 "Photo: Miguel de Jesus")
Placing a campaign poster on the podium as he stood to speak, Jim Stutsman’s southern drawl summed up his campaign strategy in one sentence: “I’m shameless.”
Armed with ideals and alternatives, Stutsman was one of six national and local Libertarian Party candidates at a forum held by the Libertarian Longhorns in the Engineering Teaching Center Monday. Stutsman, a Libertarian congressional candidate, was joined by congressional candidates Matt Finkel and Jim Strohm, senatorial candidate Yvonne Schick, Texas House candidate Allen Hacker and county commissioner candidate Wes Benedict.
The Libertarian Party, founded in 1971 as an alternative to the two-party political system, has seen record-breaking gains in recent years. In 2006, U.S. House candidate Finkel won 35 percent of his district, the highest percentage won by a Libertarian at that time.
Elections nationwide brought 6.5 million votes to the party. This year, Texas leads in thenumber of Libertarian candidates, with 173 of the 600 national candidates.
Despite improvements within the party, Libertarians have yet to win a partisan race in Travis County. Benedict, executive director of the Libertarian Party of Texas, said Travis County has seen one elected Libertarian in an office that was abolished within six years of the election. That candidate ran unopposed for the office of public weigher.
“We’re not winning partisan elections, but we like to see the growth in our vote percentages and vote counts,” Benedict said. “Whether we win an election or not, the bigger our vote totals, the bigger our influence is on public policy.”
Candidates at the forum were quick to address the question of whether they expect to win their races or not.
“To me, a win is affecting policy,” Finkel said. “It’s having an effect on how people govern, how our politicians govern and how the media covers our world.”
Former state Rep. Sherri Greenberg, a Democrat and lecturer at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, said local Libertarians have no significant effect.
“I’m sure that they want to win, but whether they expect to — I can’t answer for them,” Greenberg said. “There are some Libertarians in Travis County, but I don’t think people in general see the Libertarian Party as any kind of real force to be contended with.”
Students and Libertarian Party supporters think the voters see the party differently.
“I think people are tired of Democrats and Republicans,” said electrical engineering freshman Michael May. “They want change. Not that change, but real change.”
May said he grew up a Republican but became a Libertarian shortly before coming to Austin this semester. Though he has yet to vote, he plans on casting his ballot for Libertarians in most races. Echoing the mantra of Sen. Barack Obama’s supporters around campus, May knows why his vote counts.
“It means that I myself am saying something,” May said. “I myself am standing for change.”
Libertarian for U.S. Rep. TX Dist. 10
MattFinkel.com