POLITICS
70 MILLION
VOTES OR
1 MILLION
CHANGED
MINDS?
Factional politics heat up
in the Libertarian Party.
MATT WELCH
But don’t count out the Mises crowd
just yet. Smith lost the chair race but
won an at-large berth on the Libertarian
National Committee. Woods and many
of his ideological fellow travelers reacted
to Sarwark’s victory not by washing their
hands of the L.P. but by redoubling their
activity within it. Vohra lost his vote
resoundingly but immediately announced
a bid for the presidency.
At the same time, major figures from
the business and mainstream political
worlds are also sniffing around, recogniz-
ing a potentially historic opportunity to
be the 2020 L.P. nominee at a moment
when the two major parties are suffering
mental breakdowns. It’s early yet, but
among a growing number of Libertarians,
the answer to Tom Woods’ 70 million/1
million question appears to be, “Why not
both?”MATT WELCH is editor at large at Reason.“WE’RE NOT PRIMARILY advocating a
slightly different public policy from other
people,” declared Ludwig von Mises Insti-
tute senior fellow and popular podcaster
Tom Woods. “We’re encouraging people to
look at the world in a refreshing new way.”
Woods was speaking at a raucous gather-
ing hosted by the growing Mises Caucus
of the Libertarian Party (L.P.) down the
street from the party’s biennial national
convention in New Orleans this summer.
“So yeah, we won’t get the 70 million votes,
but maybe we get 1 million people who say,
‘I never looked at the world the same way
again after I listened to those people.’”
That basic mission conflict—quixotic
electoral vehicle or galvanizing educa-
tional project?—has gnawed at the Liber-
tarian Party ever since its humble begin-
nings in 1971. But now that the L.P. has
firmly established itself as the country’s
third-largest political bloc, the age-old par-
adox looks to many like a fork in the road.
“Right now the Libertarian Party abso-
lutely is at a crossroads,” then–Vice Chair
Arvin Vohra said at a July 1 debate. “Road
No. 1 leads somewhere like this: We’ve
taken the presidency, we’ve taken the
House of Representatives, we’ve taken the
Senate....We got there by using manipula-
tive, dishonest messaging; we got there
by pandering. And if we start abolishing
government schools, if we start legalizing
cocaine, if we start shutting the military-
welfare complex, we’re going to lose. It’s
better that someone like us is there, rather
than someone like them is t here.”
Path No. 2, Vohra maintained, is that
the L.P. comes to power after campaigning
unapologetically on legalizing all drugs,
abolishing all government schools, and
ending all foreign wars—this way Ameri-
cans won’t be surprised when the party
accomplishes what it’s always promised.
But some Libertarians reject the idea
that voters will be swayed by the most
shocking edges of libertarian philosophy.
“For 40 years we’ve been saying, ‘It’s all or
nothing!’ And we’ve got exactly what we’ve
demanded: Nothing,” said four-decade
L.P. activist Joe Hauptmann at the same
debate. “Government is too damn big.
But the other problem is, we’re too damn
small....The only way we get power is with
the vote, and there aren’t enough of us.”
To the extent that this year’s Libertar-
ian Convention was a referendum on mak-
ing libertarianism a big squishy tent vs. a
smaller ideological cadre, the big-tenters
won in a rout. Vohra, who has been the
party’s most internally polarizing figure
since he consciously began dropping rhe-
torical bombs in 2017, was drummed out
of office. And two-term incumbent Chair-
man Nicholas Sarwark, disliked by some
for being too accepting of Gary Johnson
and his ilk, trounced Joshua Smith, a
favorite of the Mises Caucus, in a race so
contentious that vendors were hawking “I
survived the Libertarian National Chair
campaign 2018” T-shirts.
The decisive moment in that campaign
came when Smith asked Sarwark what he
thought of former Gov. Bill Weld, the 2016
vice presidential nominee who is loudly
considering a run at the party’s 2020 pres-
idential nomination. “What I think about
Bill Weld,” Sarwark started carefully, “is
that he is still in the Libertarian Party,
while many of his opponents are not. [He’s
been] raising money for and endorsing
Libertarian candidates. And the expo-
sure of Bill Weld to the Libertarian Party
has not made the Libertarian Party more
like an establishment Republican, but has
made Bill Weld a lot more like a Libertar-
ian....He knows something about winning
public office, and [we need to] learn how to
do that from anybody who will join us. We
should not push people out who are will-
ing to help.”REASON 19