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Originally Posted by The One and Only...
"The Libertarian Party is the largest “third party” in America, by almost any means of counting.
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Yeah, notice how they always put "the largest third party" in quotation marks....? The reason they do that is because it's a difficult thing to examine.
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Libertarians boast 168 elected officials, which is more than every other third party combined.
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Not sure where you're getting your data, but they "boast" much more than that on their website, more like over 500. The Green's don't have numbers I've seen, other than a 26 state analysis one guy did, Mike Feinstein. The Green's have at least 177 or so in 26 states, probably more. The reason it's tough to "boast" about these offices (same goes for the Libertarians), is that most people who run under these titles are running in non-partisan races. Most local and town positions tend to be like this, so it's tough to judge.
EDIT: From politics1.com-- "The LP espouses a classical laissez faire ideology which, they argue, means "more freedom, less government and lower taxes." Over 400 LP members currently hold various -- though fairly low level -- government offices (including lots of minor appointed officials like "School District Facilities Task Force Member" and "Town Recycling Committee Member""
I can tell you one hard fact, and that's that more Americans voted Green than they did Libertarian and Reform in 2000, and you can count on that happening again in 2004 if Nader runs again.
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For reference, the Reform Party, who was listed in your article, has only nine elected officials. The Libertarian Party also has more registered voters than the Reform Party -- 182,000 vs. 124,000."
I'm sure you all know of the Reform Party because of Ross Perot fame. They, I believe, are the second largest.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V120/N42/_Steve_Ste.42l.html
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My "article"? Anyway, Not so sure about the Reform Party numbers, particularly since they had the split in 2000 between the Buchanan populists and the Hagelin Natural Law Partyists.