I'm becoming more and more optimistic about Ron Paul's chances in 2012. It seems almost as if we needed a guy like Obama to get elected for people to become more passionate about such a libertarian candidate.

The libertarian wing is going to eviscerate itself due to the Tea Party in 2012, this i declare. There's too much anger there for the movement to work properly, and we're going to see a Republican convention similar to the Democrats in 68 (though not nearly as extreme), because you've got a moderate wing and an angry wing espousing violence and secessionism

The proper libertarians need to ditch the Republican party, let alone the tea party. If it is really time for their ideas to be heard, they shouldn't be drowned out by the single-issue screams from the Moral Majority and the militants.

I agree definitely with this last part. Though I'm not a huge fan of Ron Paul personally, libertarians need to seize the opprotunity of two parties that are incredibly disliked, and completely inneffective, and just run as a third party. Any libertarian running as a republican is just going to be drowned out by angry contrarians and religious crazies, and if they get elected then they just have a hated ineffective party to lead around in the same circle getting nothing done.

The two party system is shot, and even though I doubt a third party would REALLY have a chance, if they were to have an opprotunity, this would be it.

This is why I think there is an opportunity for a king-maker ...

Basically, you can keep the Tea Party and the Republican Party as two entirely separate entities that can each effectively campaign against the Democrats; and if the Tea Party gives their support to the Republican party (possibly by default) it allows the Republican party to have an energized and motivated base while focusing their efforts on campaigning for moderates. Effectively, it opens up a second front in the political campaign and Obama will have to answer to questions about the unsustainability of the deficit as well as whether he was personally going to pull the plug on grandma at the same time.

There is a risk that this could backfire though, because if the tea-party voters want the Republican candidate to support many or all of the same positions they take they could just as easily campaign against the Republican candidate as against the Democrat candidate.

I dunno, reports by sources like Politico seem to indicate that the "anger" is really overstated by the media.

That's not really the issue.

The issue is the Republicans are kinda destroying it from the inside because after these groups started up, they created "The tea party express" and generally packaged a group of it's politicians to try and take advantage of the movement, despite the fact that it's not even all Republicans.

In general, the real problem is Sarah Palin... the actual individual founders are trying to distance themselves from people like Palin who are trying to "change" who they are... but it's not working because of Her and the other republicans "Star power".  Libretarians don't have a Palin or a Glenn beck or whatever...

Just Ron Paul... who is all well and good, but he doesn't have broad appeal.

Well that and the fact that Democratic groups are organizing people to go into the Tea parties and pretend to be fringe lunatics.

The Tea Parties are really showing one thing... a third party really could upset the balance, and Republicans and Democrats are both scared shitless about it.

the main problem is that they would be playing with fire either way. A movement with strong motivation is invaluable, but a movement that goes too far is immediately going to turn off that undecided median that always decides the elections anyway. There are elements in the tea party (not the whole one, but the louder elements) that could demonize the whole movement

This phenomenon has happened before. Women's Lib back in the 60's lost momentum because certain elements were too extreme, which is also what decimated the anti-war movement around the same time as an effective political force, and what knocked the steam out of the KKK as the mainstream political organ it had almost become in the 20's

A third party could happen. Perot had a great shot in 1992, so there is a precedent for voters really turning out for a 3rd party.

The question is who would be strong enough to defect to a 3rd party, and who would give it the cash, too.

Donald Trump?

Honestly there are a lot of rich and successful people who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal.  They just generally avoid politics.

I mean lets be honset here, the people who are polticians are politicans mostly because they just want the power.  I beleive that's seondary even to their positons.  They mostly just want to be in charge.

On the other hand, the anti-war left behaved itself atrociously during the Bush years, but the Republicans fucked themselves so hard, there was no chance the Democrats weren't going to wipe the floor with them. I see a similar arrogance among the Democrats today as among the Republicans then.

The only possible difference is that the media did the anti-war movement a tremendous service by not focusing on the crazies brandishing heinous signs at their rallies and by sanitizing Cindy Sheehan for public consumption. When it comes to the tea party, the majority of the media doesn't like them one bit and isn't even going to bother with the pretense of fairness. Violent anti-WTO protests get better press than these people who, to my knowledge, haven't lifted a finger against anyone as yet, even as their detractors openly fantasize about committing acts of violence against them.

I would say the more visible coverage they've been getting has been from sympathetic media outlets, FOX and Glenn Beck and all.