The Importance Of Just Three Or Four Percent
Why be a King when you can be the Kingmaker, right? That is the 2008 battle cry for Libertarians running for office here in Texas. Knowing they can’t win outright, Libertarians instead are aiming for the spoiler role by keeping other major party candidates out, most of which are Republicans.
The Austin American Statesman has given the state Libertarian party quite a bit of press over the last week. First with their profile of the House races that Libertarians are targeting to be Kingmakers, and second by sharing the news that one former Republican lawmaker is out making calls to Libertarian candidates in 2008, trying to get them to drop out of their races.
The former lawmaker in question comes as no surprise. During her 10 years in the House, Suzanna Hupp was viewed by many to be the closest thing that the Libertarian Party had to call in a lawmaker of their own, making her the most likely to successfully get a handful of Libertarian candidates to drop out for the greater good of the Republican Party. Says Ms. Hupp in her statement to the statesman:
“The fact is, we’ve got redistricting coming up in a few years, and if the Republicans lose the (Texas) House of Representatives because there are a handful of people mad at them and vote for the Libertarians instead, then we could be in big trouble at the federal level.”
The notion Ms. Hupp brings to the table is a correct one, Libertarian candidates traditionally hurt Republicans running in close races with democrat counterparts. That is why Ms. Hupp is trying to talk some out of running, and also why democrats are encouraging them to hang around.
Now I can feel many of my liberal readers rolling their eyes and saying that Ms. Hupp’s opinon of the effect Libertarians have is just that, an unfounded opinion. As such, let’s take a look at two key facts:
First, according to the Secretary of the State, over the three previous election cycles (2002-2006), there have been eight House races where a Libertarian candidate prevented either of the major party candidates from gaining majority of the total vote. Of those eight races, seven were won by democrats. And wait for it, because it gets better. The one Republican to fit this election scenario is Kirk England, who by the way recently switched over to the democrat party.
Since there is a Libertarian in his contest again, I guess Mr. England didn’t want to roll those dice with an R next to his name again.
Also consider the eight House races where Libertarians are expecting to be Kingmakers. Five of them went Republican in 2006 and are now at the tops of the democrat target list. Two more are held by freshmen d’s who got their seats - in part - because of Libertarians causing fits for the incumbent Republicans in ‘06. Bottom line, in none of those eight races are people talking about the Libertarian candidates helping out Republicans.
So that is a look at our past and how important Libertarian candidates have been for democrat success, which is why Suzanna Hupp is doing her part to better the odds of the Republican party this fall. Democrats inevitably will try to spin this as Republicans attempting to deny voters ballot choice. But I view this as Republicans doing their due diligence. After all, Hupp isn’t trying to trick or loophole Libertarians out of this November, she is only talking to them.
And every party at one point or another has tried to clear the field of candidates that they saw as problematic to their hopes, even democrats.
Does the name Gene Kelley ring a bell?