David French at National Review is perturbed about Donald Trump apparently securing the Republican presidential nomination. French wrote in a Wednesday article that he would “gladly support” a third-party presidential run this year by 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. French also has another suggestion for dealing with Trump on the Republican ticket. “Now is an ideal time for the Libertarian Party to get its act together and nominate a truly serious candidate — a person who may not meet the party’s typical purity tests but who can at least make a serious argument and advance a range of policies that unite both conservatives and libertarians,” writes French.
Of course, there is not much of a “range of policies” shared in common between libertarians and Romney-style conservatives. Concerning liberty at home and intervention abroad, the chasm between Romneyesque policies and libertarian policies is very large. On economic issues the rhetoric gap can be narrow at times. But, when you move beyond platitudes about cutting taxes and eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse,” the Romney-style conservatives are not about shrinking government significantly.
Just as Ron Paul Institute Chairman and Founder Ron Paul refused to endorse Mitt Romney in 2012, you can count on many libertarians to turn a cold shoulder to the option of supporting Romney or someone like him in 2016 — no matter with what party label such a candidate is identified.
Some libertarians would practically chose to vote for such a candidate on a ballot full of non-libertarian options. Other libertarians would weigh the available options and make a different selection. Others would write in a name. Plenty would just sit out the election.
What is hard to imagine is why someone who wants to advance libertarian ideas through the Libertarian Party would intentionally break the connection between the party and the libertarianism for which the party is named by supporting the nomination of a candidate who, as French so delicately phrases it, “may not meet the party’s typical purity tests.” French writes that, by following his advice, the party would be getting “its act together.” Many delegates at the Libertarian National Convention would counter that such action would instead betray the party’s founding principles and make a joke of the party’s name.
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