Yes, and won't we look like quite the fools if the guy actually does win?

Of course, monkeys are more likely to begin flying out of my ass, so I'm not worried.

This Personal Choice Party looks even more libertarian than the Libertarian Party. I may write them in. I really don't know how I'm going to vote this year. Vote for whoever you wish. I don't care.

As much as I'd like him to win, Badnarik isn't gonna win, though it would be nice if he would have an impact on the election - get the Libertarians some attention at least. As I told Dean, it's not a scientifically valid poll - the participants are mainly politically active people, which isn't a big part of the population, and as a general rule only politically active people join third parties. Your average voter likely doesn't even know what the bigger third parties stand for.

The Internet -- Usenet, the Web, the blogosphere -- has always been disproportionately libertarian or libertarian-conservative. I think that, as you say, people on the Net tend to be more politically active, articulate, literate, independent-minded, and generally more affluent. Those are the kind of people who gravitate toward a libertarian orientation, even if not capital-"L" Libertarianism or Objectivism. Decidedly a minority.

Poorer, less literary people tend largely to be neither libertarian not liberal nor conservative, but "populist", which translates to more government controls and benefits for "the common man". This group is at least a plurality of the adult population, though not necessarily the voting population. Sometimes it is a majority, as in 1964, when they rejected Goldwater because he wanted to abolish government programs, and in 1972, when they rejected McGovern because he was seen as too "permissive" on "law and order".

Libertarians have a very hard row to hoe.