John David Christensen, Vice-chair Vermont Libertarian Party
Dr. Mary J. Ruwart's recently announced candidacy for the Libertarian Party's (LP) presidential nomination should be cause for celebration by
libertarian activists everywhere. Or at least by those who desire a movement that is as broadly-based and spirited as the revolution Ron Paul
inspired.
Dr. Ruwart is the Libertarian presidential candidate most likely to rally a larger constituency amidst growing disaffection with the McCain/Obama/Clinton redux Russian roulette. She is the candidate who can yet recapture the now leaderless legions of Ron Paul supporters, particularly Dr. Paul's younger enthusiasts. Dr. Ruwart's candidacy has the potential to revitalize Libertarian presidential politics and energize the libertarian base constituency
Mary Ruwart does disagree with Ron Paul on the issues of abortion and immigration. But these are issues on which many libertarians, while still supporting Paul, also parted company with him. And these are the issues that distinguish, or ought to distinguish, libertarians from garden-variety Republican conservatives. Where Ron Paul's anti-war positions drew liberals to libertarianism, Dr. Ruwart casts her net wider still, and without compromising libertarian principles.
At the Vermont Libertarians' recent state convention LP member and Ron Paul supporter Steven Howard described the libertarian challenge as, "changing the conversation." More than any candidate seeking the LP presidential nomination Mary Ruwart will certainly change the conversation and build a campaign, a movement, that is truly beyond left and right while drawing support from both camps.
In the 1940s when libertarians were thin on the ground and the movement was yet in its infancy it was three women-Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand-who charted the course to freedom at a time when the prospects for liberty looked remote indeed. Rand's novel The Fountainhead, Lane's book The Discovery of Freedom and Paterson's The God of the Machine inspired the modern libertarian movement. Perhaps it's time for a woman, indeed a woman who is also the author of a groundbreaking book on the basic principles of freedom, to again lead libertarianism out of the wilderness.
