Comments on: Rasmussen: Majority of small l libertarians planning to vote for Obama

By: Gene Trosper

Gene Trosper — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 05:37:37 +0000

It’s not difficult to target voters. I’ve done it before in a very rudimentary fashion with hardly any money. If I can do it, surely the LP can.

I’ve argued for years that we should form a “shadow LP” to do the job that state and national won’t do.

By: paulie cannoli

paulie cannoli — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 02:36:39 +0000

Correct. LP is missing a big opportunity by consistently failing to target this group.

However, Barr is an adept and adaptable politician, and could still shift his focus in that direction. He’s shown some inklings that he might do so, although too few and far in between so far.

By: darren

darren — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 02:27:07 +0000

Regardless of whether the small “l” libertarian screen was too tight (Gallup has consistently seen libertarians in the mid-teens), this is still 4% of voters who are voting for major parties when they should be easy targets for the Libertarian Party. That they prefer Obama to McCain just shows that the defining liberty issues of the day are the war in Iraq and civil liberties rather than taxes and regulation.

By: Robert Milnes

Robert Milnes — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:44:17 +0000

You talk too much. You never shut up!

By: Mike Gillis

Mike Gillis — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:48:59 +0000

Why would anyone need to, when you never shut up about it?

By: Robert Milnes

Robert Milnes — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:36:55 +0000

Will somebody please mention The Libertarian Vote study by Cato Institute? http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6715

By: Bill Woolsey

Bill Woolsey — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:33:14 +0000

Here is an analysis of the Rassmussen report
I wrote:

http://www.barrhq.com/general/bad-poll-results-bad-polling-or-what/

Comments are welcome

By: Bill Woolsey

Bill Woolsey — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:30:55 +0000

“libertarian” are people who said that they were socially liberal (rather than moderate or conservative” and also that they are economically conservative “rather than moderate or liberal.”

This is not people who self describe as libertarian or else people whose positions social and economic issues are libertarian.

My guess is that people with “socially liberal” positions on the issues don’t self-describe that way.

By: Peter Orvetti

Peter Orvetti — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:55:39 +0000

I mean it in the most simplistic sense — like how the media slaps “libertarian” on any Republican who supports legal abortion and gay rights.

By: paulie cannoli

paulie cannoli — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:53:55 +0000

Depends what they mean by â€œlibertarianâ€.

Defined in second paragraph.

Iâ€™ve seen polls in which the close-but-not-even-close social liberal/economic conservative definition is used that show â€œlibertariansâ€ as about one-quarter of the electorate.

Probably because they did not include moderate as an option, as this poll did. It may also have something to do with the increasing skew of land line users, although that’s speculation.

By that definition, by the way, Benito Giuliani is a libertarian.

I don’t think he is even by that definition. His spending policies were far from fiscally conservative, and I don’t see how – for example – increasing drug (mostly marijuana) arrests by an order of magnitude or two, or waging a virtual war on street artists, among many other things – qualifies as socially liberal.

Maybe he is a fiscal conservative because he did not waste too much government money to sync the Police and Fire Department radios?

By: Peter Orvetti

Peter Orvetti — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:45:31 +0000

Depends what they mean by “libertarian”. I’ve seen polls in which the close-but-not-even-close social liberal/economic conservative definition is used that show “libertarians” as about one-quarter of the electorate.

By that definition, by the way, Benito Giuliani is a libertarian.

By: mscrib

mscrib — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:36:57 +0000

Also, it’s important to remember that many people self-identify as “moderate,” whatever that’s supposed to mean. I’m willing to bet that there are plenty of libertarians or near-libertarians, or at least people sympathetic to libertarian aims, that identify as “moderate-moderate.” I’ve felt tempted to at times…

By: paulie cannoli

paulie cannoli — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:19:41 +0000

In what sense? Read the second paragraph. The one quibble that I would have with their methodology based on this article is that apparently they named McCain and Obama, but not any other candidates who are or likely to be on the ballot, biasing the results toward the top two.

By: Nexus

Nexus — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:14:40 +0000

4%??
I don’t buy that for a minute.

By: Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:07:50 +0000

This info should be shoved down the GOP’s throat. If they don’t swallow, it should be shoved down the media’s throat. If Bob Barr doesn’t jump on this, the info should be shoved down his throat as well.