Chris Stirewalt - Political Editor of the Washington Examiner - offers the fantastical "Hating the government finally goes mainstream" (link, linked of course by Glenn Reynolds: pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/97645). He advances the delusional claim that the tea parties and recent polls indicate that libertarianism is finally becoming popular, that "[l]ibertarian sentiment has finally gone mainstream".

First, his definition of libertarianism doesn't comport with reality:

A movement that said that people should do whatever they wanted as long as it didn't hurt anyone else couldn't compete during the culture wars that began in the 1960s.

If they were put into practice, libertarian ideas would have vastly negative impacts on millions of people. For instance, the libertarian support for loose or open borders would allow strong, cohesive foreign countries to in effect colonize parts of the U.S. No libertarian leader will acknowledge that. Other libertarian proposals would have secondary and beyond effects, some of which might not become evident for decades (e.g., pollution and other environmental issues, health issues, and so on). It's trivially easy to find libertarian leaders - those who represent libertarian thought - supporting plans that would have vastly negative impacts on Americans.

Stirewalt also says:

But there's no doubt that hating the government and the powerful interests that pull Washington's strings has gone from the radical precincts of the Right and Left to the mainstream... And in a political system fueled by special-interest money, it was hard for the leaders of major parties to imagine anything other than an activist government. After all, if you pay for someone to get elected, you don't expect him to just sit there.

The libertarian movement - or at least the Beltway version of it - would collapse overnight if it lost funding from a small group of corporations, such as the Koch family. Trying to pretend that libertarianism isn't "fueled by special-interest money" is at least highly misleading.