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The libertarian vote in 2008

by Jon Henke | July 5, 2008 at 9:59 PM
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Hot Air's Ed Morrissey points out a new Rassmussen poll that suggests libertarians are a swing vote...and they're swinging to Obama.

Libertarian voters make up 4% of the nation’s likely voters and they favor Barack Obama over John McCain by a 53% to 38% margin. Three percent (3%) would vote for some other candidate and 5% are not sure. These results, from an analysis of 15,000 Likely Voter interviews conducted by Rasmussen Reports, challenges the conventional wisdom which assumes that strong support for a Libertarian candidate would hurt John McCain.

Contrast that with a Pew study in 2004, which showed libertarians "favored George W. Bush over John Kerry, 59 to 41 percent."   Note, also, that other polls show more libertarian representation in the general public: "9 to 13 percent libertarians in the Gallup surveys, 14 percent in the Pew Research Center Typology Survey, and 13 percent in the American National Election Studies..."  This is a very sizable swing vote.

Reasonable arguments can be made for libertarians to vote for Barack Obama, John McCain or Bob Barr.  So far, though, the only argument that stands out has been Robert Samuelson's...

So, vote for McBama. Though their differences on Iraq are clear, neither has forthrightly addressed some of America's obvious domestic problems—costly government retirement programs, immigration, our energy appetite. For me, McCain does have one provisional and accidental advantage. By most appraisals, the Republicans will get slaughtered in the congressional elections, and I have a visceral dislike of one-party government. It didn't work well under Bill Clinton or George W. Bush.

Divided government doesn't ensure good government, but it may limit bad government by checking the worst instincts of both parties.

Milton Friedman has also touted gridlock as the best way to restrain government.  In fact, even Howard Dean has made the pro-gridlock argument, saying in 2005 that "Do we want a Democratic Party that's in charge of everything? Well, you know, I suppose it's my job to say yes. But the truth is, as an American, it's better when parties share power."  

I understand the desire of many libertarians to punish the Republican Party, though I wonder if they are turning from the current battle to fight the last one.  I also understand the desire of many libertarians to explore a coalition with the Democratic Party, though I suspect that interest will fade after a few years of practical experience with Democratic power.   

There is, however, some undeniable libertarian value in gridlock.   Voting for Obama suggests a great deal of faith in one-party rule.  I'm not sure why that would work out better with Democrats that it did with Republicans.

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Comments

Have You Seen the Ron Paul/Bob Barr Page in Facebook?

Submitted by lagomorph on Sat, 07/05/2008 - 22:35.

They're polling their constituents to see how a joint ticket would hold up here thanks to Robert Fite, a student at Augustana College in Illinois who has signed up with the Barr campaign as an Internet activist to try to convert other Paul supporters...

4 months to go and Obama is Still Swinging..he is a movin target

Submitted by 4speed on Sat, 07/05/2008 - 23:49.

Libertarians are a contrary Group....outside of everyone...but close to anyone.

They overlap both Parties.  Obama has plenty of time to piss 'em off.

Polls

Submitted by misspris on Sun, 07/06/2008 - 01:31.

How about Pumas?  What does your magic ball say about their votes?

Oh Misspris, Now You've Gone and Done It

Submitted by lagomorph on Sun, 07/06/2008 - 12:09.

Just for you, I've posted Will PUMAlicious Grrrrrl Power De-Throne Obama?  I hope you enjoy it, sister. 

~ PUMA-lovin' Bunny

Libertarian's ... that are true Libertarian's ..

Submitted by Calvin Jones and the 13th... on Sun, 07/06/2008 - 11:53.

won't vote for McCain ... why? .. stuff like FISA(the present) ... laugh all you want .. but more heavy-handed government is not something the Ron Paul brigade likes

I think you're absolutely right, BUT

Submitted by lagomorph on Sun, 07/06/2008 - 12:59.

(and that's a BIG BUT), how will the Ron Paul Brigade purists sleep at night after Ron Paul aligns himself with Bob Barr, who voted for the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, and DOMA?

In Barr's interview with GQ, this was telling:

Barr is more than a wannabe Nader; he’s a man of opinions and ideas—even if they do seem to change quite often.

You can read the whole sad affair at the link above, but here's a few tidbits of Barr talking nonsense.  At least the GQ reporter appeared to be sober even if Barr seemed otherwise.

What I want to know is: What’s a Libertarian?
There are a lot of different ways to define it. In layman’s terms, it’s simply saying “leave us alone” to the government. We certainly need a government to protect everybody’s individual liberty, but it should be kept to an absolute minimum.

So you don’t want the government to help people? Just leave them alone to help themselves?
To keep impediments out of the way.

But some of your positions don’t fit that description. For example, you’re pro-life, even though the party is pro-choice.
It is. But there are, within the party, a number of pro-life Libertarians. It’s a big tent. Very similar to the way it was when the Republican Party cared about substance and you would have free-market Republicans, economic Republicans, those for whom foreign policy was their focus, education, religion, and so forth.

Oh, it's a big tent, is it?  I'll say it is.  So if the core premise is leave us alone, then, Bob, why would so many of your constituent Libertarians want to vote for Barack Obama, a candidate who's being endorsed by the Communist Party USA which has clearly listed their goals as eradication of capitalism, state ownership of private property and the implementation of a rationally planned society? 

If the Libertarian Party gave a fig about substance they would, at least in this election, align themselves with the Republican Party and stop the Extreme Radical Far Left Progressives. 

The idiocy goes on:

Has joining the Libertarian Party allowed you to change your position on these issues, or did you change party after your positions changed?
It isn’t a function of which party I’m in—although in the case of the Defense of Marriage Act, it’s been the result of lengthy conversations with Libertarians who feel very passionately about it. There’s a group called Outright Libertarians who are passionate about that issue.

Had you ever met with the Log Cabin Republicans?
I don’t recall. But I came to the conclusion that the Republican Party had changed, from two perspectives. One, the Republican Party cares nothing about real substance anymore. I couldn’t tell you the last time, when I was a member of the Republican caucus on the Hill, that there was a discussion about the substance of government. It was all about getting elected and reelected. It was all about process. The Republican Party is no longer a party of any substance. It is simply a political machine, a mechanism for election.

[ Actually I will grant him that, which is why I support The Next Right ] 

That’s all it is. And secondly, the Republican Party has bought into the notion that when the president decides what he wants to do, nobody can interfere. The courts can’t interfere, and the Congress can’t interfere.

Do you feel a sense of responsibility for your time as a Republican? It seems like this campaign is a kind of personal correction.
It doesn’t have anything to do with me. It has to do with the direction that the country is going.

Except that, in many cases, you promoted the policies you’re running against—DOMA, the Barr Amendment, the PATRIOT Act.
I think that’s given me a pretty strong and pretty credible perspective on some of these issues. But the problem is not just a handful of issues. It’s not just George W. Bush. It’s not just the Republican Party. It’s the institution of government as we’ve allowed it to develop. And I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way to change that is through a third party.

You started out as a Democrat, right?
No.

You weren’t a member of the Young Democrats in college?
Well, yeah, I was briefly with the Young Democrats. I think the turning point was in my sophomore year, reading Atlas Shrugged. That really moved my thinking, philosophically—the fundamental role of individual rights.

Yes, so Ayn Rand inspired Bob to stop being a Democrat and become a Republican, which inspired him to stop being a Republican and become a Libertarian, which inspired him to change every single position he'd worked on in his career, which inspires me to say that all this crap about priinciples and substance is nothing but a big crock of cow-flop from men like both Barr and Obama who claim to be different kinds of politicians but are actually a couple of egocentric, narcissistic old farts (and yes children, 46 years old is an old fart) unable to languish for more than a moment outside of the American Idolization of the public eye. 

~ BS-Detecting Bunny

Some odd thinking there.

Submitted by Jon Sandor on Sun, 07/06/2008 - 13:17.

There is no justification for a libertarian to vote for McCain, who is just as much a big government anti-capitalist guy as Obama. Given that one of these two will likely be the next President then the libertarian thing to do, in an effort to get gridlock in DC, is to support Republicans for Congress. Regardless of whether McCain or Obama wins in November, a GOP Congress is the best impediment to their New Deal type plans.

 

 

well at least you support the concept of gridlock

Submitted by lagomorph on Sun, 07/06/2008 - 14:02.

over the concept of an unfettered Progressive majority, and I do thank you for that.  And while I may not share your opinions regarding McCain as an anti-capitalist per se, I accept your reasoning that Job One is to support Republicans for Congress whether or not Libertarians support McCain. 

It's always fascinated me that voters - especially this year's Millenial voters - give the office of the President far more credit to be able to implement change than is actually warranted. Perhaps American History is no longer being taught from the perspective of civics. 

Wrongheaded

Submitted by Sterling on Sun, 07/06/2008 - 14:48.

The justification for libertarians to vote for McCain is that he's not Obama.  There are numerous reasons to believe that Obama is a socialist, not the least of which is that he has romantic attachments to his father's political beliefs - and his father was kicked out of Kenya for being too much a Marxist purist in Kenya, which is saying something.

Gridlock won't stop executive orders.

actually, I totally agree with you

Submitted by lagomorph on Sun, 07/06/2008 - 15:10.

I think Sandor was speaking to, or maybe on behalf of, Libertarian purists (i.e. Ron Paul supporters, although there are other factions).  There's nothing pure about me when it comes to fighting for Western Democracy and liberty.  I'm a Jack Bauer Libertarian.  

This is the problem with contemporary libertarianism

Submitted by CF on Sun, 07/06/2008 - 13:29.

It has ceased being about individual liberty and has become about hippyism. Look at how Ron Paul ran his campaign. It wasn't about getting the government out of entitlements or education; it was about getting the government out of security and war. Yes, Ron Paul raised some good issues and points, but the focus of is campaign was isolationism and conspiracism. Neither has been an embraced aspect of the Republican Party or its platform, even in the days of Goldwater or during the panicky 1950's when excesses weren't unusual.

A libertarian candidate can run all he wants on an isolationist platform, but such a cause will only allow the free advance of thosse who threaten individual liberty. Let's not be excessively interventionist, but let's win the fights we get into before they come back to haunt and undermine us later.