Dead?

So Bob Barr is the Libertarian Party's nominee for president. I don't know what to think about that.. it's just the latest step in a long lasting trend that began when the party was founded. Radicalism does not blesh well with electoral politics. Obviously not. Inevitable.
I got a kick out of Radley Balko's reaction:

It’s the first time the LP has nominated a serious candidate in a long time. I’ve become rather fond of Barr over his 5-year conversion to libertarianism. Second place went to nutjob Mary Ruwart, who would have continued the party’s long history of kook-ism.

Barr has the potential to win more votes than any LP nominee in history. If he helps the GOP learn that it’s time to boot the neocons and pay more attention to its limited government wing, all the better.

This is a good thing.

Recall Brad Spangler's post from a few weeks ago

The point is not merely that the libertarian movement is currently going down a wrong path, but that it has been going down the wrong path since the founding of the Libertarian Party in 1971. It’s not just that YOU, Mr. & Mrs. Partyarch (you anarcho-wretches) are somehow doing something wrong. As the Liberty poll results show, the libertarian movement as it existed 20 years ago was doing something wrong. Rather than libertarians gradually winning over mainstream society to our way of seeing things, mainstream society is gradually winning over libertarians to their way of seeing things.

Writes Brad, once again the voice of reason, in comments on Roderick Long's blog:

You all ought to buck up and quit whining. You made yourselves vulnerable to this disappointment by refusing to listen to those who tried to tell you electoral politics was the wrong approach. So now you want to whine and moan because you lost a game you insisted on playing? Even though you should have known it was expensive entertainment, indeed? You’re a bunch of fools.
No, Spangler didn’t get his wish. In order for me to convince you of the error of your electoral ways, you would have first had to get your way (a Ruwart nomination) and then watched it fail. Now you insufferable idiots are talking about the Boston Tea Party, the Constitution Party and assorted other ballot-related abominations.

Goodbye's too good a word, babe

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