Several blogs that I follow have mentioned a new Cato report dated for release next week, entitled The Libertarian Vote. It’s interesting reading, if you’re so inclined.
My favorite two quotes from the report:
For those on the trail of the elusive swing voter, it may be most notable that the libertarian vote shifted sharply in 2004. Libertarians preferred George W. Bush over Al Gore by 72 to 20 percent, but Bush’s margin dropped in 2004 to 59-38 over John Kerry.[...] Libertarians apparently became disillusioned with Republican overspending, social intolerance, civil liberties infringements, and the floundering war in Iraq. If that trend continues into 2006 and 2008, Republicans will lose elections they would otherwise win.
…and…
Why is this substantial and growing libertarian strength not more widely recognized?[...]
- Political scientists have taught for more than 50 years that politics is arranged on a liberal-conservative continuum.[...]
- Libertarians are less likely to be organized than either liberals or conservatives. Social conservatives have evangelical churches, the Christian Coalition and Focus on the Family constantly advocating their views with Republican strategists. Liberals have unions and identity-politics groups and advocacy groups like MoveOn.org. Libertarians have think tanks.[...]
- Organized punditry also contributes to the flawed idea of the liberal-conservative spectrum.[...]
- Most voters who hold libertarian views don’t identify themselves as libertarian, though many of them would say they are “fiscally conservative and socially liberal”.
Thus the challenge of breaking the elephant-donkey duopoly in American politics: many of the folks who least fit into that duopoly are trained to self-identify within the limited framing offered by that duopoly, and are less inclined to organize.