Yes it's possible that there are a large number of kooks worse than Gary Johnson in the Libertarian Party. It's not a justification for him. Ayn Rand denounced the "hippies of the right" in the Libertarian Party who follow their feelings as utterly incapable of defending or representing a system of individualism, and Gary Johnson -- as the worst among them or not -- certainly represents that mentality.

"Minarchy" is an invalid concept promoted by those who think anarchy is a moral ideal.

He opposes the right of abortion. He thinks that cells have an entitlement to a mystical "unalienable right to life and liberty" at the expense of real human beings he wants to force to bear children.

With that kind of floating abstractions about "rights" and "liberty" (the "freedom of assembly" for cells?) in his thinking he certainly does not represent what Ayn Rand advocated and explained, and you don't find rational defenses of individualism among his slogans.

Even in conservative North Dakota he couldn't get more than "ballot status". His a-philosophical feelings sometimes stumble into political positions better than outright statists, and those contradictions apparently make him the "real deal" for the Libertarian Party, but not for us. It is not the solution to correcting the course of the country.

HUZZAH!
Besides, the Probability Broach is out as a graphic novel now, so you can read a comic book and think about politics as the same time.

N.B. I thought long and hard before leaving that sentence from "so..." in, considering politics and graphic novels in the same room. Then I left it in, just to see what happened.

Oh, I'd go to 2c.
You're right - back when the LP had "core values" and people fought it out on the convention floor to decide just EXACTLY what the Party Platform would say, the membership was small but cohesive. Now that the candidates as whose who would never have supported that platform, there are probably more "members".

I don't think that party CAN be "big" and have a cohesive, logical and rational set of core values. Someone's always gonna say "But you can't..."
We had the best luck in getting people to agree with us when we began every discussion with "As we talk, we're going to disagree. Can we agree now that something not initiated by force or fraud, even if one of us doesn't like it, can still "make the cut" and be a LP value?" If you can get someone to go that far, you have a potential libertarian. But that takes time, and that is something most people won't spend on politics now. I have gotten more people to look deeper into libertarian ideas with that one question than any other.

For Ghu's sake, there were less than 10 NOTA votes for the presidential candidate at the last convention!

Probably most Libertarians -- that is, members of the party -- are minarchists. But we older and wiser ones are working on them.
In the meantime, we are working WITH them.
In my almost squishy and certainly moderate approach, we have to reduce the government to its constitutional size before we can repeal it completely.
There are obligations that morally have to be met and, maybe more to the point, there are educational considerations: HOW do we convince people to get completely rid of government since that is such a new -- actually very old and radical (see Ayn Rand's definition of "radical") -- idea.
Minarchy as a goal is fine with me.
So come join. We'll love to have you.

Then maybe he needs to join us libertarians and Libertarians who have moved and are moving to Free State Project in New Hampshire or, where I am, to Arizona:
https://www.facebook.com/FreeStateWes...
I'd love to help him campaign here.

Thanks for the term, "minarchist". I had to look it up and that is exactly how I view the best way to order society. I thought that was the intention of the American founding. I hasn't turned out that way.

Thanks. I do have more to learn about this. In my own mind I'm probably pairing Libertarianism with minarchy.

That's very interesting. I read it twice, and will probably read it again - haha. Re "their own desired liberties"...I have heard some imply that a substantial percentage of the supporters have historically been just pro-weed. I thought that sounded nuts. But, I admit I could see that as a possiblity.

Regarding true liberty - That is something I've come to realize the voters probably won't ever grasp. This is why, to my horror watching the early GOP debates, we hear promises of what government will do for us from both sides. This brings me to Rand Paul and, especially, his father. When those guys speak it almost always rings true in my ears. Not always, but very often it does. Trump was needling Rand, "...with your 1% approval rating..." But, Rand was the only one on that stage of 16 (or so) candidates who really made any sense to me.

There are quite a few videos on YouTube of the debates for Representative for the state of North Dakota, and I thought he more than held his own against the D (Chase Iron Eyes) & R (Kevin Cramer) candidates, and many times flat out dominated the debates. ND being a VERY conservative state (too many people vote only by seeing the R by the candidate's name), Jack really didn't have a chance of winning the election, but he definitely fights the good fight. (PS: 2016 was his second attempt to unseat Cramer.)

Now I HAVE looked at jackfornd and WOW. Yes, he seems, from what I've seen so far, to be just what the party needs. And what these United States need. Thank you again for the link.

Thanks Tom. I appreciate that insight.

LOL. Sorry...

Thanks for that insight. Oh, and no I'm not a member. I think I have more to learn, honestly. The older I get the more I have minarchist leanings, which apparently is different.

He should have kept smoking it.

Thank you for that link. I have never heard of Jack Seaman, but will look now.
What we need first, before any more unknown presidential candidates, is an intelligent, consistent, liberty-loving and presentable candidate for a lower office who wins and THEN runs for higher office, and eventually president.

Joy, excellent answer. Often we are not glib. But too often our candidates try to fit in with the ongoing debate and some detour among the issues rather than pound on the basics.
As a campaign consultant, that is what I try to stress: Stick to the basic point, which is freedom.

Gary Johnson quit, or said he quit, using marijuana after his condition of pain ceased.
But, as to your question, What's Wrong With the Libertarian Party?, well, I have one question and one solution:
Are YOU a member of the LP?
One solution is YOU, and everyone else reading this page, join, be active, and help the LP find its way, that way possibly being back to more honest and sane pro-liberty positions.
I was there early. Not quite at the founding, although I was trying to start a Libertarian party at about the same time, completely unknowing of the "real" Libertarian Party.
I also was one of the first to quit, storming out of our local group's meeting.
I have since re-joined. And re-quit. And re-joined.
I was terribly disappointed in Gary Johnson's not being consistently libertarian, but he was 'WAY ahead of whoever might have been in second place ... although I don't think any single candidate was. All the rest were so much worse, it was all a tie for second place.
Anyway, EVERYONE HERE: JOIN, and help us in the LP find the rational course. Thank you.

The Libertarian party has no chance because there is little desire for liberty. The left, right, and center only want specific subsets of liberty which do not have laws against their favorite freedoms while having laws to force the others to act rightly. Each political subset has their own desired liberties and what should not be free actions by individuals. The fear is mostly of individualism and not of some kind of collective society. The different views here in the Gulch about who should be free or not are some indication that Libertarians have a very long and hard learning curve to scale.

Considering that Liberals are not liberal and that he gave up smoking grass when he chose to run for the presidency, what did he do or say that indicated otherwise? What is your definition of libertarian?

Whoa, a pound of weed? Hyperbole has no place in this forum. That said, I agree with your observation.

I think he did that intentionally to get media attention. You have to admit, when he did "go off" the media aired him. In an era were Trump was sucking the oxygen out of the room, getting any media recognition is a plus.

For what it's worth, I attended the LP convention in Boston (1976 as I recall). While there were a few of what I would call 'real libertarians' there were other hanger's on who were just trying to make a splash. There was no real principled position taken - anything that would add to the numbers in the hall was alright. For example, several went out to Boston's red light district to recruit members because the LP doesn't oppose victim-less crime and so thought that would be good source of recruits. In my mind that is hardly a criteria on which to pick your associates. The LP is struggling to find an identity AND it wants to be big. Unlike the Green party, which has a specific, if flawed, agenda, at least it has something specific it can recruit based on. IF the LP ever got to a set of core values, its numbers would shrink no matter what set of core values it chose because the current membership is composed of people who are very liberal (i.e. the government should ...) and conservative (i.e. get the government out of ...). What it stands for depends on who you ask. And that is my two cents worth - or maybe only one cents worth?

To many things to list.