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Voting for the Other Guy
Libertarian Party seeks to increase support in city
By Daniel Hindin
While most voters in Sunnyvale and the rest of Santa Clara County try to decide between George W. Bush and Al Gore as their choice for president in the next few weeks, an increasing number of local residents are supporting Harry Browne of Tennessee, the Libertarian candidate for president. Santa Clara County has one of the largest Libertarian Party contingencies in the country, and their membership is steadily growing.
While many Americans might find their beliefs nontraditional, Marvin Rudin, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Santa Clara County, says Libertarian beliefs have been around for a long time. "Our founding fathers were basically Libertarian," he says. "Many Americans are naturally Libertarian--they just don't know it under that name. Libertarians are for upholding the Constitution. Democrats and Republicans--or Republicrats as we call them because they're basically the same thing--interpret the Constitution beyond what it actually says."
Rudin describes some of the basic Libertarian tenants: "We support the social freedom of the Democratic Party and the economic freedom of the Republican Party. We want to eliminate government repression. We believe in freedoms in gambling, sex and drugs. We would also like to cut the national budget by 70 to 80 percent. We would eliminate Social Security and income taxes because if you shrunk the government, you wouldn't need income tax."
Santa Clara County is the second most popular county in the country for Libertarians. According to Rudin, there are 95,000 registered Libertarians in the county. Furthermore, he says the number of registered Libertarian voters in California has increased by 10 percent every year and their paid membership has increased 300 percent since 1994.
Recently, the Libertarian Party is enjoying a large push of support from the technological world of Silicon Valley.
"We call them Technolibertarians," Rudin says. "I think they give us so much support because they are a more educated class on average. The average IQ within the Libertarian Party is almost certainly higher than any other party, except maybe the Natural Law Party; they have better reasoning powers."
Yet, even with the support of parts of the tech community, the party's registered membership is still comparatively small. The party hasn't managed to crack the 1 percent barrier in Santa Clara County, even though, according to Rudin, it is one of the largest Libertarian strongholds.
Rudin says their membership is not wholly representative of their actual support, and that many people who are not registered as Libertarians end up voting Libertarian when they get to the polls. However, when the final results come in, the Libertarian vote only encompasses 2 to 5 percent of the population.
"The reason is that the media doesn't give us enough coverage," Rudin explains. "Most journalists are liberal Democrats who don't want to give us any exposure. The media fears our message. They don't fear Buchanan or Nader because they know that they won't be big. They fear us because we're 'half and half'--we take the best parts of both of the major parties and put them together."
Rudin realizes building enough influence nationally is something that will take a long time. He thinks such change needs to start within local communities. "We want to transform local government," he says. "City council doesn't care about little neighborhoods."
Libertarians also believe the federal government doesn't deserve as much power as it has.
"Each state should make their own laws," Rudin says, "That way people can vote with their feet. If people don't like the laws in their state, they can just move to another state. If a state finds that they're losing a lot of their population, the state officials will know that they need to change something.
"What our beliefs come down to in the end," Rudin concludes, "is that, as our presidential candidate Harry Browne says, 'we want people to be free to spend their money and live their lives as they decide.' "
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
