Posted on 11/08/2006 8:08:12 AM PST by Matchett-PI
Has Our Time Come? http://www.hereticalideas.com/
A **new study from the Cato Institute [see link below] suggests that libertarians might be the new swing vote.
The libertarian vote is in play. At some 13 percent of the electorate, it is sizable enough to swing elections. Pollsters, political strategists, candidates, and the media should take note of it.
After examining the relevant polling data, Cato concludes that libertarians and libertarian sympathizers constitute somewhere between 10 and 20% of the American population. Some explanations are offered as to why libertarians constitute such a bigger constituency than one might expect. First is that libertarians tend not to be as well-organized as other interest groups. Most groups that organize and try to exert political influence want some sort of government action: unions want favorable labor laws passed, the Christian Coalition wants abortion outlawed and anti-homosexual laws passed, environmentalists want pollution restricted and ecosystems protected, businesses want favorable tax and commercial laws. Libertarians generally don’t want government to take action, and are therefore less likely to organize into a pressure group because of that. It also argues that the difficulty people have in breaking out of the left-right liberal-conservative paradigm of politics keeps “populists” (authoritarians) and libertarians underrepresented. While most political scholarship accepts the inadequacy of a simple one-dimensional view of politics, it hasn’t sunk down into popular culture as strongly. Often talk shows and debate programs on television and radio will feature someone “from the left” and someone “from the right”, squeezing libertarians out of the picture.
An unexplored reason that might contribute is the higher prevalence of libertarianism among younger people than older people. The Cato paper notes this statistic but doesn’t explore its relationship to voter turnout. It explains the phenomenon this way. Younger people were more influenced by 2 of the most significant individualist movements of the 20th century: the ’60s counter culture and the ’80s Reagan Revolution. As a result, younger generations have seen both the socially liberal and the economically conservative side of individualism and turn to libertarianism as a way to emulate both ideals. The downside is that since younger people in general are less likely to vote, libertarians wind up underrepresented at the polls.
But don’t libertarian have to swing their votes to become a swing vote? Well, more and more frequently libertarian-minded people are losing the loyalty to the party they usually vote for (mostly the GOP), which puts their vote as a bloc in play.
Many commentators noted the high turnout in the 2004 election. Nationally, voter turnout increased 6.1 percent. That might help explain some of the swing in 2004. According to ANES data, libertarians reported turning out to vote at higher percentages than total respondents in 2000 and even higher in 2004.
This libertarian swing trend is particularly pronounced by age. Libertarians aged 18–29 many of whom were new voters in 2004 voted 71–42 for Kerry. Libertarians aged 30–49 voted almost completely the reverse, 72–21 for Bush.
Going back to the generational argument, I imagine that older individuals who can remember a time when the religious Right wasn’t nearly as omnipresent of a force in the Republican Party and therefore don’t automatically associate it with tirades about the moral dangers of homosexuality and feticide. So I can understand younger libertarians leaning more democratic than older ones who might remember the time of more Goldwater-like or even maybe Reagan-like Republicans.
What does all this mean in practical terms? What will we see coming out of the major political parties Conservatives resist cultural change and personal liberation; liberals resist economic dynamism and globalization. Libertarians embrace both. The political party that comes to terms with that can win the next generation.
It would really be great to see both political parties converge to a libertarian center. But as the article points out, the nature of libertarians makes them much harder to corral than other groups, which makes attracting us to their political parties a far more expensive and riskier proposition than going after churchgoers and soccer moms. Perhaps in time it will happen. But I doubt it will happen very soon.
** http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1718392/posts
It's a vote, it's a participation in the distribution of sovereign power.
If you want to exercise moral rectitude, go to church.
I agree that the L candidate lost us Montana, but CATO isn't the same thing as the libertarian party.
How ironic that you can't see that the GOP's failure to adhere to its small-government principles is what led to the Libertarian Party's very existence, and hence to the GOP's defeat last night.
Or is that not part of the "Big Picture"?
Too small and too unreliable. As I said, the Libertarians will split with a coalition on the flavor of the bagels at the mid-morning break. (In fact, knowing some Libertarians, having bagels at all would be too neo-con for them.)
It's an authorization for the use of force. You just authorized yourself to assault me.
Don't go there. Seriously. There are some Rights no majority was ever to deprive us of.
bookmarking
If you want charts, I can get them for you.
I'm like you. As far as our liberties are concerned, the GOP is very bad and the Democrats are much much worse. I'm not willing to let the much worse party get elected.
Sorry, neither the R nor the D party expects very much at all. It's a coalition.
Tell you what, want to run for office as an R? Go to the local board of elections and run for your local statehouse office as a Republican. It's not hard, and nobody will stop you.
Party identification is not a barrier, it's a way that the candidates let the people know on which side of the fence they (generally) stand. It says that you'd rather stand with Pelosi than with Hastert.
I am always amazed at the wholesale ignorance that Libertarians have for how politics works.
It's the L party that's a rigid, top-down, toe-the-line organization.
IOW, they're too small to make a difference AND are responsible for handing yesterday's election to the Democrats?
That's just plain wrong. Conservative means conservative powers for government, liberal powers for citizens. Liberal means liberal powers for government conservative power for citizens.
Conservatives resist government liberation.
Do you want to explain this? I'm sorry. I don't speak crazy.
No. You don't have a clue in general so anyone speaking sense seems "crazy" to you.
They're too small and unreliable to help you win. It's like holding slime, they'll slip away no matter what you do. Better to go after the mushy middle than the couple of Libertarians.
But I never claimed that the L's lost the Montana race. Maybe they did, but what it would have taken to bring them on board would have either reduced Burns' total to 10% or not been sufficient for their unappeasability.
I see you can't translate crazy either. Fair enough.
When you understand what the Constitution is and does, come back and try and have a cogent discussion. Until then, it'd be like me trying to explain particle physics to a 3 year old.
not around here, they didn't.
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