I am thinking that if someone with some good financial backing ran in 2012 as an Independent, they could win the presidency. Americans are fed up with republicans and democrats. They are fed up with the president, and fed up with Congress. Someone should run NOW as an independent, and they might just win it.
The timming is there, but....not the candidate, nor anything remotely akin to the Organizational Apparratus needed to get elected.
As far as I can tell, the last DECADE has been prime for a legitimate "Third" Party, and yet, the closest thing we have gotten is the TEA Party.
Libertarians will be certain to run a no-name (or, Low-name) protest Candidate, who can't win, though, just as they do every four years. Other than that, they have NOTHING, but complaints.......
IF they ever organized, and, hammered out a concise party platform (that would be the tough issue for Libertarians...), then they would already have several Congressmen and Senators serving, and, more on the way, in 2012.....