Posted on 12/10/2006 10:04:01 PM PST by neverdem
Libertarian Party candidates may have cost Senators Jim Talent (R.-Mo.) and Conrad Burns (R.-Mont.) their seats, tipping the Senate to Democratic control.
In Montana, the Libertarian candidate got more than 10,000 votes, or 3%, while Democrat Jon Tester edged Burns by fewer than 3,000 votes. In Missouri, Claire McCaskill defeated Talent by 41,000 votes, a bit less than the 47,000 Libertarian votes.
This isn’t the first time Republicans have had to worry about losing votes to Libertarian Party candidates. Senators Harry Reid (Nev.), Maria Cantwell (Wash.), and Tim Johnson (S.D.) all won races in which Libertarian candidates got more votes than their winning margin.
But a narrow focus on the Libertarian Party significantly underestimates the role libertarian voters played in 2006. Most voters who hold libertarian views don’t vote for the Libertarian Party. Libertarian voters likely cost Republicans the House and the Senate—also dealing blows to Republican candidates in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
In our study, “The Libertarian Vote,” we analyzed 16 years of polling data and found that libertarians constituted 13% of the electorate in 2004. Because libertarians are better educated and more likely to vote, they were 15% of actual voters.
Libertarians are broadly defined as people who favor less government in both economic and personal issues. They might be summed up as “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” voters.
In the past, our research shows, most libertarians voted Republican—72% for George W. Bush in 2000, for instance, with only 20 percent for Al Gore, and 70% for Republican congressional candidates in 2002. But in 2004, presumably turned off by war, wiretapping, and welfare-state spending sprees, they shifted sharply toward the Democrats. John F. Kerry got 38% of the libertarian vote. That was a dramatic swing that Republican strategists should have noticed. But somehow the libertarian vote has remained hidden in plain sight.
This year we commissioned a nationwide post-election survey of 1013 voters from Zogby International. We again found that 15 percent of the voters held libertarian views. We also found a further swing of libertarians away from Republican candidates. In 2006, libertarians voted 59% to 36% for Republican congressional candidates—a 24-point swing from the 2002 mid-term election. To put this in perspective, front-page stories since the election have reported the dramatic 7-point shift of white conservative evangelicals away from the Republicans. The libertarian vote is about the same size as the religious right vote measured in exit polls, and it is subject to swings more than three times as large.
Based on the turnout in 2004, Bush’s margin over Kerry dropped by 4.8 million votes among libertarians. Had he held his libertarian supporters, he would have won a smashing reelection rather than squeaking by in Ohio.
President Bush and the congressional Republicans left no libertarian button unpushed in the past six years: soaring spending, expansion of entitlements, federalization of education, cracking down on state medical marijuana initiatives, Sarbanes-Oxley, gay marriage bans, stem cell research restrictions, wiretapping, incarcerating U.S. citizens without a lawyer, unprecedented executive powers, and of course an unnecessary and apparently futile war. The striking thing may be that after all that, Democrats still looked worse to a majority of libertarians.
Because libertarians tend to be younger and better educated than the average voter, they’re not going away. They’re an appealing target for Democrats, but they are essential to future Republican successes. Republicans can win the South without libertarians. But this was the year that New Hampshire and the Mountain West turned purple if not blue, and libertarians played a big role there. New Hampshire may be the most libertarian state in the country; this year both the state’s Republican congressmen lost.
Meanwhile, in the Goldwateresque, “leave us alone” Mountain West, Republicans not only lost the Montana Senate seat; they also lost the governorship of Colorado, two House seats in Arizona, and one in Colorado. They had close calls in the Arizona Senate race and House races in Idaho, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and Dick Cheney’s Wyoming. In libertarian Nevada, the Republican candidate for governor won less than a majority against a Democrat who promised to keep the government out of guns, abortion, and gay marriage. Arizona also became the first state to vote down a state constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman.
Presidential candidates might note that even in Iowa libertarians helped vote out a Republican congressman who championed the Internet gambling ban.
If Republicans can’t win New Hampshire and the Mountain West, they can’t win a national majority. And they can’t win those states without libertarian votes. They’re going to need to stop scaring libertarian, centrist, and independent voters with their social-conservative obsessions and become once again the party of fiscal responsibility. In a Newsweek poll just before the election, 47% of respondents said they trusted the Democrats more on “federal spending and the deficit,” compared to just 31% who trusted the Republicans. That’s not Ronald Reagan’s Republican Party.
One more bit from our post-election Zogby poll: We asked voters if they considered themselves “fiscally conservative and socially liberal.” A whopping 59% said they did. When we added to the question “also known as libertarian,” 44% still claimed that description. That’s too many voters for any party to ignore.
Rep. Barbara Cubin (R.-Wyo.) told her Libertarian challenger after a debate, “If you weren’t sitting in that [wheel]chair, I’d slap you.” It took 10 days to certify her re-election, perhaps because that Libertarian took more than 7,000 votes. A better strategy for her and other Republicans would be to try to woo libertarians back.
EXACTLY!!!!!
If REPUBLICAN candidates would run on the REPUBLICAN Platform, they would get REPUBLICAN voters to vote for them instead of staying home!!!
It's such a NO-BRAINER, I do not understand why President Bush and the RNC don't "get it." President Bush has an MBA from Harvard. He has had marketing. He, of ALL people in his administration, should understand it.
Piss poor analysis.
You're right and I bet we could name the 10 people here who would make the effort to attend.
Today was absolutely amazing for its level of disgust and full out histrionics. I almost offered the keyboard jocks Tampons.
Yeah, great attitude. Guess you won't need our votes in 2008 either. Good luck with the big-government "compassionate" conservatism thing boys.
Libertarians aren't really a natural part of the GOP constituency, and shouldn't be treated as such or relied upon in any way.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
44% is probably understating it. A huge majority of the American public still wants a small, unintrusive government. The only people that want an intrusive government are socialists and social conservatives.
A large number of people that vote Democrat aren't socialists but vote for the Dems because they fear the theocons in control of the Republican party.
In the same way , a large number of people that vote Republican aren't really social conservatives but vote for the GOP anyway because they fear the socialists in control of the Democratic party.
The parties are due for a realignment - hopefully all the small government voters can unite and save this country from the big government types that control both the Republican and Democratic parties.
Fine, forget the label 'libertarian' and replace it with 'moderate' or 'centrist'.
You want us out of the party as well?
*ahem*
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Zogby is a joke if he believes this is an accurate reading of the public's true feelings and positions. 44% Libertarians? Gimme a break.
Go back to the bolded part. I wouldn't be surprised if folks who described themselves as fiscally conservative and socially liberal also called themselves as libertarians.
Crudely stated, but essentially correct.
Apparently they asked voters a series of questions and those whose answers were "fiscally conservative and socially liberal" were deemed Libertarians. Those who were actually members of the Libertarian party were probably a small subset of that total
This looks to me like an effort by Boaz et al to make the Libertarian party more influential at the polls than it actually is.
LOL - Small government, fiscal conservatives aren't a "natural part of the GOP"? Exactly what do you think is the natural constituency of the GOP?
With attitudes that I've seen here by the theocons, unless the democrats do something really stupid (which they are prone to do), they are going to be in power for a long time.
I went to 4 algore freeps before I was a registered 'freeper'. I wonder how many posters have actually 'freeped' an event. Now, it's just stating opinions, being witty, and do nothing other than gripe and moan about how bad stuff is. And don't forget to post your latest porn crap. I wonder, how many of these posters actually 'do' stuff to advance conservatism, other than bitch on a forum. It's really sad if you think about it. How many volunteer at the local office? How many stuff envelopes? How many actually do something to advance conservativism? "But I post my opinions on an internet site". It's apparent most are forum warriors and don't do diddly to advance conservative causes. They just glom onto the topic du jour and that's that.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
You just don't get it.
These Libertarian swine deserve a lot of blame. If we'd had three more Senate seats in the last Congress, things could have been quite different. They blame us for problems that they in part create.
"Fiscally conservative and socially liberal" voters certainly are small "L" libertatians. The article was primarily dealing with libertarians not members of the Libertarian Party.
I started working in local campaigns when I was 21. Pete Wilson was running for CA Assemblyman in my district. As you know, he later won election for Mayor of San Diego, U.S. Senator and finally Governor of CA. I love campaign work.
You and I both know that darn few people here actually work in campaigns: there's not enough hours in the day, given the time they spend here.
That's exactly the attitude I'm talking about - you attack the small "L" libertarian voters and then you get upset when they don't vote for you.
If the GOP wants libertarian votes then they need to embrace smaller, less intrusive government. It's actually pretty simple.
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