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There is no better way to get noticed

· North American affairs

It looks like we have caused the Republicans a bit of grief:

So far, losing because of libertarians hasn’t caused Republicans to move toward the libertarians ideologically. But maybe things will change this time.

November 8th, 2006 |

6 comments to There is no better way to get noticed

  • OrneryWP
    November 8, 2006 at 7:22 am

    Yes, he’s notable for having written an article for the NYT called, How to Win by Losing.

  • Max
    November 8, 2006 at 7:44 am

    Ah, yes. Libertarians, the me Me ME party. So sorry to get sand on your lollipop but, this was the time to recognize that after twelve years the Republicans have completely abandoned the contract with America. That got them fired. Nothing to do with narcissistic libertarians at all.

  • Perry de Havilland
    November 8, 2006 at 9:16 am

    Ah, yes. Libertarians, the me Me ME party.

    Yes, as opposed to the let’s take it from ‘them them THEM party’

  • Hank Scorpio
    November 8, 2006 at 1:04 pm

    But maybe things will change this time.

    No.

  • Pa Annoyed
    November 8, 2006 at 7:02 pm

    You’ll remember I mentioned Arrow’s Impossibility theorem a few days ago? Well, this appears to be a classic example of the failure of ‘independence of irrelevant alternatives’.

    I haven’t bothered to look up the totals, but let’s imagine for a moment that the results were 48% Rep, 49% Dem, 3% Lib, just for the sake of argument.

    By splitting the vote, you have got your 3rd preference elected rather than the second. Bad as the Republicans might be, Dems are very definitely big government, and they’re only really interested in civil liberties for if they can use them to bash Bush. So Libertarians lose by voting their preferences honestly, and the country loses as a result of having the Dems.

    Republican have lost when they could have won, so Republicans are unhappy too. I think they might be as annoyed, if not more so, with you as you have been with them. You think this inclines them to consider your views kindly?

    Such rancour aside, which way ought they to shift their strategy to recover from this? Towards small government, in order to capture a share of that 3%? Or towards big government spending and a retreat from promoting liberty around the world, to capture a share of that 49%? True, they might find the 3% an easier fight, but in so doing they might lose some of their 48%. It’s not an obvious move to make.

    And consider carefully this proposal that they ought to move towards your viewpoint to get power… the views of 3% of the electorate should be the guiding factor in setting national policy? What sort of democracy is that? This is of course a common weakness with voting systems – more usual in PR schemes, but it can happen in first past the post if the electorate is very evenly divided. The minority parties that hold the balance of power get a disproportionate say in policy. Yes, that’s all very nice when it’s your party’s policy, but it’s surely not a situation that you can be comfortable with in principle?

    So, please forgive my morbid curiosity: given the many “merits” of this method of getting noticed, what even worse ways were you thinking of when you came up with that title?

  • Michael Kent
    November 9, 2006 at 12:43 am

    But maybe things will change this time.

    Ah, yes, the battered woman syndrome: saying as she goes back to her abusive man for the nth time, “But it’ll be different this time!”

    With all due respect (and since my political views run about half libertarian, I have a dog in this hunt), libertarians generally just don’t get the American political system. The most likely result of yesterday’s election is that the Democrats and the Republicans will both shift leftward — the Democrats because they can and the Republicans because they have to.

    One reason conservatives are so dominant in the Republican party (they weren’t always) is because they’ve learned how American politics work. Both the libertarian and conservative agendas are anathema to the liberal elite and their allies in the mainstream media. It takes a great deal of political capital for a politician — especially a Republican — to publicly back either of them. The reason Republicans so often back the conservative agenda is because conservatives are so often there for the Republicans. They vote in the primary elections, not just the general elections. They man the phone banks, hand out campaign fliers, donate time and money, put bumper stickers on their cars, and put yard signs on their lawn.

    Libertarians usually don’t go to bat for Republicans like that, and on some days — like yesterday — don’t even vote for them in the general election. That’s not a way to win them over.

    If libertarians want to have their views expressed in American politics, they’ve got to learn how to play the political game properly. When you have 3% of the vote, you pick your fights wisely (e.g. in the primaries, or the campaigns for Speaker of the House or Senate Minority leader).

    You don’t push the major party closest to your views over a cliff because they weren’t sufficiently pure.

    Mike

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