Peter Schiff: “Instead of fighting them, take them over”
An interesting discussion on minor parties influencing major parties from potential Senate candidate Peter Schiff, speaking at the Libertarian Party of Connecticut convention:
What is going on in the Republican Party is there’s a group of people who say that the Republicans need to move to the left, and be more like Democrats. Well I don’t even know how they could move any further, I can’t distinguish them myself already! (Laughter, applause) And I know that that strategy can’t win. Because theoretically if there’s two Democrats in the race, then you may as well pick the real one.
And the other group says we need to move more to the conservatives, to the right, but again, what does that mean? What is the right of the Republican Party anymore? They can’t win an election. What we need is a move towards the Libertarian wing, to the Ron Paul wing, because that’s the only way we can win.
The only way we can get Libertarian principles into government is to bring ‘em in through that party. I don’t think we have enough time to try to get the Libertarian party in office, we just need to get Libertarian-minded people in office. And I think the way to do that now is through the Republican party, because I think the Republican Party is very vulnerable right now. Instead of fighting them, just take them over, and infiltrate the party, and then influence the direction that it moves. [...]
As Libertarians, it’s never going to happen, you’re not going to win anything, but in the Republican Party you have a shot. And the best way to run is to criticise it, and if you’re running in the party and you’re criticizing the party, you’re likely to get a lot of support from the independents. You might even get some Democrats that were stuck in the Democratic Party because they were so divided on the social issues. [...]
Q: The Republican Party is poisoned, it’s nothing more than the opposite side of the coin in the Hegelian dialectic from the Democratic Party, they are the two parties who own power. The money powers behind the Republicans aren’t going to line up behind Libertarian candidates, I don’t think, because they like the control that they have. How do we break that stranglehold?
Schiff: The only way to defeat them is to do it from within. We’ve already shown, after 40 years, that we’re not making any headway, trying to break into it. The media is not going to take a Libertarian candidate seriously anyway, they never have, and they won’t. If you’re running as a Republican, then they’re going to take you seriously. [...]
Because look, I mean when Ron Paul ran as a Libertarian, and he ran for President as a Libertarian, I know, I voted for him, right?
Nobody knew him, he didn’t get any media, he didn’t get anything. He ran as a Republican, and everybody knows who he is now! And he actually got votes! He didn’t win, but you know what, he was in the race ’til the end. Look at all the other ones that dropped out. Look at Mayor Giuliani, a lot of these guys dropped out really quickly, but he had support to the end.
The video for this quote comes from around 1:25 (that’s 85 minutes in, not 85 seconds) through to about 1:40, and it actually reminds me of how us Dean folks used to talk about the Democrats back in 2003 and 2004. And Schiff sounds like he’s pretty pumped about Ron Paul’s example of staying in the race through the end.
The questioner in the video didn’t really take well to the suggestion that he abandon the minor party strategy that Libertarians have stuck to for so long, and I might suggest to him that he consider using the fusion laws to gain some leverage over the process and change the electoral calculus for those who will be voting in the 2010 primary. (And, since I suspect there will be some search engine visitors to this post, I should mention that this strategy is already being used on the progressive side to good effect by Working Families — and that I’m someone who’s eager to see a Republican party with some level of principles, even if I elect to spend my time improving the Democrats instead).
In any case, this is being billed as Schiff’s first political speech, and it’s always interesting to see where a politician starts so you can see how he or she grows over time. And Schiff, to his credit, seems to be the one Republican starting out with something to say apart from how lousy Chris Dodd is – he hardly mentions Dodd at all in the speech.
Also, from the end of the Q&A period:
Personally, the change coming from the third parties, it’s just so difficult given the way we’re operating. So I think we’re going to have to change one of those two parties. And I think it’s more likely we’ll change the Republican Party because they’re the ones that aren’t in power, the Democrats are. And it’s going to be difficult to change the party in power, it’s easier to change the party that’s out of power.
I tend to think this isn’t the case: looking back, Al Gore was more progressive than Clinton, and was followed by two candidates that were more conservative than he was. It’s hard to negotiate from a position of weakness or desperation.