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An interesting article from the Brookings Institute that includes this:
Quote:
First, according to the PRRI poll, libertarians represent only 12% of the Republican Party. This number is consistent with the findings of other studies by the Pew Research Center and the American National Election Study. This libertarian constituency is dwarfed by other key Republican groups, including white evangelicals (37%) and those who identify with the Tea Party (20%).
Is the GOP going to be so split that they will cede elections to Dems?
The problem is that Tea Party people think they're libertarians, and libertarians think that Tea Party people will come around to their nuanced way of thinking, which builds a bloc of 32% within the GOP, enough to drive the GOP toward all the offensively immoral perspectives it champions today, given the general apathy of evangelicals toward Jesus' true message of compassion for those most vulnerable in society.
The problem is that Tea Party people think they're libertarians, and libertarians think that Tea Party people will come around to their nuanced way of thinking, which builds a bloc of 32% within the GOP, enough to drive the GOP toward all the offensively immoral perspectives it champions today, given the general apathy of evangelicals toward Jesus' true message of compassion for those most vulnerable in society.
By force....
You cannot legislate morals.
Those have to be taught. Which leaves free men, with a choice.
12% eh? How could they possibly be of significance then for even a 2/3rd vote, much less a 50.1% vote.
2014 and that number should increase once again.
methinks that number is much higher than 12%
Do you think all republicans would have voted for Ron Paul, a republican?
Well after the treatment, no Ron Paul guys & gals, voted for Progressive Mitt Romney.
Libertarians say to the GOP "convert or die" . Polling on a wide variety of issues, particularly among younger generations, demonstrates clearly that public opinion, and thus "the center", is moving steadily towards the libertarian viewpoint, so a more libertarian GOP should be more popular in the future than a neocon GOP. If the libertarians keep pushing they'll bring the public's views in line with their own; once that happens libertarians will have an ideological majority no matter what the different components of party caucuses look like. Politicians will eventually catch on, and in a lot of cases are catching on even now.
Also, many of the estimates, including 18% support for the Christian right, is at variance with the other surveys cited, which drastically changes the electoral calculus in relative terms. It also depends on how you define what is and is not a "libertarian" or an individual who leans libertarian - if Brookings or PCRI believes that the business establishment should be a natural ally of the libertarians, they obviously don't have much of a clue, since the business establishment works actively to undermine more libertarian ideas and candidates who want to do away with the subsidies, special favors, and sweetheart regulatory regimes big government heaps upon them. Many ideological (as opposed to partisan) surveys peg the number of people who lean libertarian at between 25% and 50%, so results vary widely.
If you include those who lean libertarian, who are of a similar ideology and outlook as libertarians (and thus are also likely to be put off by social cons/neocons), PCRI's own survey pegs the number at 22% rather than the 7% cited by the OP (those 7% are the consistent libertarians). A further 54% have mixed views, compared to only 24% who, like the party establishments and the vast majority of politicians in Washington, have views that are very much anti-libertarian; that's probably why the government, along with the incumbent parties and politicians, is so unpopular. From an ideological perspective, if you have the 22% who lean libertarian as your base, you only need to add on 53% of those with mixed views to gain a majority. As the center moves, gaining that requisite number will become easier.
Also, I believe the report misses the point of what libertarians are trying to do. The sort of influence libertarians are attempting to wield springs from remoulding blocs across the spectrum into a visage resembling themselves, not rearranging the pre-existing blocs of the GOP primary caucus or tipping the red vs. blue map. The people who drafted this report make the ubiquitous mistake of assuming that the center (partisan orientation, ideology, public opinion) is fixed and parties/ideologies will only encounter success when they conform to it, when in fact true success comes not from you moving to the center, but moving the center to you. Libertarians have done the latter very well in the past 6 years, and will continue to do so.
The cost to individual freedom is the same regardless. The difference is whether that cost is fairly attributed based on human worth or unfairly attributed based one exploitation of financial power. Those you call "free thinking" are simply those who are "freely thinking" about abusing the power they can acquire, gaining for themselves at the expense of others. You use ridiculously exculpatory language in an attempt to window-dress the disreputable approach you're trying to rationalize.
Wow. the level of delusion that somehow with a 12 or 18% portion of a party....that they represent the right viewpoint, and hey guys! We're going to win!
Uhmm...no. Start looking at reality. You know who determines elections these days more then any other? Independents. Know who doesn't like extreme left/right/liberal/tea party/libertarian views? Independents.
We want a functional government that understands compromise. REAL compromise, not "my way or the highway compromise"
Libertarians are not going to get anywhere unless they stand up for themselves and be a third option. They will just be seen as the wingnut part of the GOP unless they do, marginalized by the mainstream GOP and paid lip service by Ron/Rand Paul. Independent Libertarians that didn't bow and voted for the GOP had a "record showing" of 1% of the popular vote in 2012.
If Libertarians want to be taken seriously as their own movement, they need to stand up for themselves. Not pretend to be libertarians, and then vote for whatever heads of cabbage the GOP puts forward as candidates. Be your own movement and party.
The problem with that is that libertarians know that if placed in the crucible themselves they will get very little support, perhaps even very little attention. Since the 1970s the Republican Party has been a sock puppet, handed off from one marginal constituency to the next, or shared between compatible marginal constituencies, hoping to parlay the legitimacy offered by a major political party into legitimacy for their otherwise disreputable or undistinguished partisan preferences.
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. Polling on a wide variety of issues, particularly among younger generations, demonstrates clearly that public opinion, and thus "the center", is moving steadily towards the libertarian viewpoint, so a more libertarian GOP should be more popular in the future than a neocon GOP. If the libertarians keep pushing they'll bring the public's views in line with their own; once that happens libertarians will have an ideological majority no matter what the different components of party caucuses look like. Politicians will eventually catch on, and in a lot of cases are catching on even now.
