Former GOP Rep. Justin Amash, Independent of Michigan, is considering running for president on the Libertarian Party (LP) ticket. The LP, with no big names attached to its presidential campaign, is intrigued by the idea. Sources say a best case scenario would be Amash gets enough votes to deny Trump the electoral college win.

Then, the scenario goes, the LP gets noticed nationwide and becomes a political player to be reckoned with. Make no mistake, they want to be this year’s Ralph Nader in 2000 to Trump’s Al Gore. But, this analyst knows from personal experience, they have no shot at doing so.

Libertarian Party activists would love it, “He’s toyed with this before and every time he does there’s a lot of excitement from within the Liberty movement,” said Joe Hunter, communications director for Gary Johnson’s Libertarian presidential run in 2016. “He’d be acceptable to a lot of Libertarians, but also to a lot of those ‘Never Trump’ Republicans. Of all the candidates out there, he’s at the top of the list of those that can bring us to a tipping point, where a third party or independent candidate convinces the media and donors that he or she can be relevant and have an impact on the race.” Uh, no.

Amash left the GOP in 2019: “The Republican Party, I believed, stood for limited government, economic freedom and individual liberty — principles that had made the American Dream possible for my family. In recent years, though, I’ve become disenchanted with party politics and frightened by what I see from it. The two-party system has evolved into an existential threat to American principles and institutions.”

Translation: “I really, really, really loathe Donald Trump. So I might be willing to elect a candidate from one of the political parties I supposedly think is ‘an existential threat’ to America.”

As a political consultant in the 1990s I worked with and trained the LP’s national party leadership. I’ve worked on party chairman fights at their national convention. Their leading presidential candidate right now, lawyer Jacob Hornberger, is a Virginia Military Institute graduate and former associate for whom I have a lot of respect.

But the LP is a libertarian think tank disguised as a political party. It can’t fight its way out of a wet paper bag. It runs candidates for president when it can’t elect state legislators. Anti-Trump political celebrity candidate or not, those political factors are not likely to change and thus leaves the Libertarian Party generally irrelevant in the presidential sweepstakes.

This piece was written by David Kamioner on April 20, 2020. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

Read more at LifeZette:
Bombshell: U.S. Intel says Obama gave millions of dollars to Wuhan lab that produced coronavirus
Former ‘Saturday Night Live’ star Leslie Jones calls for Trump’s name to be put on all coronavirus death certificates
Celebrities slammed for taking part in ‘One World’ benefit concert for the WHO: ‘Commie propaganda’

The opinions expressed by contributors and/or content partners are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Steve Gruber.