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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (46600)	5/24/2004 12:14:24 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 794144

The Libertarian Threat? By Captain Ed on Presidential Election - Captain's Quarters CBS News makes quite a splash today with an analysis of the presidential election and the impact that the Libertarian Party will have on conservative voters this fall. Despite a decades-long history of utter futility and the consistent selection of obscure candidates, suddenly CBS thinks that a Libertarian challenge to Bush's war and budget policies could spell the difference between his re-election and his defeat: With conservatives upset over the ballooning size of the federal government under a Republican White House and Congress - and a portion of the political right having opposed the war in Iraq from the start or else dismayed at how it's being handled - the Libertarian nominee, who will be on the ballot in 49 states, may do for Democrats in 2004 what Nader did for Republicans in 2000. It is a hypothesis not yet made in the mainstream media. But interviews with third-party experts and activists across the country, as well as recent political patterns, illustrate that there could be a conservative rear-guard political attack against President Bush. If the hypothesis has not yet been floated in the mainstream media, it's because the hypothesis is silly on its face. CBS compares the Libertarian challenge to Ralph Nader's outsider campaign (so outside he dumped the Greens this time around), but the comparison is invalid. First, Nader has a built-in national following that none of the Libertarians have, and a solid name-recognition factor. Second, Nader's approach appeals to a distinct minority of the Democratic party, while Libertarian philosophy is all over the place: Libertarians are essentially fiscally conservative and socially liberal. They are against the war in Iraq, as well as deficits and big-government bills like the recent Medicare legislation. They are against any form of gun control. But they also support gay rights, abortion rights and less stringent drug laws. CBS undersells the actual Libertarian positions. The Libertarian platform routinely includes complete decriminalization of drug use as well as prostitution, unfettered abortion rights, and strict Constitutionalism, the latter point being nearly the only intersection with mainstream Republicanism. Big-L Libertarians not only would like to dismantle most of the federal government but also much of state and local government as well. These Libertarians aren't "conservatives" in any sense; they exist on another pole on the political spectrum altogether. Don't get me wrong -- I often refer to myself as a quasi-libertarian in political philosophy, and the guys at QandO recently had a great post on Neolibertarianism that comes as close to a coherent libertarian philosophy as anything I've seen. I believe that the government which governs least governs best -- within the parameters of reality. The Libertarian Party, unfortunately, takes a great idea and pounds it into irrationality. Could the Libertarian Party ever mount an effective challenge to the Republicans on a national basis? I doubt it, in its present configuration. The Greens have a better chance at sucking up the Democrats' oxygen in the short run, even without Ralph Nader. Until the Libertarians get a nationally-recognized leader to lead the ticket and capture at least a portion of the conservative imagination and modify their platform considerably, they won't make a dent. And if they did all of that, wouldn't they wind up resembling either of the two major parties anyway?