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Libertarian Party finds a haven in high tech

Presidential candidate Browne brings hands-off ideology to welcoming halls of Microsoft

Saturday, October 14, 2000

By MIKE LEWIS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Software architect Jonathon Golden takes pleasure not only in his freedom to wear his favorite T-shirt to work in a high-tech company, but also in the sharp response it evokes there.

His Libertarian Party shirt "actually solicits comments and questions," Golden said. "People know what it is. It's one of the only places where, on a chance, I meet other Libertarians."

Golden, 29, who works for Saltmine LLC's staff augmentation division, said he knows why. Libertarian Party officials say they know, too.

The party, which is seeing its biggest vote totals ever in Washington state and the nation this year, has found a sympathetic ear in the hallways and cubicles of the country's high-tech companies.

Political scientists and party officials said the link should come as no surprise.

The Libertarian philosophy emphasizing individual freedom is a comfortable fit for employees groomed on entrepreneurship, contract work, short-term jobs and the sometimes striking financial rewards for individual talent, said political science professor Jim Moore of the University of Portland.

"As undergraduates, many of these high-tech workers were encouraged into entrepreneurship and into reaping the fruits of their own labor," Moore said. "That is a strong self ethic in the high-tech community and in the Libertarian Party.

"We've been tracking it here in Oregon. When we look at public opinion polls in high-tech areas, like Portland, Libertarian issues, like government intervention into Microsoft, have floated to the top."

In Washington, the party for the first time has fielded candidates for all major races. Its September primary vote total in statewide races -- 409,755 -- is a 700 percent increase from the 1996 primary, when the Libertarians managed to field candidates in only two statewide races.

Nationally, the party is hitting its highest counts ever with 1,400 candidates on hundreds of ballots, a few hundred more than the party has fielded in the past, activists say.

"They're riding high now," said Moore, an expert on political parties.

Founded in 1971, Libertarian Party philosophy can be boiled down to a simple, consistent tenet, its members say: Less government control over individuals is better.

While conservatives might want that for business and liberals might seek it within criminal justice, Libertarians apply the notion broadly. Historically, Libertarians have opposed most, if not all, taxes while they've favored the legalization of drugs, for example.

"So we pull people from both parties," said Harry Browne, the party's presidential candidate, who spoke yesterday at a Libertarian Party event at Microsoft.

"We estimate we get one-third of our members from former Democrats, one-third from Republicans and one-third from people who never voted before," Browne said.

Golden, who was raised in Orange County and graduated from the University of California at Irvine, is a former Republican.

Browne, 69, didn't vote for 30 years until he joined the party in 1994.

And then there is Chris Caputo, the Libertarian candidate for state auditor. Caputo, a 29-year-old owner of his own small Internet company and a former Microsoft employee, is a vegetarian and former Democrat. He said the party has been a good fit for many of his friends in the high-tech community.

"I think there is a live-and-let-live notion that pervades high tech," said Caputo, who was raised by activist Democrats. "There also is a strong sense of the individual.

"Arriving at Libertarianism is an obvious conclusion for me and people like me; we're socially somewhat liberal and fiscally conservative. A lot of our decisions are based on logic, not emotion."

Libertarians, in part, still gauge success in candidates fielded and strength at the polls, not offices won. For all of the party's dozens of candidates on Washington's November ballot, the party will be lucky to get a single winner.

Browne admits the techies' philosophical sympathy won't translate into dollars unless those pragmatic, budding Libertarians see success worth backing.

"The people who are the higher-ups in these companies are not going to pay attention to us until we achieve something," Browne said after meeting with Microsoft's Libertarian group.

"We might be a couple of years away from that."

Pushing the party's message in North Carolina, San Jose and on Libertarian Internet chat rooms to make the most out of its $3 million budget, Libertarian leaders want Browne, a former financial consultant, to pull 1 million votes nationally, a first for the party if it can be achieved.

"I hope we will hit a new high," he said.

"If we get over a million it will be important to the future of the party."

And that, Moore said, leads to the big question.

In the past, the Libertarians have shown some success only to backslide when the economy or political winds shifted, he said.

Is this recent voter attention going to stick or is it going to fade when the economy shifts, high-tech companies take a nose dive and Microsoft is no longer the focus of the government's antitrust lawyers?

"This might be a blip," Moore said. "When high tech slows down in (Seattle and in) Silicon Valley, I guess we'll see how closely their fates are tied, won't we?"

P-I reporter Mike Lewis can be reached at 206-448-8027 or mikelewis.@seattle-pi.com

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