Libertarians: A (Not So) Lunatic Fringe

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It's tempting to think of Libertarianism as nothing more than old-school Republicanism, but it's always been partially left-wing, drawing from a long history of American anarchism. The modern challenge is to unite those two wings--or, as magician (and stalwart Libertarian) Penn Jillette told me, "Convince the dope guys that the gun guys are O.K., and vice versa." And many Libertarians believe the time is now. It helps that the U.S. has been throttled for a century by two parties whose core differences are narrowing. The current general election has seemed at times a contest about who can crib off the other party's platform more, from McCain's enthusiasm for using government to fight global warming to Obama's hedging on warrantless wiretapping. For an electorate having a harder time distinguishing Coke from Pepsi, there's a thirst for something--anything--new.

The Standard Bearer

"Everybody is Libertarian about something in this country," Bob Barr told me over breakfast in midtown Manhattan recently. It's his best pitch, an oft-used explanation of why the Libertarian Party can leverage the country's many discontents. The strongest part of his message is the delivery. Barr is a level man with a rich, assuring voice. Even in a D.C.-standard-issue dark three-piece suit, there's something warm and tweedy about him--a perfectly calm spokesman for the often cantankerous ideas of his party.

His candidacy, though, is not without risks. The Libertarian Party is looking to introduce itself as an alternative to the major parties, but it has done so by poaching politicians who, like Barr, were very recently Republicans. And Barr wasn't just any Republican. He was a premier culture warrior in Congress, leading the impeachment of Bill Clinton and fighting medical marijuana, gay marriage, even the right of soldiers to practice Wicca--all of which are anathema to the out-of-our-bedrooms libertarian ideal. In fact, one of the biggest political victories of the modern Libertarian Party was to unseat Barr in 2002; it poured money into an anti-Barr campaign, ran attack ads and called him the "worst drug warrior in Congress." Another strike against Barr: he's a former CIA official and a former federal prosecutor. "To Libertarians," one of his opponents told me, "that's like being a child molester."

Barr now alternates between expressing contrition for his past and highlighting his post-9/11 record of fighting against federal rollbacks of civil liberties. He works with both the ACLU and the NRA and quotes Ayn Rand fluently. His platform these days is a soft libertarian diet of lower taxes, more privacy and school choice.

Barr's moderation may keep him from tapping into Ron Paul's base, which rallied around its candidate for one of the most uncompromising campaigns in recent memory. In an interview in his congressional office, Paul told me there's a reason he had so much success, particularly with younger voters. "They're idealistic. They like consistency. They like principle," he said. For a sense of his hard-line heart, consider the fact that his signal issue was the gold standard--returning to the peg the dollar used before 1971 as a bulwark against inflation and federal mismanagement. That would mean scrapping the Federal Reserve, for starters. While Barr talks about shrinking the size of government, Paul wants to tear the entire global financial system limb from limb.

Paul, who ran for President as a Libertarian in 1988, won't be telling his supporters whom to vote for. (Despite his attacks on McCain, Paul decided to stay in the Republican Party rather than mount a third-party run.) He has said, however, that they're free to go Libertarian or head for the Constitution Party. "Others," he said, "might be disgusted and go away." Hardly a ringing endorsement of the former Republicans leading his former party.

How much will Paul's coolness toward Barr hurt the Libertarians? The party ticket is directed by Ross Perot's old campaign manager and is already polling a respectable 6% nationwide in the latest Zogby poll--exactly the same percentage that separates McCain and Obama. Not all of Barr's voters would be McCain voters, of course, but Barr did best with conservatives (7%) and independents (11%).

In the end, that may not be enough to make a difference in 2008. But Barr's running mate, Wayne Allyn Root, says the party can ride a wave of new followers into the next election cycle. Just three years ago, after all, he wrote a book called Millionaire Republican: Why Rich Republicans Get Rich--and How You Can Too! If he can convert, he says, anyone can.

I visited Root at his suburban Las Vegas home back in May. He is certainly well off, having built a sports-handicapping business that he says led him to politics. (The Founding Fathers "loved gambling," he says.) But politics isn't his only passion. Before we could begin talking about the Libertarian Party, he started selling me on his lifestyle. He takes 100 vitamin supplements every day. He and his kids never drink cow's milk, just rice milk and spring water. "I meditate, exercise, pray and do yoga every day," he says. "If I had a staff of 20, they couldn't do the work I do."

All that bluster makes him seem more like a telemarketer or talk-show host than a politician, and he tells me he'd at least like to get a nationally syndicated radio show out of this presidential campaign. It would be a mistake, though, to write Root off. The things he cares about--being able to gamble legally via his home computer, continuing to homeschool his kids without much interference, keeping taxes low--speak to a lot of Americans. If the old party was cobbled together from hard-line strains of voluntarianism, propertarianism and paleolibertarianism, the new Libertarian Party is more likely to build off Root's take, which is essentially suburbanarianism.

And if that happens, voters alienated by our calcified party system may find in the Libertarians a party that's a lot like Glen Parshall--armed to the teeth but with a gentle logic and a contagious enthusiasm for freedom in all its forms. Libertarians are getting ready for the mainstream, and mainstream America may finally be ready for them.