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To: megatherium
I am personally acquainted with the Libertarian candidate who ran in the Sodrel/Hill race in IN-9. (A fine fellow, by the way, even though I didn't vote for him.) He got 4% of the vote, the margin of victory was less than 3% (if memory serves). But he told me that the polling indicates that he took most of his votes away from the Democrat, Baron Hill. (The polls ask questions on things like abortion, as well as who you voted for.)

Baron Hill (D) got 9682 more votes than Mike Sodrel (R), with Eric Schansberg (L) siphoning off 9920 votes (CNN). So, it would have taken 97.6% of the Losertarian votes to have swung the race to the Republican.

Here's what Schansberg posted on the Reason Magazine blog afterward:

Given the available polling data, it appears that I was getting more votes from Hill than Sodrel-- ironically, keeping Sodrel in the race.

This is also consistent with the issues I emphasized in the race-- fiscal conservatism for traditional GOP voters, but quickest out of Iraq and ways in which the govt harms the working poor and middle class for traditional DEM voters. I had good reasons for voters in both camps to leave their normal choices.


126 posted on 11/14/2006 8:22:13 PM PST by cynwoody
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To: cynwoody
Thanks for the details, it certainly disproves the notion that the Libertarians caused the Republican debacle.

Schansberg is an interesting fellow. He's a devout Evangelical Christian, active in the largest local megachurch (16,000-member Southeast Christian Church), and he's an economics professor at a regional campus of Indiana University. He calls himself a pro-life Libertarian and he has written a sizable book, Turn Neither to the Right Nor the Left, detailing why Libertarianism and Evangelical Christianity are compatible. (He was unable to find a publisher interested in both subjects, so he self-published on 'Alertness Press'.)

196 posted on 11/15/2006 5:08:42 AM PST by megatherium
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