...I also agree that the Libertarians need to get some grass roots movement started. To just go for the highest office(s) shows that there is no real groundswell of support.
Which explains the following how?:
The Libertarian Party is the third largest party in the United States by most objective measures, including the following:
•The Libertarian Party is the only third party organized in all fifty states.
•In the 2002 elections, Libertarian candidates for state House of Representatives received more than a million votes -- more than twice the votes received by all other minor parties combined.
•In the 2000 elections, the party ran about 1,430 candidates at the local, state, and federal level. More than 1,600 Libertarians ran for office in the 2002 mid-term election. Both numbers are more candidates than all other third parties combined ran in these elections.
•Following the 2002 elections, more than 300 Libertarians hold elected state and local offices. This is more than twice that of all other third parties combined.
•In 2000, 256 candidates ran for seats in the House of Representatives. In 2002, 219 candidates ran for House seats. These are the only two times in over 80 years that any third party has contested a majority of House seats.
•In 2000, Libertarian candidates for U.S. House won 1.73 million votes. This count is more than any other third party in U.S. history by raw vote totals, although not by proportion of the electorate.
•In 2000, Massachusetts U.S. Senate candidate Carla Howell won a record 11.9% of the vote. Then in 2002, Michael Cloud won 19% of the vote for the other Massachusetts seat in the U.S. Senate. (In the latter case, the Republican candidate failed to meet ballot access requirements.)
•In 2002, Ed Thompson won 11% of the vote for governor of Wisconsin despite being excluded from the debates. As a result, one of the eight members of the Wisconsin Election Board is a Libertarian. No other third party holds a seat on the Election Board of any state.
•The Libertarian Party has run in all 50 states in four elections: 1980, 1992, 1996, and 2000. No other third party in U.S. history has managed to run a presidential candidate in all 50 states more than once. 50 state ballot access is so difficult that only the Democrats, Libertarians, and Republicans are even attempting it in 2004.
•Libertarian candidates have finished third in a presidential election twice, in 1984 and 1988. No other current third party has ever finished third in a presidential election more than once.
