After 43 years as a established political party, as well as the third largest political party in America for the past three decades, the Libertarian party has failed miserably in the 2014 election cycle. Most notably in the state of Florida.
How can any party with the history the Libertarian party has over the past few decades, lose as bad as it did in all state races it had a candidate running in? In my opinion, it’s because the party on the national level doesn’t do anything for any candidate. I personally worked for two campaigns over the years (2010 & 2014). I have seen first hand how the organization has never donated, promoted or even supported legal action during any election.
In 2010, I worked on the Alex Snitker campaign when he was running against Charlie Crist, Marco Rubio & Kendrick Meek. During the campaign we traveled around the state to get his name out. We pushed his name and his plans for being in office. We received donations, but none from the national or state level party. Alex and his team raised the money without any help from the LP or the LPF. When it came to the debates, Snitker could not get in while the LP sat around doing nothing for their candidate.
Fast forward to 2014 where we had the best chance to change the tides of politics with Adrian Wyllie running for Governor. Adrian was running against two candidates who had previously held the position. Charlie Crist and Rick Scott were the two candidates running for Governor. During the campaign, the same effort was put forth for Wyllie as it was for Snitker. Again Wyllie was shut out from the debates and again the LP and the LPF did nothing to help push for his attendance in the debate.
Both Scott and Crist made fools of themselves in the three debates, especially in the second one in Miami where they butted heads over a fan under the podium. If Wyllie was in the debates, he would have shown Florida what a real leader who is not politically motivated looks like. Adrian would have won the three debates and would be Governor today.
Unfortunately that scenario never played out because of the Libertarian party’s lack of effort for it’s candidates. I’ve come to realize this will always be a one party system where it’s the political class against the citizen class. The politicians don’t want to upset their control over America while the people are so out of touch of the situation. The Libertarian party is also to blame for the system that is in place.
Let’s not forget there were also several candidates running for state and federal level positions in 2014. Bill Wohsilfer was running for Attorney General, Lucas Overby was running for U.S.House of representatives, Omar Recuero and Tony Caso running for State House. Each and everyone of them had horrible showing in the final count on Tuesday night. Both Wyllie and Wohlisfer recieved only 4% & 3% of the votes, while Overby got 24%. As for Recuero, he got only 3% and Caso did the best with 28% of the votes. The sad part of it was the two candidates which did double digits results, were only one of the two candidates in each of the races. That alone shows you how little the Libertarian party did for their candidates.
As it is now, I will not pimp, pump, push or prod any candidate running under the Libertarian banner. I will continue to vote for them because I (unlike others) will not think of my vote being wasted. I can no longer spend my valuable time when the party itself doesn’t give a shit about it’s own candidates. The Libertarian party is no better than the Republicans or the Democrats when it comes to bettering this country.
My heart goes out to Wyllie, Wohlisfer, Overby, Recuero, and Caso for their defeat in their races. I know first hand the work they put into their campaigns only to be let down by the Libertarian party and the Libertarian party of Florida.