NYTimes A Third Party on the Right

Republicans are mad about the Libertarian party similar to Democrats being mad at the Green party. I support all parties and Instant Runoff Voting.

George W. Bush is president today because of Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate, whose liberal supporters almost certainly would have preferred Mr. Gore in a two-way race. In Florida, Mr. Nader attracted some 97,000 votes, dwarfing the 537-vote margin separating Mr. Bush from Mr. Gore.

There's a similar explanation for Mr. Thune's 524-vote loss: a Libertarian Party candidate, Kurt Evans, drew more than 3,000 votes. It marks the third consecutive election in which a Libertarian has cost the Republican Party a Senate seat. If there had been no Libertarian Senate candidates in recent years, Republicans would not have lost control of the chamber in 2001, and a filibuster-proof, 60-seat majority would likely be within reach.

The Republicans' Libertarian problem became apparent in a race than ended in victory. A decade ago, Paul Coverdell, Republican of Georgia, nipped the incumbent Democratic senator, Wyche Fowler, 49 percent to 48 percent. A Libertarian candidate, Jim Hudson, took 3 percent of the vote. Under Georgia law the winner must achieve a majority, so Mr. Coverdell and Senator Fowler were thrown into a runoff without Mr. Hudson. Virtually all the Libertarian's votes transferred to the Republican, and Mr. Coverdell won, 51 percent to 48 percent.

The maddening defeats began in 1998, when John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, came 428 votes shy of ousting the Democrat, Senator Harry Reid. Michael Cloud, a Libertarian, collected more than 8,000 votes in the same contest. (Two years later, Mr. Ensign won election to Nevada's other Senate seat.) In 2000, Senator Slade Gorton, a Republican from Washington, lost to the Democrat, Maria Cantwell, by 2,228 votes. Jeff Jared, a Libertarian, gathered nearly 65,000 votes. If these elections had gone a different way, Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont would not have switched control of the Senate when he bolted the Republican Party.