> > but on the points of small, less intrusive government, fiscal responsibility and personal responsibility, they match pretty well. Plus they don't give a crap about gay marriage.
>
> I think once the Libertarian party realizes that even though their ideals are good, changes of the kind they want to make just can't happen as quickly as they want to implement them, they'll have something really solid started.

No. The Republicans or the Democrats will just take their most popular ideas and force the party to move to another extreme in order to garner any support. The entire electoral system has been rigged to prevent third parties from just emerging anymore.

We've had one third party actually oust an established party since the start of the 2-party system, and that was the Republicans -- a party founded around abolishing slavery (note that it didn't lead to a permanent third party because the Whigs disappeared).

About the only way a third party can seriously gain any ground is by picking one hot issue that the other parties won't touch and exploiting it. We also had the American Independent Party in the '60s which was basically founded around maintaining segregation, and they even won a few electoral votes until support for that issue died.

The other somewhat viable third parties since were led by specific people. Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive (Bull-Moose) party in the 1910s got more votes in 1912 than the sitting president, but ultimately died with TR. Ross Perot's Reform Party got 18% of the vote in 1992 only because Perot had enough money to actually buy huge blocks of primetime TV spots. He even managed to pick up a good share of votes in 1996 after it was revealed he was completely nuts, but after that he left the party and it fell apart. Even the Green spike in 2000 was solely because Nader was able to capture the media's attention then.

So basically the Libertarians have something only if they can find a single polarizing issue (abortion might work if they weren't split on it) or if they can get a party leader who's particularly interesting. Both are fairly unlikely.

You are much better off picking between Republicans or Democrats and trying to influence them to go where you want. There are a lot of Libertarian-leaners in the GOP, for instance, and a lot of people in the Democratic party favor many of the Libertarian civil rights issues. The two parties routinely realign themselves to new ideologies, so it's not as if their current course is fixed. Pick a party and a platform, and try to support candidates within that part who are closer to your ideal.

Just a suggestion.

Stephen