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.
To the contrary, ask a libertarian if they want more laws proscribing what were lawful activities, e.g. tobacco smoking, etc.?
They've already turned against their libertarian base and spoiled the social conservatives rotten. Didn't work out so well for them.
Aaaa, you missed my point. I am certainly not saying that libertarians (large or small L) want more government involvement in personal choices.
What I'm saying is that the phrase "socially liberal" doesn't mean less government involvement in personal choices, but more government involvement in personal choices, just not the ones associated with the right.
For instance, a social liberal has no trouble supporting tobacco restrictions or trans-fat bans, but might support 'gay rights.' A libertarian would oppose tobacco/food nanny-statism and would realize that 'gay rights' are about being more equal, in the Orwellian sense.
The old classical meaning of liberalism is, unfortunately, quite dead, and only comes out of its grave to attempt to trick people into voting for Dem statists.
"President Bush and the congressional Republicans left no libertarian button unpushed in the past six years: "
The article failed to mention that Bush seems to be in total agreement with libertarians when it comes to illegal immigration.
"They've already turned against their libertarian base and spoiled the social conservatives rotten. Didn't work out so well for them."
Bush seemed to agree with libertarians completely on the illegal immigration issue.
You mean with the Libertarian party, not with libertarians.
Regardless, he didn't even agree with the Libertarian party on the immigration issue as they are for open borders ONLY if the social welfare benefits in this country are eliminated.
The bottom line is that the GOP has spoiled the social conservatives rotten over the last 26 years and the substantial libertarian minded voters have gotten nothing but a temporary tax cut.
Pretty much every move the GOP has made over the last 26 years has been to placate social conservatives or big business lobyists (e.g. immigration).
When over the last 26 years has the GOP tried to reduce either the size of government or the control they have over our lives?
I can remember only one short period shortly after the 1994 elections when the House tried their hardest to shrink the government but the Senate republicans, besides Phil Graham, would have none of it.
What I'm saying is that the phrase "socially liberal" doesn't mean less government involvement in personal choices, but more government involvement in personal choices, just not the ones associated with the right.
For instance, a social liberal has no trouble supporting tobacco restrictions or trans-fat bans, but might support 'gay rights.' A libertarian would oppose tobacco/food nanny-statism and would realize that 'gay rights' are about being more equal, in the Orwellian sense.
Maybe you misunderstood what I tried to write, but that is what I was trying to say. This approximately one seventh of the electorate that is described as small 'l' libertarians abhors statism, whether from the right or left.
That's another reason why Giuliani won't fly in 2008 in the general election, if he can squeak through the primaries, IMHO. Meanwhile we're stuck in a long war with a resurgent Islam that most of the country seems inclined to deny, and the GOP big tent looks pretty fragile.
Smackdown! By Independents & Moderates
"Why? Because exit polls show there's a large chunk of the electorate that is moderate, independent-minded and turned off by partisanship. In exit polls, 47 percent of voters described their views as moderate, 21 percent liberal and 32 percent conservative. And 61 percent of the moderates voted Democratic this year.
"On party identification, 26 percent said they're Independent, which is in line with recent elections. But this year, Independents went Democratic by a 57-39 margin. That's what gave the day to Democrats. In the 2002 midterm, by contrast, Independents went Republican in a 48-45 split."
There ya go; I agree. I was focussing on the inaccurate use of the phrase 'social liberal' by the writer of the article and the subsequent pseudo-surprise expressed by the author that said libertarians have not run from big-government Republicans to vote for bigger-government Democrats.
I'm not sure what people will do with Giuliani, though. I suppose it depends on how insanely the Dems handle themselves in the next two years and what happens with respect to terrorism -- and who the Dems nominate.
Thanks, and your realistic view of things is much appreciated.
I mean Big Brother is watching all of us. Not you in particular. You know, Libertarian ping, Big Brother from Orwells' 1984? Sorry if you didn't get it.
Nice pic by the way. Do you mind if I use it?
COLD HEAT RESPONDED: "I really hate to point out the obvious, but did you ever consider that it might be "You" who is misreading the tea leaves????...Eh?"
Could be.
But with a bachelor's degree in Radio/TV/Film, another in Advertising/Public Relations, an MBA in Marketing, about 45 YEARS of experience talking with people about political issues and my own personal experience of feeling literally shafted by my vote having been taken for granted by those who secured execution of my vote by deception, I don't think so.
I understand the "tea leaves" VERY well indeed!
I can't believe that any genuine libertarians would vote for John Kerry, so I'm suuming libertarians are actually around 10% of the population, not 15%.
BUMP
Libertarians wish people like you'd restrict yourself to fetching sticks and spare this forum too.
Sure you can use the pic.
What else have they got?
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