Unless I read it wrong, what this article seems to presume is that libertarians and conservative evangelicals abandoned republicans to vote for democrats. This makes no sense at all. I presume what happened is that libertarians voted libertarian and "conservative evangelicals" stayed home.
While both the actions were, objectively, votes for dims and terrorists, they still indicate a need for more, not less conservatism from the republican party.
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.
Ronald Reagan perfectly brought together social conservatives, fiscal libertarian Republicans, and pro-defense patriots.
Seems the GOP has forgotten how to do that.
Paging Mr. Newt. Are you available to assist us?
The article states that libertarians, in at least two cases, voted for Libertarian Party candidates by margins large enough to ensure Democratic victory. This assumes that the Republican Party is the natural home of libertarians, and if the candidate in Montana had not got nearly 3% of the state vote, most of those votes would have gone to Burns, the Republican.
It is hard to imagine a committed Libertarian 'punishing' the Republicans by voting Democratic. Less so by voting Libertarian, though the outcome of either is close to the same. (Donkeys in Charge.)
I heard this a lot after the election, but looking at the numbers in CA, there's the obvious third option. Turn out in traditionally republican counties was about the same as in 2002, the last midterm election. Turnout in dem strongholds, however was up 5-10%. They simply beat us at the GOTV tactics that was supposed to be Rove's strong suit.
I also think that the GOP needs to concentrate less on absentee ballots, and more on driving up the election day voting: those are the numbers that get reported, and perception is reality. Even if the GOP is up 30% in pre-election absentee votes, those numbers don't get tallied in until way after all the election day drama that depresses turnout.