Posted on 11/14/2006 6:25:58 PM PST by Purple GOPer
In one closely watched Congressional race (Sodrel v Hill, IN-9) and two critical Senate races (Missouri and Montana), the Republican candidate was defeated by fewer votes than the Libertarian candidate received.
[Note: the last data I could find on the Missouri race still had two of the 3746 precincts to report, so it is possible that statement isn't true for Missouri, but if it is not true it is still very close and does not diminish my point.]
In other words, in these two critical Senate races and if the Republican had gotten the Libertarian's votes, the Republican would have won.
For the rest of this article, please recognize that I am speaking of the small-"l" libertarian, and not the Libertarian Party of the candidates mentioned above. A "libertarian", in the shortest definition I can muster, is someone who is fiscally conservative and socially liberal. In other words, it is someone who wants the government to perform a very small set of legitimate functions and otherwise leave us alone.
I can hardly contain my glee at seeing this happen after years of hoping it would. And in such dramatic fashion, with such important results. I did not hope it would because I wanted Republicans to lose, but because the Republicans had become corrupted (by which I do not mean corrupt in the typical sense.) They became enamored of power, and believed that they could get away with expanding the size, intrusiveness, and cost of government as long as they had government aim for "conservative" goals rather than liberal ones. This loss, and the way it happened, was the best thing that could have happened for Americans who care about a government focused on limited government and liberty.
No, the Democrats are not that government. They believe in anything but limited government, and they only believe in liberty in one's personal life, but not in one's economic life. In a sense, Democrats believe that the citizens work for the government.
Republicans on the other hand have acted in just the opposite way: they believe in economic liberty and they know we do not work for government. But they do not believe in personal liberty. The failure of the strategery of the Republicans, to focus on "the base" by trotting out social issues such as the South Dakota no-exception abortion ban (which lost, I'm pleased to say) demonstrated two things: First, social issues do not have long coat-tails. Second, the GOP base is fiscal conservatives more than it is social conservatives.
Fiscal conservatives, even more than social conservatives, were the demotivated voting block. Fiscal conservatives who are not socially conservative, i.e. voters who are libertarian even if they don't know it or wouldn't identify themselves that way, were the key swing vote in this election and were the reason that the GOP lost Congress...the Senate in particular.
In a recent study called "The Libertarian Vote", David Boaz (Cato Institute) and David Kirby (America's Future Foundation) discuss the growing number of American libertarians, the growing dissatisfaction among them (including me) with the GOP, and the continuing shift in voting patterns caused by that dissatisfaction. Tuesday held the obvious conclusion of this shift.
The party which went from reforming welfare to banning internet gambling by sticking the ban inside a port security bill, the party which went from Social Security reform to trying to amend the Federal Constitution to prevent gay marriage, the party which went from controlling the size and scope of government to banning horse meat became a party which libertarians and Republicans alike could not stomach.
The Democrats are a disaster, though they probably realize they need to move to the center. The Republicans have just been taught a brutal lesson that they also need to move to the center (on social issues) and back to fundamental principles of our Founders on issues of economics and basic liberties. No party can rely on the unappealing nature of their opponent to be a strong enough motivation to win elections, nor should we let them win if being just a bit better than the other guys is all they aspire to.
What I love about libertarian voters is that they vote on principle, not on party. The GOP might not like it, but politics should not be about blind loyalty if your party has lost its way. So, I disagree with suggestions that libertarians are fickle and unreliable voters. Instead the Republicans became an unreliable party. The Democrats on the other hand are extremely reliable -- they will always raise spending and taxes, get government involved where it doesn't belong. But other than the tax cuts of several years ago, the Republicans have been no different other than choosing different areas of our lives to intrude upon.
I hope that the result of the Libertarian Effect, particularly on the GOP, will be that the next election may provide us an opportunity to replace this batch of Democrat placeholders with Congressmen who not only have read the Constitution, but respect it. Congressmen who understand that Republican voters do not elect politicians to have them impose their (or our) morality on the people, but rather to keep government from interfering in our lives and leaving us, in the immortal words of Milton Friedman, "Free to Choose".
If you're an informed voter you shouldn't have to be told.
A truly uninformed opinion.
Whatever burr he's got under his saddle, I could care less. He's trying to stir up a flame war, and I'm not going to help him by getting sucked in. He can rot.
It's as if anyone taking a stand for the Constitution, and the individual freedoms and liberties associated with it, are their sworn enemy. And then their argument nearly always digresses to the issues of slavery and/or abortion to support their beliefs in strict federal control over individual freedoms.
It seems to be ego and job security.
I post complaining that good conservatives lost and you post the above non-sequitur BS?
Are you that big a dope?
tacticalogic:
I find that career federal bureaucrats seem to be statistically way over-represented among the virulent anti-libertarians.
takenoprisoner:
It's as if anyone taking a stand for the Constitution, and the individual freedoms and liberties associated with it, are their sworn enemy. And then their argument nearly always digresses to the issues of slavery and/or abortion to support their beliefs in strict federal control over individual freedoms.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And they avoid admitting that strict federal/state control over individual freedoms includes their belief in a power to prohibit guns. -- Or most anything else.
I'm a charter member of the St. Dismas Infirmary for the Icurably Informed. It's the prime reason why I vote "conservative" instead of straight "Republican". Especially since the idiots in the GOP are now trying to co-opt the Democrat agenda.
I'm a charter member of the St. Dismas Infirmary for the Incurably Informed. It's the prime reason why I vote "conservative" instead of straight "Republican". Especially since the idiots in the GOP are now trying to co-opt the Democrat agenda.
Yes. Good conservatives lost. I know, I voted for some of them. And? Assuming you have any further point of course...
I hate it when I do that... mea culpa...
The causal relationsip is between something that failed to occur and something that failed to occur. The two things that failed to occur were Republicans getting elected, and a bunch of them failing to get up off their ass and vote.
You mean like the recent ban by congress on internet gambling? Meantime, I can spend thousands on lottery tickets and scratch offs, travel to casinos all over the nation dropping untold thousands, and congress could care less. But now I am prohibited from playing texas holdem on the internet.
Both Republicans on the ticket here in Montana were Conservative. Stan "Blueboy" Jones, a libertarian, was and still is, a conspiracy loon, and he was co-opting the Democrat agenda.
Those casino's you can still go to were the big backers of that bill.
"What leftists love about libertarian voters is that they elect democrats....."
"That is generally not the case."
When and where it is "generally not the case" it is only so because the GOP candidate or the Dim candidate win by margins that far exceed the votes of the Libers; not because the Libers failed to mount a candidate and not because the die hard Libers voted for the GOP.
But the fact is that there are a growing number of Libertarian minded conservatives in the GOP, particularly from western states, who, would be able to advance Libertarian ideas with greater ability if more Libertarians went to the mat fighting for position in the GOP (beginning in the local party orgs) for a place, as the social conservative values voters did for over 20 years. The fact is that many Libertarian's would sometimes find allies for their positions in the GOP, among other-minded conservatives and "moderates" at times. Outside the GOP, they are not in government and have no one to make policy alliances with.
The Libers and some other "purist" conservatives hate the glass half empty of a big, diverse GOP (in which you do get allies to vote with you some of the time) and prefer the glass totally empty outside of government. Thus, they never get the ability to demonstrate their ideas in practice. Thus, they cannot attract large non-activist members.
You've gotta think these things through a bit more before you shoot yourself in the foot that way.
Oh, I do, believe me. You're still an uninformed voter still supporting a party that co-opt's a left-winged agenda.
Yeah... like limited, smaller, more Constitutional government. Real pro-2A. Private Property Rights. Getting government out of the medical care industry before they turn us into Europe. Ending the trend of public schools becoming liberalized indoctrination centers. Over turning Roe V Wade...
You mean THOSE "left wing" agenda items? You are laughable...
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