If the Libertarian party wants to be a "bonafide" party with a chance of winning elections they need to actually attempt to win one.
I've never seen a libertarian candidate run a commercial, put up a yard sign, gotten a call from a libertarian volunteer...... etc etc etc.
it's like Ron paul raised more money then any other republican in '08 and he never used any of that money.
the libertarian party will never win an election because they simply don't want to do what's nessecary to win.
even if they did they'd have to water down their platform to win since they believe an ideology held by so few people that they can't get enough votes unless they're in a skewed district, and the people who run the LP know that...
There are yard signs all over Blacksburg. I have one myself, but it's a little out of the way.
"Watering down their platform to win" is missing the point, in a lot of ways.
A pure libertarian platform isn't immediately practicable. Too much reform is dependent on too much other reform, all of which would be impossible to achieve at once. For example, pure libertarian tax reform is virtually impossible without "watered-down" tax reform first (of the sort Sarvis supports), simply because folks are too used to the spending which follows heavy taxation. People need to see the benefit in small bites before they'll eat the whole burrito.
A practicable platform for a libertarian candidate must necessarily rather different from a philosophical or ideal one. Most of us agree that there's no way to "get there from here" using the political process directly, that we need to achieve some sort of social "revolution". Some of us feel that, while the political process will not achieve libertarian reform without such a revolution, by implementing shadows or fragments of that platform we can show its potential success and thereby further that "social revolution" through indirect use of the political process.
As for the campaign contributions (not your post, EMN), big time yawn. I assume some folks imagine that nobody could prefer McAuliffe
or Sarvis to Cuccinelli. Yet, I know folks who do, and I would not be surprised to see them donating to everyone but The Cooch.
Really, folks. This isn't a sign of Sarvis being a DP plant. It's a sign that The Cooch is such an eminently unelectable candidate (as I've been saying) that folks will donate to multiple candidates to see his defeat. Sarvis cannot control who donates to his campaign, or what their reasons might be. Every single third party candidate who has been accused of "splitting the vote" has received donations from individuals primarily supporting the candidate whom the third party candidate is presumed to be stealing votes from. No surprise.
I've pointed out before though that folks are mistaken this time around anyway; The Cooch never had my vote (or most of those with me) to begin with. I'd just as soon vote for McAuliffe as The Cooch, which means I'd just as soon not vote at all. That guy from Texas is wasting his money, because Sarvis is stealing as many votes from McAuliffe as from Cuccinelli. (As I've pointed out before, none of the Sarvis voters I know would vote for Cuccinelli, but a few might vote for McAuliffe.)