"Draw a line", as in "connect the dots" or "make the connection" between losing elections and positive outcomes.
The notion is vacuus, that people are positively exposed to libertarian ideas by running for office, when the effort fails.
In reality, the ideas are humiliated in defeat.
Meanwhile, when legitimate complaints are voiced in a losing campaign, injustice gains credibility and popularity.
Not sure what you mean by draw a line, or what your point is on the latter John. I think exposing people to libertarian ideas is better than not doing so, and one way people get exposed to the ideas is by candidates running for office.
Love & Liberty, ((( starchild )))
I think it's widely recognized that running for office, increasing name exposure, helps a candidate in subsequent runs for office. We can even see this in a small scale in the Libertarian Party, where running for president or party chair and losing often helps a person get elected to some other position.
I don't see any evidence that libertarian ideas are "humiliated in defeat". Anyone who believes that electoral defeat is humiliating, or sees the term "loser" as a legitimate pejorative, is looking at things the wrong way. They are laboring under the false notion that the rightness of an idea is determined by its popularity. If you look at important historical reforms like abolition of chattel slavery, women's suffrage, equal treatment of GLBTQ people under the law, etc., these causes all suffered many defeats along the way, but that didn't stop them from ultimately prevailing.