Richard,
Unfortunately, the most capable money-and-power-seekers are quite capable of behaving well at a convention, or in the run-up to a convention. I hope we can learn from our mistakes and increase our collective ability to not be taken in by them.
We ought to seriously consider adopting ideological standards and accountability requirements for our candidates to receive the Libertarian Party's endorsement, and think about what other steps we can take as an organization to safeguard our continued viability as a vehicle for libertarianism. Because the threats are not going to go away -- electoral politics by its nature exerts a powerful temptation to corruption of both one's integrity and one's commitment to freedom. Unless a party or a politician exercises vigilance against *both* these threats, it is doomed!
The history of the Liberty Party should be a sharp lesson to us. They lacked a strong enough commitment to their principles to stand by them, and got impatient for "success" in conventional terms. First they watered down what their anti-slavery stance and became the Free Soil Party, then strayed even further as the Republican Party by adding other less libertarian planks -- and look what that party is today: Half of the ruling elite that oppresses America!
If the Liberty Party's founders had stuck it out for another generation and acted as leaders by seeking to pull public opinion in the right direction rather than as opportunists by seeking to adopt a position that was already popular, by 1870 they could well have achieved significant political success *without* compromising.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))