Buckeye RINO

Editor’s note: Sean Kalin Stipe, Lorain resident, former (maybe future?) Libertarian candidate for Lorain City Council, finds some good news for Lorain County’s Libertarians after crunching the election numbers.  In this post, Stipe suggests the point of reaching the critical mass necessary to burst upon the scene as a major political party with many election-winning candidates may be just around the corner for the Libertarian Party.

THE NUCLEAR BOMB AND THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY

Early in the nuclear age, a test was performed on an atoll in the Pacific. Several years after the first test of a hydrogen bomb on Bikini Island in 1954, it was used for scientific study. What was being sought was the answer to the question of how soon the effects of radiation would dissipate from a virtual wasteland. A colony of monkeys were transported to the island with some limited success. The primary food source was coconuts. It was found that while the inside of the nuts were safe, there was residual radioactive material on the husks.

10 monkeys were taken away and taught how to wash the husks in the water before eating the nuts. Shortly after they were returned, twelve monkeys started washing, then fifteen, then twenty. As the numbers increased, a magical number was reached and something outstanding happened. This has been noted as “The Hundredth Monkey.” Almost instantly when the 100th monkey started washing the coconuts, nearly every one of the thousands of monkeys on the island performed the same behavior.

Our first ten “monkeys” started the Libertarian Party in 1971 in Colorado. It’s been a slow but steady process, but the party has grown in numbers. Often, when looking at election results, there is disappointment in our results. But disappointment only comes with huge expectations. If the goal is to get to the “hundredth monkey,” then we are actually quite close to achieving to goal of getting Libertarians elected on a large scale.

It might be considered short sighted to compare results from the 2006 and 2008 elections, but we are at that point where our growth can only be described as exponential. The results are not final, but Lorain County saw an increase in in people who voted Libertarian of 13 times compared to our presidential candidate of 2008. That is a growth of 1,300 percent. If we experience just the same increase, we will win the presidential election.

While the number of monkeys are few that get actively involved by asking why we wash the coconuts and how, many more are watching and learning. Many more are watching them. It’s an explosive exponential growth. We are very close to that “100th Monkey.”