Bruce Bartlett ponders the political impact of the Libertarian Party and its relevance to advancing libertarian ideas in this WSJ op-ed.

Libertarians respond that their message of an immediate end to the Iraq war, legalization of drugs, and opposition to the Bush administration's undermining of civil liberties appeals as much to Democrats as their advocacy of free-market economics appeals to Republicans.

Nevertheless, Republicans view Libertarian votes as coming out of their total. They have, for example, blamed U.S. Senate losses in Nevada in 1998, Washington in 2000, and Montana in 2006 on LP candidates.

Whoever gains the LP nomination can expect strenuous attacks from the GOP, and such attacks are already surfacing on conservative Web sites. But it is not clear that a strong Libertarian candidate necessarily hurts the Republican Party as a whole. . . .

To the extent that the Libertarian Party candidate gives [disillusioned Republican] voters someone to vote for at the top of the ticket, they may still vote Republican for Congress and other offices. Thus while a strong LP candidate may hurt Mr. McCain, he may nevertheless aid Republicans in getting sympathetic voters to the polls who would otherwise not vote at all.

Although this may turn out to be a banner year for the Libertarian Party, the LP is not a real alternative to the Republicans and Democrats. Because of the Electoral College, restrictions on ballot access and onerous campaign finance laws, third parties simply aren't viable for actually electing candidates. Nor do they pull the major parties toward their position: Ron Paul's success did not encourage other Republican presidential candidates to even pay lip service to his ideas.

I believe that libertarian ideas would be better promoted by an interest group such as the National Rifle Association than through the Libertarian Party. Such a group could use the limited resources available for libertarian ideas far more effectively by establishing a political action committee, lobbying and advertising than by a political party running futile campaigns for public office.

It's an interesting argument, certainly helped by the fact that it is hard to take the folks running for the LP nomination (Mike Gravel, Bob Barr, etc.) all that seriously.