“We’ve lost nearly 1,000 young American men and women in Iraq so far. Why am I the only candidate who’s willing to admit that a mistake was made? Why am I the only candidate with a plan to bring the troops home? Bush wants to continue it. Kerry wants to expand it. Nader wants to internationalize it. I want to end it.”~ Michael Badnarik, Libertarian candidate for President

Mr. Badnarik is quite mistaken if he believes he is the only candidate who advocates a swift withdrawal from Iraq. While it is heartening to see that 5% of my fellow voting New Mexicans currently support someone besides the main options of the One Party, it is unfortunate that Mr. Badnarik fails to acknowledge his serious antiwar rival, Michael Peroutka of the Constitution Party. There is the presumption on the part of Libertarian Party members opposition that antiwar voters, especially antiwar Republican and conservative voters, have no alternative other than to embrace their party.

The Constitution Party is more substantial in terms of registered members nationwide than the Libertarians, and Michael Peroutka has been far more vocal and adamant to date in his opposition to this war in Iraq. It serves the Libertarian cause much more to ignore other antiwar party of the Right than to explain why Constitutionalist or Republican voters should cast what will obviously be protest votes for libertarianism. The CP is conveniently ignored in all polls, and the media seem to make a point of not reporting on the existence of the party. The disaffected conservatives of the GOP, who may account for as many as a fifth of Republicans, have been poorly served by their supposedly conservative media outlets and columnists, most of whom, with the notable and usual exceptions of Samuel Francis and Thomas Fleming at Chronicles, have carefully ignored a genuine conservative alternative.

The virtue of the Constitution Party is that it possesses a platform that at least tens of millions of Americans could actually believe in and accept, were these people given the necessary information and were willing to vote on principle and their real interests. While most Americans would agree with the Libertarian Party to a point on a great many things in terms of practical changes that need to be made to the government, they remain economically and socially too radical for any real constituency to embrace.

I have little to no confidence in our erstwhile democratic process, but for those who want to make a consistent statement in support of the Constitution and the foreign policy tradition of the Founders I recommend looking at the Constitution Party before being fooled by Mr. Badnarik’s rhetoric. It is an old tactic of the One Party to dismiss or deny alternative choices. It is a pity that the Libertarians feel the need to do the same thing.