Libertarian Scorecard

A blatant ripoff of Newsweek's 'Conventional Wisdom', I'm going to start a weekly scorecard of libertarian winners and losers for the previous week (but for this first scorecard, I'm using the past two weeks). The scorecard is completely subjective and as unscientific as a George Bush paper on environmental policy. Anyway, here it is.

+2 = really good
+1 = good
0 = no change
-1 = sort of bad
-2 = really bad

Cato Institute: -1

Major contributors the Koch's industrial connections leave me with the unsettling taste of bias in my mouth.

Free State Project: 0

Nothing too big seems to have happened recently. Membership growth is stagnant.

Institute for Justice: +2

Their major victory in deregulating interstate wine shipments was viewed as very populist by the media. Their name was cited by a bunch of articles, and they use the word "libertarian" on their website. Possible downside....it was initially funded by the Koch's.

Reason: +1

They continue to be the hippest libertarian organization, plus Reason's Nick Gillespie was not only a guest on the O'Reilly Factor, he made Bill O'Reilly eat his words. Plus, while on the show, Gilespie was able to say something like, "We're libertarians; we believe in free markets and free minds."

Tim Lee: +1

I think I met him at a NORML meeting at the University of Minnesota (I went to a total of one), and I knew he got a job at Cato, but I recently discovered his "blog," as it were (or weren't, as he claims).

Tim West: +1

His insistence on libertarians being more openly anti-corporate welfare is starting to sound more and more like a good idea, given the problems with Cato.

Wookies: +2

First, they get their own planet in Episode 3...then they're compared to libertarians. They're on a roll! Bonus question - does anyone remember the song "Chewbacca" from Clerks?

Free Talk Live: +1

Two new affiliates in, where else, New Hampshire.

DownsizeDC.org: 0

Yes, they released their Read the Bills Act to Congress, but I haven't seen anything about it in the media...even the libertarian media.

That's it for this week.