Minor Thoughts from me to you

Some sad news came down the pipeline today, at least for those of us who count ourselves closest in agreement, of all the United States' political parties, to the Libertarian Party. That is to say, the LP's presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000, Mr. Harry Browne, has died. According to an AP article:

[Harry] Browne, an author and investment adviser, died at his home Wednesday night, family friend Jim Babka said. He died of Lou Gehrig's disease.

Browne received 485,134 votes, or 0.5 percent, for president in 1996 and 384,431, or 0.367 percent, in 2000.

A few of you out there may remember (yeah, sure you do) that Mr. Browne wrote How You Can Profit From The Coming Devaluation, in which he predicted powerful inflation and the dollar's losing its power. It's a good book.

While I'm mentioning Libertarian candidates, however, I have to ask: is the Libertarian Party's battle to wrestle one-half of one percent of the vote away from the dominant political parties here in America worth its trouble? Might the resources (and I really am just pontificating here, I don't know) not be better used in securing more and higher municipal offices than in playing the national gadfly?

Consider New York City or Chicago. A large percentage of the population know the names of these cities' mayors; more than know the names of their senators or governors, I'd be willing to bet. What if the Libertarian Party just threw its back one year into getting one of its people in such an office? I know the Libertarian Party's pollsters consistently find that more people would vote for them if they thought the Libertarian Party had a chance of winning. Seeing a viable Libertarian Party candidate-who does not owe his name recognition to celebrity status, like Clint Eastwood-in a serious office would go a long, long way to meeting that goal.

So I suppose what I'm saying here is, maybe an extremely impressive man like Mr. Harry Browne was wasted on a national platform.