I hope you are right, except so many libertarians don't actually want libertarianism to go mainstream. For some it's a way for them to feel special. They feel better when they lose.
I can see you don't understand libertarianism.
The "problem" with so many libertarians is not that we don't want it to go mainstream. It's that we realize that "going mainstream" necessarily entails giving up on some core principles for what eventually amounts to nothing more than a promise to get other principles attended to.
What none of you Republicans seem to get is that the Ron Paul campaigns weren't following those rules... and they came dangerously close to getting somewhere. Close to making actual changes. The Revolution wasn't about working the system - it was about defiance to the system. It was a group of people who thumbed their collective noses at the system and at the same time worked that system to try to coopt it.
Nobody seriously thought the end goal of Ron's movement was to get into positions of power and hold on to them. The entire point was to do something totally different - starting with supporting the oldest presidential candidate in history who stuttered and couldn't find a good tailor to save his life.
Ron's strategy from the beginning was to inspire people to destroy power.
Rand's strategy from the beginning has been to acquire power.
Will some people be as enthusiastic about that? No doubt. But they will not be the same people.
And as has already been pointed out, and never rebutted, those people are not only not inspired, they're being asked not to show up at all.
Everyone seems perfectly comfortable with that, except for those original enthusiasts, and as stated, they don't count. So the answer to the question is no, no there will not be the same enthusiasm.
