Chase Oliver is the Counter to Bill Weld

Bill Weld was the 68th Governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997. During that time he was known for his efforts to cut taxes, reduce spending, and promote business growth, but he also supported socially liberal policies such as LGBT and abortion rights. In other words, he is a libertarian in the broad sense of someone who is socially liberal and fiscally conservative¹, but perhaps not in the very strict and zealous sense that libertarian movement loyalists themselves use the word.

Between 1997 and 2016, Weld was out of the public eye, but in 2016 he re-entered national politics as the Libertarian Party (LP)’s vice presidential nominee, running alongside former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson (who had already run for President in 2012). The Johnson-Weld ticket received nearly 4.5 million votes, the best result for a third-party campaign since 1996 and the best result for a presidential campaign in the Libertarian Party’s history. This high-profile campaign helped to raise the visibility of the LP. However, it also, somewhat strangely, created a backlash within the party². Some members were critical of Weld and felt that Weld³, as a former Republican governor, represented a more moderate and “pragmatic” choice (“pragmatic” was something of a slur at the time). In response, the Mises Caucus⁴ was formed in 2017 in opposition to Weld and Nick Sarwark, the then-Chair of the party.

It is true that Weld’s positions on certain issues were not fully aligned with libertarian principles. For example, he did not generally support gun rights and, as a former Reagan administration appointee, he was perceived as something close to a neocon on foreign policy for being insufficiently critical of the Bush administration’s justification for the War in Iraq⁵.

To be honest, I never understood the antipathy to Weld as vice-presidential candidate, but I do understand the objection to him as a representative of the LP. After all, his value to the 2020 ticket came from the fact that he was not a typical Libertarian and his popularity was more outside the party than within.

Chase Oliver, the LP’s 2024 Presidential candidate, is much better. Oliver is a libertarian political activist who was born in 1985 and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. Until recently, he was best known for his 2022 campaign for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democrat Raphael Warnock. His campaign focused on classic libertarianisms such as the need to reduce government spending, protect civil liberties, and end foreign wars. In the general election, Oliver received 2.1% of the vote, enough to trigger a runoff election between the Democrat Warnock and the Republican Walker, which drew significant national attention. Some Republicans and Democrats disparaged Oliver for forcing the runoff, though for different reasons⁶.

On basic style, Oliver and Weld could not be more different. Even though they are both socially liberal, they’re socially liberal in different ways owing to their different backgrounds and political contexts. Weld’s position on gun rights has been weak, reflecting his background as an old-fashioned New England Republican. Oliver, in contrast, is a staunch and uncompromising advocate for the Second Amendment, much more in keeping with the platform of the LP.

The two also cut contrasting figures on a personal level. Weld is a distinguished elder statesman and family man, but Oliver is a young, openly gay political upstart⁷. These differences translate to their political appeal. Whereas Weld had special appeal to elites and the institutionally conservative center-right, Oliver has special appeal to the socially liberal center-left.

Another key distinction lies in their commitment to the LP itself (or lack thereof). Oliver, who is a former Democrat, has proven fiercely loyal, whereas Weld, on the other hand, was seen as a flight risk—a perception that was validated by his return to the Republican fold for an ill-fated 2020 presidential run. The two men’s public statements further highlight this difference. Weld gained notoriety for his comments on national television praising Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, saying she “deserves to have people vouch for her other than members of the DNC.” This willingness to cross party lines and align himself with a major party candidate raised eyebrows among libertarians. Oliver, on the other hand, is best known for his quip that if forced at gunpoint to choose between voting for Donald Trump or Joe Biden, “[t]he gun would go off.” This uncompromising stance, rejecting both major party options, encapsulates Oliver’s commitment to libertarian principles and refusal to play the lesser-of-two-evils game. While both candidates came to the Libertarian Party as converts from one of the two major parties, this fact carries far less weight in Oliver’s case. His actions and rhetoric consistently demonstrate a genuine embrace of libertarianism, whereas Weld’s flirtations with the Democratic and Republican establishments cast doubt on the depth of his commitment to the LP.

Oliver and Weld even differ in their intellectual and economic foundations, particularly in areas of great importance to the LP. Weld came to the LP late in his political career and had a relatively weak grounding in the party’s history; the broader American libertarian movement; and the heterodox economic theories, such as Austrian economics, that have long been influential among libertarians. In contrast, Oliver has demonstrated a deep understanding and appreciation of these intellectual traditions. Oliver’s selection of Mike ter Maat, an adherent of Austrian economics, as his running mate further underscores his alignment with the Libertarian Party’s intellectual foundations.

On foreign policy, Weld was often perceived as insufficiently committed to the libertarian stance against military intervention. Oliver, however, is an unabashed anti-war candidate, reflecting the LP’s long-standing critique of American foreign policy and its associated human and financial costs. He actually encountered the LP through its opposition to the Iraq War during the Bush administration, a formative experience that mirrors the political journey of many millennial libertarians.

When viewed through the lens of the critiques leveled against Weld by many Libertarian Party members in 2016, Chase Oliver appears to be an almost perfect candidate. He seems precisely calibrated to address the shortcomings identified in Weld⁸, from his youth and diversity to his philosophical grounding and policy commitments. For those seeking a standard-bearer who embodies the core values and identity of the Libertarian Party, Oliver presents a compelling choice, one that reflects the party’s efforts to define itself in the aftermath of the Weld nomination.

Perhaps, then, we can expect those members of the LP who ostracized Bill Weld, who waved protest signs with Weld’s face on them at a convention which Weld didn’t even attend⁹, to embrace Chase Oliver just as passionately as they opposed Bill Weld.

However, this does not appear to be the case. The same faction that protested Weld’s nomination has not rallied around Oliver¹⁰. It raises the question: Does the Libertarian Party faction that rejected Weld and now actively resists Oliver have any coherent vision for their ideal candidate? Their opposition to two such disparate figures hints at a fundamental dissonance in their political calculus. It suggests that what they object to is not different interpretations of libertarianism but libertarianism itself.

These are the contradictions the Libertarian Party will have to iron out going forward.

Though though really, we should call these positions “socially libertarian” and “fiscally libertarian,” because that’s what they are. A “social liberal” is someone who sounds like a small-l libertarian when discussing social policy (with a few exceptions like gun rights), while a “fiscal conservative” is someone who sounds like a small-l libertarian when discussing fiscal policy (with, again, a few exceptions). There’s more to being libertarian than those two things, of course, but that’s a good chunk of it. ↩︎
It’s unfortunate and it’s also hard to understand from the outside. Lots of mainstreamers who have vague recollections of a strong, insurgent, and tempting LP must be asking themselves how the Libertarian Party lost its way. ↩︎
It’s also weird but true that so much of this antipathy attached itself to the Vice-Presidential candidate Weld rather than Johnson who was at the top of the ticket, though, to be sure, Johnson did not totally escape criticism either. Some of this might have something to do with the fact that Libertarians elect their Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates separately, and there are occasional cases of “cohabitation” (to use the French expression) in which the Vice-Presidential and Presidential candidates do not get along at all. This was nearly the case for Weld, who was chosen by a much narrower vote than Johnson. ↩︎
Yes, that’s the Mises Caucus origin story. It’s not very interesting or inspiring, I think. And yes, that’s the same Mises Caucus, named after the Austrian economist and libertarian theorist Ludwig von Mises, that the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote about here: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2022/05/25/mises-caucus-could-it-sway-libertarian-party-hard-right ↩︎
It’s worth noting that he was out of office—indeed, our of politics—at the time and did not exactly support the war either. ↩︎
The Republican argument was that Oliver cost Walker the election, though analysts noted that Warnock would have likely won anyway. The Democratic argument was that Oliver forced the Democrats to invest more resources in the race than they had originally budgeted for. ↩︎
Ideally, a candidate would be both young and highly experienced, but those things doesn’t usually go together. Especially given the LP’s traditional perspective that real foreign policy experience is morally corrupting, perhaps the best we can hope for is a young, enthusiastic, and charismatic outsider who has time to learn—like Chase Oliver or the Mises Caucus’s own Dave Smith. ↩︎
I met Bill Weld at convention once, and I’m glad I did. He struck me as intelligent, genteel, and principled in a way that few Republicans in recent years have been, so this is not meant to be a slam on Weld in any way. It’s just that Oliver is conspicuously better, if not from a mainstream perspective, then certainly from a small-l libertarian one. ↩︎
This is the Mises Caucus again. ↩︎
Chase Oliver received about a 30% NOTA (or None-of-the-above) vote on the final ballot. This is a minority, but it is a significant one. ↩︎

Used with permission from Libertariana. To read more from John Ward, check out his Substack.

This piece solely expresses the opinions of the author, and not necessarily the Classical Liberal Caucus as a whole.

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