My personal opinion comes in part from past exit polls showing that third parties (of any stripe) end up drawing fairly equally from each of the major parties.
Didn’t that special election in FL recently bear that out? I’m sure there are exceptions to that.
Here’s an example for you - Karl Denninger (love him or hate him). market-ticker.org
He is a libertarian and is on the record as voting for Obama. He, like many libertarians, hate both major parties.
I think a lot of classic liberals have defected to the libertarian side over the Patriot Act and NSA surveillance. Rand Paul is having a lot of success hammering the NSA on college campi - which makes me scratch my head.
Kids are incensed over the government accessing their phone and email accounts, yet think it’s just fine to have government know intimate details of their sex lives and their right to have government provide their means of contraception.
I don't know I didn't look at any exit polls for that race. The (L) bastard had been polling pretty high (not typical for Florida) and ended up with just under 5%.
I seem to remember exit polls from 1992 saying Perot took evenly, I have trouble buying that but I think Clinton would have still won, more narrowly.
I still think they take more from us, particularly in States like AZ and MT. The IL Libertarians I'm pretty sure take mostly from us. In Cali, maybe not, lots of stoners and social liberals there. FL, I don't know, hasn't been a state with many Libertarian votes.
Looking at how Gary Johnson did in his home state, Obama 52.99%, Romney 42.84%, Johnson 3.55%. Senate race was Heinrich (D) 51%, Wilson (R) 45.28% and Jon R. Barrie (Ind. American) 3.63%.
Looking at Alaska, Romney 54.80%, Obama 40.81%, Johnson 2.46%. Jill Stein (Green) 0.97%. I'd be shocked Johnson cost Obama many votes there. Obama's slight increase in % due to Palin not being on the ballot looks about right, Romney's vote looks too low.
American Independent party (CA) and Independent American Party (NV) are Constitution party affiliates (the NM party wasn't but they have the same ideology). I doubt they take many rat votes but I'm sure they get plenty votes from people who have no idea what they stand for because they are attracted to the word "Independent".
In the 2006 race for IL Governor between Blago and RINO Judy Barr-Topinka, the Green Party (which got 10.36% of the vote!) clearly took plenty of votes from Topinka as well as Blago. This was because they were the only other choice on the ballot and got a lot of protest votes in that race between 2 unpopular a-holes.
I didn't vote for Topkina for Comproller in 2010, voted for the Libertarian Julie Fox, I hated to do it cause I don't want to encourage third parties, but Topinka disgusts me. This time she's running against the current LT. Governor, Paul Simon's daughter. Groan.