The Libertarian Vote in 2008

[I've invited Stephen Gordon, an Internet Consultant  with the Libertarian Party Presidential candidate Bob Barr, to post some thoughts on the libertarian movement and the Bob Barr campaign.  As Gordon notes, libertarians are a very influential swing constituency, and I believe they should be an important part of the Right's coalition.  But their alliance has to be earned. - Jon Henke]

For those of you who don't know me, I'm one of those old-school small-government types who would have voted for Goldwater if I had been born a generation earlier.  I cast my first presidential vote for Reagan in 1980, worked Republican campaigns through the nineties, but became disillusioned with the GOP because of their failure to reduce the size, scope and intrusiveness of government at virtually all levels.  I became disenfranchised from the Republican Party when even the rhetoric became hard to distinguish from that coming from Democrats.  As an Alabamian, I eventually disregarded the GOP as a vehicle for limited government when our Republican governor attempted to enact the largest tax increase in state history. Since then, I still work an occasional Republican campaign (ranging from city council races to presidentials), but primarily work within the libertarian movement and Libertarian Party. 

Jon Henke asked if I'd contribute some material relating to "the Right, strategy, coalition, the campaign" of the Barr campaign and the libertarian movement. Perhaps the best starting point is to better define the libertarian movement and the Barr campaign. 

Fortunately, the campaign just released a YouTube which does precisely this.

"On a personal note I also want to share that Bob's campaign for the Presidency isn't just about the here and now," Barr's wife Jeri wrote in the campaign e-mail which accompanied the video. "Our four children and six grandchildren are important to us and he's working so hard to leave them an America that is better than the one we inherited."

"Libertarians are increasingly a swing vote, and they are a larger share of the electorate than the fabled 'soccer moms' and 'NASCAR dads,'" states this 2006 Cato study, which indicates that thirteen percent (Gallup consistently assigns twenty percent to this demographic while Pew prefers nine percent) of Americans are libertarian.

So what exactly do libertarians believe?  Much the same as many members of the self-described right, as this video demonstrates: 

Quite a few people have argued (and predicted) that the limited-government "Leave Us Alone Coalition" was responsible for turning the Congress blue in 2006.  Ignoring this bloc in 2008 is certain to ensure continued Democratic advances.  Our nation has been creeping towards statism for decades, but that crawling pace has now advanced into a full-fledged jog.  If we don't have the courage to face this obvious fact, sooner rather than later, we are soon to become spectators of a political sprint towards the finish line of totalitarian socialism.