The Libertarian Christmas party is an anecdote John Kiriakou has told more than once, and told again in December 2025 during a discussion of whether a third party could break the American duopoly. He introduced it as a joke that is funny because it is true.[1]
The party
He had been invited to the Libertarian Party’s Christmas party a few years earlier. “And of course, being Libertarians, they held it at the end of January cuz they just could not get their act together.”[1] Rall’s addition — that they were also cheap and did not want to pay top dollar for the space — went unchallenged.[2]
The venue was a townhouse in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, and everybody was wearing hello, my name is name tags.[2]
The offer
A man read Kiriakou’s tag and said he had been hoping to run into him. His own tag identified him as the head of the Libertarian Party for Virginia. They shook hands, and he asked: did Kiriakou want to run for governor?[2][3]
“And I said, absolutely not.”[3]
The reason
Asked why, Kiriakou gave the arithmetic rather than a principle. He liked them — “You’re all nice guys” — but he knew how it would play out: he would be completely out of pocket, nobody would raise any money for him, and in the end he would get two per cent and humiliate himself, and everyone would make fun of the party.[3]
Rall’s addition was psychological: the worst part is that in the middle of the night you would start to have weird thoughts about whether you could actually win. “Right. Exactly. And you can’t.”[3][4]
The corroborating case
Kiriakou then supplied the illustration from his 2016 travels with Gary Johnson, whom he was accompanying to introduce him at speeches. In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Johnson’s sister — herself running for Congress in that district — joined them for dinner, and Kiriakou made conversation by mentioning that the incumbent Republican was polling at only about forty per cent.[4][5]
Her reaction was immediate: “I might actually win this thing.” Kiriakou’s private response was that this was not his point at all — she was not going to win, the incumbent was merely unpopular — and she duly finished with two per cent. His conclusion is that the delusion is not uncommon: it is very easy to persuade yourself that lightning might strike.[5][6]