Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

A new study from David Boaz, executive vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute, and David Kirby, executive director of the America's Future Foundation, have released a new study that asserts that - surprise! - libertarians are the swing vote in national elections. From the executive summary:

The main theme of political commentary in this decade is polarization. Since the battles over the impeachment of President Clinton and the Florida vote in 2000, pundits have been telling us that we're a country split down the middle, red vs. blue, liberal vs. conservative. Political analysts talk about base motivation and the shrinking of the swing vote. But the evidence says they are wrong.

Not all Americans can be classified as liberal or conservative. In particular, polls find that some 10 to 20 percent of voting-age Americans are libertarian, tending to agree with conservatives on economic issues and with liberals on personal freedom. The Gallup Governance Survey consistently finds about 20 percent of respondents giving libertarian answers to a two-question screen.

Our own data analysis is stricter. We find 9 to 13 percent libertarians in the Gallup surveys, 14 percent in the Pew Research Center Typology Survey, and 13 percent in the American National Election Studies, generally regarded as the best source of public opinion data.

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. Congressional voting showed a similar swing from 2002 to 2004. 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.

The libertarian vote is in play. At some 13 percent of the electorate, it is sizable enough to swing elections. Pollsters, political strategists, candidates, and the media should take note of it.

You can download the whole study via a PDF link at this page. 

Any group that is 13 percent of the electorate is big enough to swing elections, if they're positioned right on the political see-saw. It's not really the size of the libertarian vote that matters so much as it is where they stand on issues - and whether or not they currently feel more at home or less at home in the Republican coalition. Some Bush administration policies are making them feel less comfortable voting for Republicans. But Bush won't be on the ballot in '08. That's the good news for Republicans.

The bad news for Republicans is, if the party nominates a presidential candidate who is too liberal on social issues, in hopes of attracting more libertarian votes, they may cost themselves votes among social conservatives.

Ronald Reagan was able to thread that needle and keep both social conservatives and libertarians in the coalition in sufficient numbers to win two landslides.

In this current polarized age I'm not so sure that anyone in the current Republican field can do the same, though Fred Thompson's federalist view of government, I believe, gives him a pretty good shot at doing it. That's because, fundamentally, federalism is a libertarian-leaning view of government as it prefers leaving more decisions and power in the hands of states rather than the central government.

More federalism = more freedom.

Boaz himself wrote about the importance of federalism back in 2005 when he wrote this:

No one really supports federalism these days except libertarians. And the American people, who ... believe by 78 percent that the federal government has too much power. Only one modern political party has a history of taking federalism seriously, but Republicans have decided to abandon this principle to pander to small but vocal constituencies. The nation will be poorer for it.

Fred Thompson's belief in federalism - it put him on the losing end of many 99-1 votes in eight years in the Senate - may attract libertarian voters. It certainly makes him different from most of the rest of the Republicans running for president.

However, if Boaz and Kirby are right that the Iraq war is driving many libertarian voters away from the Republican Party, I'm not sure there's much that any candidate can do to bring them back at this stage. Most Republicans still back the war and no anti-war candidate is going to come anywhere close to the nomination, Ron Paul's current boomlet notwithstanding.