Nobody sane thinks McCain will win Maryland’s electoral votes, so why are you voting for him?
But, those formerly-mainstream, now-disaffected Pubs you describe are not libertarians. They’re the Rockefeller Republicans – pro-business but not ideological about it; fiscally conservative (but willing to balance the budget through high taxes); socially liberal; not hostile to a moderate welfare state. What appeal has Barr for them?
Libertarianism is a political ethic — specifically noncoercion — and has nothing to do with the size of government, but only with the scope of its power; i.e., it should have only the power to suppress coercion, but it should be however big it needs to be to do that.
People who want to return to the old ways. They want a 1787 America.
“The program of liberalism, therefore, if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production… All the other demands of liberalism result from his fundamental demand.” — Ludwig von Mises
Let’s see a cite for that? Or at least a cite that says those are the only Republicans disaffected by Bush. The five or ten Rockefeller Republicans that remain in the party may not like Bush, but their influence ended around 1964, so I’m not too concerned about what they think.
The idea that these few Northeast liberals are the only ones who don’t like Bush is ridiculous. The Republicans I know who are disaffected are overwhelmingly libertarian. From media reports, some social conservatives are also disaffected. Barr won’t appeal to the latter, but he will the former.
Well, that ain’t too radical. I mean, in the U.S., the means of production are already in private (or, at any rate, non-state) hands and almost always have been. Who needs a movement?
This is very bizarre. The Libertarian Party specifically targeted Bob Barr for defeat in his run for re-election in 2002:
No, I’m talking about the 1980s-90s GOP mainstream, not the 1950s-70s GOP mainstream, which are now misnamed the Rockefeller Republicans. (Nelson Rockefeller and his ilk - Javits, Keating, Percy, Brooke, Lindsay, Hatfield, etc. - were too liberal to win the GOP Presidential nomination even back then.)
Don’t forget that Nixon was a Rockefeller Republican, or something not too different. Ford, too. (It was Nixon who created the EPA and OSHA and instituted the first significant affirmative action program.) And I don’t think that tradition is entirely dead even today.
Yep, and there were voices within the libertarian movement saying this was foolish at the time:
Ah, well, if you mean the movement conservatives, I can well understand how all of them but the neocons and the bizcons might feel betrayed by the Bush Admin.
No, I’m thinking more of just your median GOP voter (if such a creature can be defined) of that era, who bought into what Reagan was selling in the 1980s, and bought into what Gingrich was selling in the 1990s, without being ‘movement’ anything, because most people aren’t.
How “southern” is Hawaii aside from geographically? If this is too hijack-ish you can PM if you want.
Actually, I was wondering the same thing. While I haven’t lived in the south, I did live in Hawaii for several years. I can’t think of much it has in common demographically or sociologically with the south east, at least, not much that it doesn’t have in common with the rest of the country.
As for Mr. Barr, I started cursing as I read this thread. I usually vote Libertarian since I get fed up with both parties. There’s no way I can bring myself to vote for Barr, though. Not after his sponoring of the Defense of Marriage Act, despite having three wives. He’s who I usually bring up as an example of who marriage should be defended from! Perhaps he has had a radical change in his views. If I see enough evidence of that, I’ll reconsider. If I don’t, chalk up one more vote for the Democrats.
Ah, well, at least you didn’t plumb the utter depths of asstardery and call him a Marxist.
I’m a Ron Paul supporter. I prefer Obama over McCain. But I’m certainly nowhere near a liberal.
McCain offers nothing in the way of what Ron Paul would offer. He’s not going to attempt to shrink the government, curtail its power, promote fiscal responsibility or anything like that. Neither, probably, will Obama. But at least Obama gives the impression of being a decent, honest guy who will legitimately attempt to serve the American public, whereas McCain appears to be a neocon lapdog.
I think you underestimate the amount of people who view the size, scope, and power as government as a primary issue. What do people who advocate small government do on election day? 10 years ago, they voted Republican, because they were generally more fiscally conservative than democrats and more hesistant to try to attack every problem with government power. But obviously the neocon movement destroyed that. They’ve expanded the government beyond anything the democrats could’ve managed.
The ones who aren’t brainwashed morons who stick with a party no matter what are entirely unsatisfied with Republicans and would be more sympathetic to the LP than ever. Republicans don’t even try to represent those people anymore.
I’d have a hard time voting for a guy who has a hard line stance against drug use and gay marriage, although neither issues are particularly important to me, it shows him to be out of touch with libertarian ideals. I voted for Ron Paul (write in) in 2004 - I was ahead of the curve. 
I may do that again. Outside chance I may vote for Obama.
Got any figures?
Update: The Dem won. (He is a remarkably conservative Dem, but, still, the Pubs are voiding their bowels. 
)
Put another way:
Suppose we had liberal ballot-access laws, instant-runoff voting, ballot fusion, proportional representation – all the conditions that favor a multiparty system, so that voters of libertarian views (as you define them) would, at least in legislative elections, have no strategic reason to vote for any party but the LP.
Under those circumstances, what do you estimate would be the LP’s aggregate national vote share?
Personally, I doubt it would get as much as 10%. But maybe you have some polling data that suggests otherwise.
The Cato Institute did an analysis of the “libertarian vote” and came up with this:
However, libertarian does not necessarily mean Libertarian.
Is it just me, or does Barr look like someone who is “passing”. Maybe he’s one of Strom Thurmond’s bastards.