A few months ago, Mike Gravel was just another politician vying for the endorsement of the Democratic Party in the 2008 presidential election.
You've probably never heard of him, but those who have know him to be a man of interesting politics. Arguably, those politics got a lot more interesting on March 25 when, after suffering defeat in the primaries, the former Alaskan senator changed his tune.
Citing a disconnect between the objectives of the Democratic Party and the needs of the mass populous, Gravel cast his relationship with the party to the wayside.
What for? Well, maybe it was fear of another primary blowout that did him in. Or maybe, after having served decades as a one-party kind of guy, Gravel did it in a bout of political wanderlust.
Either way, Mike Gravel is a Libertarian now.
But what is a libertarian, anyway? As unknown to some as the candidate himself, libertarianism makes for a strange choice of conversion, especially for a politician rallying to remain relevant in the 2008 election.
As the largest third party organization in the states, libertarianism has a bad rep for catering to hipsters, radicals, and other assorted loons. Founded in 1971 as a response to the economic policies of the Nixon administration, the party actually owes more to the classic liberalism of the Jeffersonian age than to any other source.
It's all states' rights over the power of the federal government. Since the Jeffersonian era, the issues have expanded socially and economically. In foreign policy, this translates to non-interventionism. On the home front, the party maintains the protection of individual rights and freedoms.
And this compliments Gravel's platform immensely. He advocates the National Initiative for Democracy, a direct democracy policy that would allow citizens to vote on legislation through the use of wide-scale ballot initiatives.
To some, the reform may seem as dubious as the idea of a libertarian takeover.
While the party aims to hedge the hegemony of the two-party system, its more radical tenets - abolishing welfare and giving everyone access to guns - tends to make most folks a little nervous.
But still, that hasn't stopped libertarianism from haunting the current system like the ghost of political conscience past.
And during this election cycle, things have been different. A handful of individuals have been on hand to battle for the candidacy of the party, including Gravel, and including the widely popular Ron Paul.
Because of this, it's tough to say where Gravel stands. Even by Libertarian standards, he enters the race overshadowed, the aura of celebrity surrounding Ron Paul too impregnable at this point to be breached easily by an obscure outsider.
This doesn't mean that all hope is lost, especially since Paul isn't even an official candidate of the Libertarian party yet. But it does mean that Gravel faces an uphill trek if his hopes of wrestling away the nomination are to bear success.
Beyond Gravel, a larger question looms over this seemingly nonchalant example of party-hopping. We have to ask ourselves, what kind of precedent does it set when politicians jump ship to another ideology mid-election season?
Coming from Gravel, it may seem harmless - forgettable campaign trail fodder, even, until a politician less innocuous than he tries a similar move.
For instance, trailing Obama in popular polls and in delegates, what would happen if Hillary began campaigning as a Libertarian? Obama fans may rejoice, but then they'd gulp. Hillary, take two?
Party-hopping is easier to swallow coming from an obscure source. After all, what hope does an obscure source have of stealing the election? But the horrors such a reversal could reap would be plenty if played out in the wrong hands.
As we head into a summer filled with convention anxieties and general nomination woes, there's too much to potentially worry about as it is without factoring in the fear that the candidates we disregard now will return to the race, ad nauseam, until they win the election.
Popular elections are set in place for a reason; the beauty of democracy isn't just that it lends a voice to the people. Democracy is also about distinguishing, clearly, which candidates the public prefers, and which ones they think ought to get the hell out of Dodge.
True, the public isn't always conclusive. Indiana says yes to another Clinton in the White House, while North Carolina suggests something contrary.
But overall, the public has spoken out. Politicians, high or low, aren't nullifying these voices by switching their parties. They're just exposing how unabashedly calculated the election race has become in between.
As for Gravel, the authenticity of his conversion is something we have to take with the usual grain of skepticism. It could be said, though, that no one really converts to libertarianism expecting a big victory. Idealism, disenchantment, or lark - all of those reasons work fine.
But a big victory? That may be as crazy as running for president in the first place.
Shayna Murphy is a Collegian columnist. She can be reached at skmurphy@student.umass.edu.
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