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Libertarians in Beantown?

There's a fight for the Right in Massachusetts.

    By Peter Hartzel, Massachusetts reporter for CNC, a Herald Media Company

    March 28, 200110:10 a.m.

Believe it or not, there are a few conservatives living in Massachusetts. But recent events suggest the state's flailing

    Printer-FriendlyRepublican party may be losing them -- to the Libertarians.

    Libertarian Carla Howell stunned many when she garnered more than 12 percent of the vote in a U.S. Senate race last November, trailing far behind Ted Kennedy but nearly beating beleaguered Republican candidate Jack E. Robinson. With 308,860 votes, Howell's showing instantly turned her into the state Libertarian party's standard-bearer and even has prompted talk of her running for governor in 2002. She says she's received hundreds of e-mails urging her to run.

    "She speaks for people who have no other champion right now," said state LP chairman Elias Israel, adding that the party plans to spend upwards of $7 million on campaigns in 2002. "The GOP has entirely abandoned the small-government message, down to Governor [Paul] Cellucci appointing Democrats to seats that could have been filled by Republicans. People are seeing the Libertarian party as an alternative."

    Could the Libertarian party really be making headway in a state where the Kennedy name remains as transfixing to locals as that of Red Sox slugger Nomar Garciaparra? If so, then these are heady days for Libertarians. In fact, Bay-State Libertarians were already showing signs of growth before Howell's performance last fall. The number of registered Libertarians in the state has increased five-fold in the past five years, from 3,065 in 1996 to 16,076 today. During the same period, the number of Libertarians in elected office jumped from zero to 18, while those in appointed positions climbed from four to 15. Still, there's no way to downplay the importance of Howell's surge to prominence.

    A management and strategy consultant, Howell ran for state auditor in 1998 on a budget of $8,000. For her Senate campaign in 2000, she raised $821,000 from more than 5,000 donors, but received scant attention from the Boston media prior to her election success. Now the telegenic and articulate politician boasts name recognition greater than many of next year's other potential gubernatorial candidates, and her ascendance to the level of icon has given new hope to those Massachusetts residents--yes, they do exist!--who favor limited government.

    It's enough to make one wonder just how much more hidden support in this liberal haven there might be for the "bold and dramatic reduction" proposed by Howell in areas that range from the state income tax, which she wants to eliminate, to state involvement in education. During an interview in her hometown of Wayland, a suburb west of Boston, Howell said: "The growth of the Libertarian party is a very significant trend in the state. I think that Massachusetts is a particular opportunity because the Republican party is very weak here, and there are a lot of people who care about civil liberties. There's a large untapped segment of the population out there who want smaller government." "This is a movement, and movements take time. But I think to some degree what's precipitating this is the decline of the Republicans," she added.

    For Howell, that Republican decline is evidenced not just by the party's embarrassingly small representation in the state legislature, where the GOP holds less than 20 percent of seats, but also by Republican leaders' willingness to rubber-stamp the gargantuan budgets pushed through by Democrats. Under Governor Michael Dukakis in the 1980s, the state's budget was $10 billion. After two "fiscally conservative" Republican governors, William Weld and Paul Cellucci, it now rests at about $22 billion. The Senate president and House speaker are both Democrats and, together, they wield power arguably greater than Gov. Cellucci's, but Howell says the legislature's Republicans are doing just a "fraction" of what they could to fight the increases.

    "The fact of the matter is that the Republican leadership is signing off on these budgets. They never even talk about smaller government. We've been stopped in this mentality of Left and Right, but when we're perpetrating that, it's the same thing. These are meaningless labels. Neither one is any way a choice for smaller government." Howell is coy about whether her position on abortion (no laws against it, no government funding for it) prevents her from snatching an even greater percentage of Bay-State conservatives away from the Republican party. She defends her position as being consistent with her stance on government deregulation in other areas. Like drug use.

    "Prohibitions don't work. I've always believed the War on Drugs was a bad idea. It provides excuses for abridging our rights," she said, adding that she supports private, voluntary, treatment programs. "If you support government treatment programs, you imply that government can be effective in dealing with part of the problem. It can't."

    Like George W. Bush, Howell has used sloganeering to soften her message. While "compassionate conservatism" drew jeers from pundits of various political stripes, the phrase worked nicely to repackage some traditional conservative ideas (along with a few platitudes about families) in a manner palatable to a wider public. Howell's "small government is beautiful" seems to have had a similar effect.

    Party officials hope to claim 40,000 registered Libertarians by the end of 2002, and they will be lobbying Republicans to switch affiliations. Meanwhile, Howell plans to announce whether she'll run for governor toward the end of this year. Electoral victory may still be a long shot, even factoring in the groundswell of support she's built and her newfound status as almost-household name in the Bay State. But Michael Cloud, her campaign CEO, evinces optimism that the party's "growth" campaigns will yield a real breakthrough during the next few election cycles. "We can't act as spoilers--you can't spoil tainted meat," Cloud said. "We're in a position where we could guide and direct dismantling of big government. The Republican leadership is selling out small-government Republicans in Massachusetts, and we're going to be the alternative."

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