Face The State Staff Report
With independent voters expected to decide the presidential election in swing states like Colorado, Republicans here allege that the Libertarian Party may hand elections to Democrats. Meanwhile, the state's top Libertarian says there is no such thing as a "spoiler effect."
According to Colorado Libertarian Chairman Travis Nicks, every vote must be earned.
"If [Republican nominee John] McCain doesn’t win it won’t be because the Libertarian Party takes votes away from him," said Nicks. "It will be because he doesn’t earn them.”
Nicks says the same principle holds true at the state level. The Colorado Libertarian Party has candidates running for state House and Senate in swing districts in closely contested Jefferson County, as well as candidates for commissioner in Boulder County. Jefferson and Boulder County have strong local chapters, so according to Nicks, those areas tend to be the hub of Libertarian political efforts.
“Typically the Libertarian candidate draws votes away from the Republican candidate in the race, just as a Green Party candidate draws votes away from the Democrat,” said Assistant House Minority Leader David Balmer, R-Centennial.
Nicks says his party does not consider the impact on the two major parties when it considers running a candidate, pointing to the fact that in some cases, Libertarians have actually prevailed. While the party has never won a statewide election, recent local successes include Doug Anderson of the Lakewood City Council, Sheriff Bill Masters and Coroner Bob Dempsey in San Miguel County, and Joe Johnson, who just retired as town trustee in Frederick, Colo.
“The Libertarian Party and its candidates are out there representing an unrepresented populace,” said Nicks. “We draw new voters to the polls.”
But not everyone agrees. In 1998, Republicans blamed Libertarian Lloyd Sweeney for propelling Democrat Sue Windels into office in House District 27. The margin of difference between Republican Denise Mund and Windels was 118 votes. Sweeney received 683 votes.
“I definitely think [Sweeney] had an impact on my race,” said Mund. “The registration numbers were in my favor, but that pulled more Republican votes than any other factor.”
In 2000, just two years into her first House term, Windels decided to run for Senate District 19, where she again benefited from a Libertarian presence. She captured the seat, which encompasses almost all of Arvada and and part of Westminster, from incumbent Republican Jim Congrove. Congrove lost by 897 votes, while Libertarian Bud Martin received 1,517 votes.
Former state Rep. Penn Pfiffner, a Republican, says Congrove, now a Jefferson County Commissioner, only has himself to blame for the 2000 loss. “If Congrove had only gotten out and campaigned more he could have won,” said Pfiffner, who was a Libertarian in college, but served in the State House as a Republican in the 1990's.
Libertarian Jim Frye, running for House District 42 in Aurora this November, explains that his candidacy is about giving people a choice. He is targeting unaffiliated and Republican voters in his district. “I understand that my odds are slim, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to get my message out there.”
Frye says he is targeting unaffiliated voters because he believes those votes are largely up for grabs. In Colorado, the number of unaffiliated voters has grown by 11 percent since 2004. They now account for the second largest block of voters in the state. Meanwhile, the GOP’s registration advantage has declined by 2 percent in this same time period. As of April, the state's voter registration roll showed 1,015,993 Republicans, 893,472 Democrats and 1,008,675 unaffiliated voters.
Libertarians, meanwhile, while showing significant gains in registered members, still have a lot of catching up to do. The party has increased it state membership by 21 percent since 2004, up from 5,796 to 6,991 registered members today.
In an effort to bolster their numbers, Colorado Libertarians are plugging their message of limited government and social tolerance by appearing everywhere from the state fair to gay pride festivals, with a primary goal of registering as many people as possible. The Colorado chapter also received an additional boost in May when Libertarians held their national convention in Denver.
According to national Libertarian Party Chairman Bill Redpath, there is a debate within the party about whether to run candidates for public office or to only try to educate the public. "The average person does not go to events or read studies from the Cato Institute," he said. " A lot of people aren’t going to be exposed to libertarian ideas if it weren’t for the fact that they come across Libertarian candidates running for office." The Cato Institute is a libertarian think-tank headquartered in Washington D.C.
In addition to Frye, Ken Wyble is running in Senate District 28 and Jack Woehr is running for House District 25. In Boulder, all three seats for county commissioner are open, and Libertarians have a candidate running for each seat.
Woehr believes the optimism and energy among Libertarians is fierce. This is his fifth campaign for public office. He has run twice as a Democrat and three times as a Libertarian. “There was a time when people said there couldn’t be a woman or African American for president,” Woehr said. “Now they say there could never be a Libertarian for president.”
When it comes to presidential candidates, Colorado voters have long been considered an open-minded bunch. After the state went blue for Bill Clinton in 1992, the next decade proved to be favorable for Republicans, with voters favoring George W. Bush’s brand of “compassionate conservatism” in 2000 and 2004. All the while, the Libertarian Party of Colorado has quietly flourished. David Nolan founded the party in Colorado Springs in December of 1971. Since then, Libertarians have been quietly grooming candidates at the grassroots level with hopes of infiltrating the two party system by slowly moving its members up the political ladder.
“I appreciate that the party is out there and providing a clear vision of what it would mean to have a truly limited government structure and administration,” Pfiffner added. “The ideas and the energy the Libertarian Party brings helps hold Republicans and Democrats accountable for much of the growth in government.”