The numbers in these polls don't help at all in figuring out who swung. In the 2004 presidential election, we won by 3 points. In the contested 2006 congressional races, we lost by 3 points. That's 1.75% of the voters changing their minds and voting the other way. So the fact that 47% of folks describe themselves as moderate tells you nothing about who swung.
I ran the county GOTV effort for a large swing county in a mountain state. So I talked with a lot of voters. And my phone bankers talked to a LOT of voters--like, 70-90,000.
I'm pretty sure that, at least in my neck of the woods, the profile of the vote switcher in 2006 was grumpy independents, who just wanted things to be different. They were pissed of about a variety of things--from Iraq to Christians to abortion to immigration to federal spending--but to call them libertarian is an insult to Frederick Hayek and Milton Friedman. Their idea of good governance is, when dems want a 20% tax increase, Republicans should agree to 10% and then the voters should never hear about it. Most especially, their position on, say, taxes is that politicians should not say mean things about each other on the tax issue and that they (the voters) ought not have hear about all this stuff because it annoys them. Their position on Iraq is that it annoys them they hear about it all the time and they want it (the annoyance) to go away. About as specific as it gets is "Someone ought to do something."
So, at least in the supposedly key county in a supposedly libertarian state, the 10-15% number is a pipe dream.
Look at it this way--and now I'm back to the national numbers. If 10-15% of the population were small government advocates (but not conservative christians) and another 35% are conservative christions, we would have a majority or near majority for smaller government on a wide range of issues. We aren't even close to that kind of vote for smaller government and we haven't beenn since 1980. 10-15% is pipe-dream land. The reason it is a fantasy rather than reality is that 10-15% of the population are not libertarians, if you exclude the Christians.
I SO wish you were right. Because if you were, we would be on the verge of restoring our constitutional republic. Regrettably, we are nowhere near that point. Instead we take out our frustration about the state of affairs by screaming at our closest political allies about details. The real problem is not the details. It is the fact that the majority of voters in America favor ever expanding and intrusive government.
But comment# 112's link also told you about 3 out 5 of the 26 percent registered as Independents voted for the dems this year.
I'm pretty sure that, at least in my neck of the woods, the profile of the vote switcher in 2006 was grumpy independents, who just wanted things to be different. They were pissed of about a variety of things--from Iraq to Christians to abortion to immigration to federal spending--but to call them libertarian is an insult to Frederick Hayek and Milton Friedman.
I'm sure most of them don't study Hayek and Friedman, but many small 'l' libertarians don't care for either the statists and authoritarians in each major party or their fiscal irresponsibilty. In a number of states the percentage registered as Independents is greater than either the dems or pubbies, sometimes both. So I wouldn't be surprised if the number of small 'l' libertarians was on the higher side of that 10 - 15 percent range.