Peter Schiff is an excellent economist and his appearances on various financial shows (and the corresponding Youtube clips and blog posts) have contributed to the economics education and financial health of thousands of people. Why on earth is he running for the Senate?  ¹ Does he really believe that the political process has even a remote chance of limiting the size and scope of government? Such a belief is truly absurd for two reasons:

1. The inherent inertia of the political workings of Washington D.C. makes it nearly impossible to slow down the growth of government; actually shrinking the government from the inside borders on impossible.
2. Even if I am wrong that it’s an impossibility to shrink government from the inside, what it would require is more than three libertarians. Were Schiff to win, and Ron Paul’s son Rand Paul to win also, that would make 3 libertarians in Congress (I’m generously calling Rand a libertarian, mind you) vs 532 socialists of varying degrees; worse, their forces would be split, as Schiff and Rand would be in the Senate (2 vs 98) and Ron would be in the House (1 vs 434). You’ve got to be kidding me.

I’d prefer to see Schiff save his money and that of all the people who would donate to his campaign (freedom-lovers) so they can use it to brace for the impact of this onsetting depression. Tossing so much into the political advertising money pit is a total waste. That’s an enormous amount to spend ($30 Million or so?) in the hopes that Peter can get elected and make great speeches on CSPAN, given that he already gets invited to speak on the financial circuit with little or no out-of-pocket expense on his part. In fact, Schiff has already had to cease appearing twice per week on one of the financial shows due to campaign laws, so now we’re back to all Keynes all the time. And even if he were to win, it’s doubtful the Republican leadership would seat Schiff on any of the important financial committees, so what would he really accomplish in the Senate? Maybe introduce a few bills which never make it out of committee?

Worst of all, I fear Schiff doesn’t really have a shot of winning since libertarianism doesn’t really resonate with the masses (yet), so all of that time and money campaigning will likely be wasted. (Yes, I know I just made an objective truth claim about others’ subjective evaluations which is an Austrian no-no.)

1. Schiff’s campaign website has been taken down. ↩