertarian goals, and it can't be good for the Libertarian party either, as it would only increase resentment toward it for invading in the first place.

Of course, at this point it's not even a given that any of this will happen. They need another 14,500 people to agree to participate, first. But that just leads me to more lines of reasoning. Who, other than a professional politician or campaign manager, cares enough about a particular political party to MOVE to a particular place, all to further a party's political goals? Hey, I have pretty strong political feelings, but there's no way on earth I'd make large personal lifestyle decisions based on them. Most of my political beliefs have to do with how government can stay out of my way in the first place, not shape my life. What kind of nutjobs believe strongly enough in Libertarianism to sign up for this thing?

"Libertarians, that's who," is the answer that echoes in my head.