Over at Reason.tv, there’s a video originally recorded in July in which William Redpath talks about the Libertarian Party.
There are millions of libertarians in America; there are far fewer members of the Libertarian Party. LP meetings are often divided between left and right libertarians, and on other arcane issues.
That division is part of the reason, I’m sure, that libertarian Phil Manger and others might suggest Sarah Palin as libertarian, rather than a Libertarian, presidential candidate. (She’d get more votes than 2008 LP candidate Barr, regardless of how she ran. Redpath is right, though, that LP candidates for other 2008 races did far better than any other third party.)
Redpath’s right on some things, wrong on others. (I think he misunderstands Reagan, for example.)
UPDATE: 6:09 PM — Some readers might have difficulty playing the embedded video. Here’s a link to a separate page with the video: http://reason.tv/video/show/libertarian-party-chairman-wil
Here’s a description accompanying the video:
At July’s FreedomFest in Las Vegas, Reason magazine Editor in Chief Matt Welch sat down with the chairman of the Libertarian Party William Redpath to discuss what went right (and wrong) in the LP’s 2008 electoral season, how the government’s response to economic tumult is shaping policy, and the hopes for a freer, more individualistic society.”
Some people say, ‘Don’t you get kind of depressed sometimes,'” jokes Redpath, “and I say, “We’ll have a libertarian society someday, when it’s imposed on us by the Chinese government….Ultimately, if our politicians don’t have the cojones to step up and make the tough decisions they need to make, our foreign creditors are going to make them for us.”
Approximately 10 minutes. Shot and edited by Dan Hayes.