A group of 30 voters gathered at the Hilton Doubletree Ballroom in Salt Lake City has a plan to change the course of American politics.
Libertarians are still a minority of American voters 52 years after their party's founding, but if they can capture the nation's attention, they hold a solution to the nation's spiraling debt and division, attendees said. lamented.
Three presidential candidates in the front row of the room — a down-to-earth doctor, an eccentric entrepreneur, and an economist turned police officer — insisted they could do it.
At the Libertarian Party's first-ever presidential debate at the Utah state convention on Friday night, the modest White House candidates argued against the limited government that will reshape the country in the fall of 2024. We discussed what was best for the movement.
A libertarian plan to stop the two-party system in its tracks.
Lars Mapstead, founder of Friend Finder Networks, said that by stealing only a few Electoral College votes in Maine and Nebraska, where the electors are divided proportionally, the Republican and Democratic “duopopies” could be broken. He launched a strategy of “giving the middle finger to the people.”
That could prevent any of the major party candidates from securing the 270 votes needed to win, leaving the outcome of the election to the U.S. House of Representatives, where each state's delegation votes for their preferred candidate. You will get votes. The candidate who wins a majority of states (26) becomes the next president.
“I'm trying to wake people up that we can get rid of Democrats and Republicans and really throw a wrench in this election system,” Mapstead said. “After reading this, people in America will Google 'What is a libertarian?'”
As a party candidate, Mapstead said he would devote $1 million of his own money to promoting the Stop 270 message, a proposal to “achieve victory for the Libertarian Party.”
But what a victory would mean for a party that won a record 3.3% of the vote in 2016 was itself a topic of debate among candidates.
“Our campaign is not about contraptions,” said Mike Ter Maat, an economics professor and former Florida police officer. “This is destroying the American political system.”
Tel Maat believes this election cycle, perhaps more than any other, represents an opportunity for libertarians to capture the imagination of American voters. Unlike in 2016 or 2020, voters know exactly what to expect from a second term for Joe Biden or Donald Trump.
And as the Republican Party continues to retreat from fiscal conservatism and the Democratic Party distances itself from anti-war dovishism, Americans are ready to present candidates they can trust to build a foundation on budget and foreign policy principles. We're looking for options number 3, Tel Maat said.
“We recognize that our campaign can play this role, so we're not putting forward policies in the hopes that someone will pay attention to us,” Tel Maat told the assembled Libertarian Party members. I'm going to go,” he said.
Charles Barley, a practicing ear, nose and throat doctor, says a party's policy proposals don't have to be extreme to get the public's attention, such as “ending the federal government'' or “legalizing drugs.'' It doesn't have to be a libertarian issue.
“I think this party needs to realize that being a fringe candidate doesn't work,” Valley said. “We have the power to say, “We are the adults here.''
But the candidates' positions Friday night largely reflected a libertarian mindset that is largely alien to mainstream politics. Mapstead vowed to leave 9,000 presidentially appointed bureaucratic posts vacant. Tel Maat has pledged to withdraw from NATO immediately. Valley said the government should get out of health insurance altogether.
Will RFK Jr. undermine the Libertarians' attempts to spoil the election?
Another obstacle that could wreak havoc on the 2024 election is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s intention to do the same.
Kennedy briefly toyed with the idea of seeking the Libertarian Party's nomination, but said Sunday that he was “not considering joining the Libertarian Party nomination,” The Hill reported.
Kennedy has consistently polled at 10% in national polls and has recently secured voting access in key battleground states, but there are fears that it will “take a lot of the wind out of” the Libertarian race. said Mr. Valley.
But rather than pursue a populist path to temporary recognition, Libertarians would rather uphold the principles of individual autonomy and inviolability, said a prominent libertarian activist and the party's 2020 said Spike Cohen, vice presidential candidate.
“If the Libertarian Party is going to abandon libertarianism to get more votes, then we shouldn't exist,” he told the Deseret News.
The Libertarian Party's presidential debate was held Friday as part of the party's state convention. The day featured a variety of speakers and panel discussions about the future of school choice and the freedom movement.
On Saturday, state party members will select 14 national delegates who will travel to Washington, D.C., over Memorial Day weekend to vote on the party's next presidential nominee. Unlike delegates from major political parties, Libertarian delegates are not bound by primary polls or preferential voting to vote a certain way at national conventions.
Mapstead, Tell Mart and Valley are among more than 30 candidates running for the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination, including a 2022 Georgia special election that will trigger a runoff. This includes former Senate candidate Chase Oliver, who contributed to the
