The party's over

National Review, Oct 21, 1991 by Richard Brookhiser

In 1983, preparing for the 1984 race, Libertarians faced a choice between Earl Ravenal, a foreign-policy intellectual, and David Bergland, a party apparatchik. Revenal had a real-world reputation; his condemnations of interventionism had appeared in The New York Times Magazine. But the convention chose Bergland, evidently believing that a party man would focus on party building. It was a bad call. Bergland was buried, even by the standards of third parties. In 1988, the Libertarians went with Ron Paul, an ex-Republican ex-congressman from Texas. Paul brought the vote up some, but it was still less than half Clark's tally. (This time around, Paul plans to challenge Bush in the New Hampshire Republican primary.)

Ed Clark today thinks the party's prospects are "better than they have been since 1980." The reason is George Bush. "A large number of Republicans--libertarian Republicans, if you will-will not be happy. They will be looking for a way to send Bush a message." Robert Poole, the publisher of Reason, believes 1992 is the "best chance" the party has ever had. "Potential libertarians think of themselves as sort of conservative Republicans," because of tax and spending issues, and yet they are "offended by the religious Right." Such people--Marrou's Volvo drivers--are "not well represented in the official Republican Party today."

Certainly the collapse of Soviet Communism has relieved libertarians of the burden of arguing either that Moscow was not a threat (the flake position), or that active resistance was not the right way to meet it (roughly Ravenal's position). Interestingly, none of the libertarians I spoke with brought up the changed world landscape unprompted, as if, not having felt their disability, they are unaware of their opportunity.

Ed Crane, president of the Cato Institute, dismisses the hopes of his fellow libertarians. In Crane's view, the party was scheduled for takeoff in 1980. "The 1979 convention was a respectable cross-section of America. The Los Angeles Times gave it three front-page stories. The networks would have been hard pressed to ignore Clark had Anderson not been there." But he was there. Since then, the election laws have gotten tougher on third parties. "The most skilled people in the world" couldn't make a go of it now, Crane concludes.

Which is not to say that major-party politics in America is healthy. It isn't. It is afflicted with a sclerosis--Republicans owning the White House, Democrats running Congress and most states--which could only be broken by an economic debacle, and that would send presidential voters scurrying to the Democrats. Innovations today arise outside politics, and enter the political context laterally.

"There is a worldwide liberal revolution now," says Crane, using "liberal" in its nineteenth-century sense. But "intellectual and ideological debate is not taking place in political parties." Meanwhile, Marrou seems fated to go the way of John Schmitz.

Mr. Brookhiser, an NR Senior Editor, is the author of The Way of the WASP.